A Final Message From the 2013 President

By Sallie Hildebrandt, PhD

As my presidential year draws to a close, I have been reviewing the year. The division has been very successful. The membership program which granted one year free membership to new members in 2012 generated many new members. Under our membership chair, Dinelia Rosa, PhD, nurtured the membership to its largest number in since the mid-1980s. In 2013, 75 percent of those new members renewed. We have continued that success with in excess of 500 full members and 43 renewing affiliates (SPTAs). We look forward to even more new members.

Andy Benjamin, PhD, JD, rolled out the Committee on Division/APA Relations grant with Jeff Younggren, PhD, from Division 42 on state-specific templates for electronic health records. APA members now can download these templates from APA Communities. In addition the committee was composed of Division 31 members including Mary Alvord, Vanessa Jensen and Dinelia Rosa. These three members will present along with Elena Eisman on a panel chaired by the incoming president Angela Herzog at the 2014 State Leadership Conference (SLC).

Last year at the SLC, Division 31 sponsored a program on integrated health care which was very well attended. The division continues to have numerous additions to the Health Care Reform Task Force Blog. Other blogs are the Early Career Task Force Blog, Diversity Task Force Blog and Student Task Force Blog.

The division is in the process of taking a vote on the new division bylaws. Please vote. We have also formed a finance committee that presented three proposals to the board, and they subsequently and adopted them unanimously. The decision was to save one third of investments, to invest one third and to use one third on special projects which are most important to SPTAs and the division. We will be looking at ideas at our yearly retreat in February at the APA building with selected staff.

Thank you for your continued support of the division with your membership and involvement in activities. I have been honored to serve the division during this exciting year.