Student Advisory Board

The Student Advisory Board is a group of 10 students who are chosen to represent the student membership within Division 54. This board works with the Student Representative to promote student interests in Division programming, structure, and training, and to encourage other students to get involved.

The student advisory board currently includes:

• Jason Van Allen, MA
• Brigitte Beale, MA
• Kimberly Canter
• Nicole Dempster
• Katharine Donlon, MS
• Jennifer Lee, MS
• Liz Molzon, MS
• Cathy Odar, MA
• Rachelle R. Ramsey, MS
• Shana Schuman, MS
• Margo Szabo, BS

The primary focus of the Network of Campus Representatives is to increase awareness of pediatric psychology, especially at the undergraduate level. Campus Representatives have traditionally been graduate students with an interest in promoting pediatric psychology within their programs, schools and communities. As a Campus Representative, you would be asked to promote pediatric psychology in various ways. For example, you would be provided with a ready-made PowerPoint presentation on pediatric psychology that can be presented at Psi Chi meetings, program-wide seminars, etc. We are also expanding the role of Campus Representatives to help identify nominees for the SPP Outstanding Undergraduate award. Finally, we are open to your ideas for how best to promote pediatric psychology as the field continues to grow. Serving as a Campus Representative will help you develop your professional identity as a member of SPP and meet fellow students. Time commitment is highly flexible and can be incorporated into your schedule. If you are interested in becoming a campus representative, please contact Student Advisory Board member Katharine Donlon with your name, school, contact information and a short statement of interest.

The Student Advisory Board is made up of three committees:

This committee helps to oversee student membership, recruit new members and enhance membership. Two of the major tasks of this committee have been developing a student membership brochure and initiating the Network of Campus Representatives. The student membership brochure aims to increase general awareness of SPP as well as of the benefits of student membership. The Network of Campus Representatives was initiated in 2001 in an effort to connect SPP to universities across the nation. This program uses student recruiters (“Campus Representatives”) on college campuses to promote student membership in SPP via talks at local psychology meetings, emails regarding SPP events and flyers regarding SPP membership benefits.

Duties of the Membership Committee:

• Communicate with Campus Representatives

• Identify individuals willing to promote SPP membership and encourage them to do so

• Expand student membership beyond psychology by providing information about SPP to medical/nursing students, social work students, child life students, etc.

• Explore other ways to increase student membership (emails, talk to training directors of pediatric psychology training programs)

• Distribute brochures

• Network & discuss student membership at conferences

This committee oversees three main projects. The first, the Student Spotlight Award, was initiated in 2003 to acknowledge students in pediatric psychology. This award functions as a way to highlight the achievement of students and introduce these outstanding students to professionals in the field. The second project involves updating and generating new ideas for the student portion of the SPP website. The third main project involves maintaining the Division 54 Student email list.

Duties of the Student Spotlight Committee:

• Organize calls for nominations for the Student Spotlight Award

• Review Spotlight Award applications

• Choose an outstanding student to highlight in each edition of Progress Notes

• Brainstorm with other students to generate new ideas for the SPP student website

• Organize materials to be posted on the website

• Maintain the Division 54 Student email list (e.g., add new members, remove members who are no longer students, respond to members’ questions)

This committee was designed to plan student programming at APA and regional/national child health conferences. Members of this committee help to coordinate student socials and work with other members of the Student Advisory Board to generate ideas about Division Programming at conferences. Ideas are often generated by contacting students and professionals in the field regarding discussions and events that they would like to see at conferences. Students also participate in and help run the discussions and events at the conferences.

Duties of the Program Committee:

• Communicate with other students and professionals in the field regarding topics of interest for discussion hours and events

• Help plan student activities and topics for discussions at conferences, including contacting professionals to schedule talks

• Attend APA and regional conferences to organize and implement their ideas for events

SPP and the SAB would like to encourage its student members to join the American Psychological Association of Graduate Students (APAGS). There are many benefits to individual student members including: periodicals focused on graduate student issues, research grants, travel funding, reduced conference registration, scholarships, and the opportunity to serve professional psychology at the national level through APA/APAGS governance.