Hey everyone, your current president, El McCabe, coming to you live from Philadelphia.
It's not what I had planned for my end-of-term presidential speech to you all, but, life happens, and, as some of you may know, many of you probably don't, but my wife had to do an emergency delivery for our daughter at 30 weeks, exactly 3 weeks ago today; so it's been quite the adventure. I definitely felt it was really important for me to be as close as possible, and just be there for my family at this point in time. So, I appreciate your understanding. I am sad to miss all of you. I've really come to love a lot of the people in Division 44 leadership and members, and I love [APA] Convention for a lot of reasons. But I'm so excited that we get to celebrate 40 years of Division 44 at this convention. That was one of the things I was most excited about going into this presidential experience, because you know, I think that queer joy, trans joy, is so important, especially in this current zeitgeist that we're finding ourselves in.
There are now so many reasons not to celebrate with all of the rollbacks of DEI and trans rights, and just fear in general for our safety as a community; and I just think it's awesome that we're choosing to celebrate anyway. So, definitely make sure to pick up one of those ribbons that celebrates the 40 years of 44. Alie Bernal helped put together some great merch that's free for all members; so you can get a t-shirt, you can get a kind of these throwback pins that in the first couple years of 44 were given out; so please take advantage of those opportunities.
I wanted to just do a quick year in review of everything that's happened. I think it's been overall a really amazing and successful year. It's been an amazing experience to be your president. It's not something I ever thought I would do at 30 and 31 years old; but it was something that I always knew I wanted to do.
I'm drawn to leadership; I love Division 44. It just kind of felt like a natural fit, and I really appreciate all of you trusting me at this stage of my career to kind of help the division get stronger and to lead you.
I think the highs for me were, especially, our midwinter meeting. It took place in Philadelphia, because that's where I work and pretty much have lived for the last couple years.
We had 19 people attend, which I thought was amazing. In the past there's been some hurt feelings about not all co-chairs being funded to attend Midwinter meeting, and I made the decision to invite one co-chair from every active committee, in addition to all the other funded positions; and I think it was a really good decision. It's something that I would strongly advocate for moving forward. We wound up coming in under the budgeted expenses from last year for the midwinter meeting. And I think it was just a great way for people to connect with one another, see each other in real time – because I think there is a disconnect with virtual – as I talk to you all right now, I miss seeing the faces. But it's a way to get people excited to be in leadership positions.
On the division trio listserv right now, a lot of divisions are talking about how hard it is to get people involved, and how they are struggling to find people for their leadership; and I think that Division 44 falls in that category, too. I think the great thing, though, is that another highlight is that I've put a lot of people in different positions, you know. We restarted the Children, Youth and Families Committee in Division 44, and there's a lot of excitement and interest behind that.
We went through the whole roster and verified if people were in the positions that they were in – that hasn't been updated in years and years; and most oftentimes they were not. So trying to fill those positions with interested, excited parties, especially early career psychologists – which was another one of my initiatives.
At Midwinter Meeting, it wasn't only just fun, it was also very productive. We signed on as an organization to Psychologists for Justice and Accountability, confronting the atrocities against Palestinian lives. We had an amazing diversity speaker come for this, a Palestinian herself, who is kind of boots on the ground, helping people with their mental health in Gaza, and just amazing.
I'm really proud, as well, of advocating as much as I can, using my position of power, coordinating with other divisions on how can we best position ourselves to advocate for those who need us most; and a lot of those people happened to be in Palestine.
I think that the division is in a really strong financial position right now, which is great. I can't take very much credit for that at all. Our journal is incredible, and thank you to, Paz, our journal editor, for helping make it so strong. The impact factor is incredible.
The division has a lot of money to – I don't want to say play with, because that's not what we want to do with the money – but to really make some difference, I think. I think it's something that I'm very excited about for the future of the division.
It couldn't all be highs, right? So, there are some lows. There was tension on the executive committee and our president-elect wound up resigning. I want to take accountability for how I responded, how I acted in that process; and it wasn't always perfect, and I'm very sorry for that.
This is unfortunately a long-standing pattern on the EC and the EB – people kind of having hurt feelings and tensions, and leaving Division 44 and never coming back.
Not that I will be in charge moving forward, but I think it's something that we really should examine, work on, and figure out what's going on. We should be here to support one another, and how can we better do that? And I want to commit to doing my best to participate in that effort as well.
I also started a task force for working on an LGBTQ apology on behalf of APA to queer and trans folks over the history of the organization. It was such a fulfilling and awesome effort; and the task force we put together had about 10 people on it from all different walks of life and psychology and those meetings felt so impactful and energized.
And as soon as, you know, the current political administration of the U.S. took over, all of the momentum kind of stopped, unfortunately. There wasn't as much appetite within APA to I guess, focus energy and investment in this area of the apology, which is disappointing. Part of me understands; part of me does not. The good part about this being a task force is that, you know, it's something that we can revisit if the political moment changes. The task force is at least active for 3 years, from February 2025, so we have time; and I really hope that we can get back to it, and boots on the ground. I think once my personal life and obviously professional life as president calms down, I really plan on diving back into that.
All right, well, not to make this too long, so thank you so much, for your time and attention. Thank you for giving me the honor of being your president. I really wish I was there to give you hugs and handshakes, high fives, whatever works for you.
There's just a few people I want to thank. So I want to first thank my wife, Amber; she is the biggest support I could ever ask for. I remember asking her: “Do you think it's a good idea if I run for president? I know they need somebody to do it.” And I was fully expecting her to say, “No, we're gonna start a family, and you know, you're 30.”
Not the response at all. She was so supportive, and she said: “Go after it girl!” which really helped.
I want to thank my family for being supportive of not only my sexual orientation, but all of my professional endeavors.
I want to thank my friends that I've made in Division 44 – both leadership and membership-wise. All of you kind of have kept me very grounded during this experience, and through the ups and downs of it all.
Finally, I'd like to thank Gregory Sarlo, who is the immediate past-president, who was a very good mentor and very kind to me, and has become a friend, and someone who has always showed up for me, and I really appreciate that.
And I also want to extend an exciting welcome to our new incoming president, Nic Rider, who stepped up when we needed someone, and has been nothing but kind, organized, and generous since we've met and since taking on the mantle of leadership.
So I wish you all well. Happy 40 years, and I hope to see you next year.
[Editor's note: Shortly after delivering this speech, El's daughter Deja passed away. May she rest in peace.]