| About Us: Presidential Welcome |
| 2013 PRESIDENTIAL WELCOME |
If you currently are not a member, I encourage you to join our division to appreciate many of the benefits of membership. If you currently are a member, I hope that you will continue with the division and I encourage your involvement. Our division is strongest when our members are actively engaged.
As president for 2013, I will continue on the path set by of our previous presidents in their efforts towards the growth and development of our division. My focus will be on the following goals:
Please feel free to contact me personally if you have any questions about the division, suggestions, or would like to become more involved in the activities of the division.
Christopher T. H. Liang, Ph.D. |
| 2012 PRESIDENTIAL WELCOME |
As president for 2012, I will continue on the path set by of our previous presidents in their efforts towards the growth and development of our division. My focus will be on the following goals:
One of my biggest tasks this year is coordinating the 3rd National Psychotherapy With Men Conference which will be held June 9th at Fordham University in New York. I encourage all to attend as it will be an intellectually rewarding and personally enjoyable experience. Mark Kiselica is co-coordinator of the conference and we have put together a group of superlative clinicians and scholars to present on clinical work with diverse male populations. I look forward to being your host at my university in the incredible city of New York.
Please feel free to contact me personally if you have any questions about the division, suggestions, or would like to become more involved in the activities of the division.
Jay C. Wade, Ph.D. |
END OF YEAR UPDATE ON 2011 PRESIDENTIAL INITATIVES Dear D51 Members,
It’s February 1st, which means it’s time for me to look back. (I never quite manage to do it at New Year’s.) I hope you’ll take a few minutes to look back at 2011 with me.
Before listing the events of the past year, I’d like to say thank you again for electing me. It’s been an honor and a pleasure to serve these past two years. I’ve had the honor to hold this office and follow in the footsteps of many folks I know and respect. I’ve had the privilege of influencing our present, and hopefully our future. I’ve also been blessed to have the support and hard work of many other folks, several of whom were willing to follow my vision. Thank you all.
It may be a bit premature, but I’m starting to get the feeling that there’s a burgeoning cultural interest in men and some recognition that they’re more than a one-dimensional stereotype. It seems as though every week, or perhaps every other week, there’s a newspaper, magazine, or some other source that “discovers” men. D51 members, and their work, appear in many of these stories. Keep up the good work. J
It was quite a year for us as a division. We started with our midwinter meeting and annual retreat, held in Seattle, WA and connected to the National Multi-Cultural Summit (NMCS). There were about 30 people in attendance, about one-third of whom were students. The retreat also included a few women, as it did in 2010. Mike Andronico and Fred Rabinowitz co-facilitated the group, as they had for many years, and were joined by Holly Sweet as a co-facilitator, a first. I hope you’ll join us in a few weeks for our next midwinter meeting and retreat in San Antonio, TX. 2011 was also marked by our first sustained membership drive since the division’s founding. Led by Jim O’Neil, the division more than doubled in size during 2011, from approximately 500 members to about 1100. I hope that you’ll all renew this year and become (more) active members.
In addition to expanding our membership, we’ve expanded the number of ways in which members can become involved in running the division. Several of our offices were “staffed” by a single person in January, 2011; now, those offices are held by either a full member with one (or two) graduate student assistants, or a committee that includes student members. As part of this expansion and reconfiguration, Jon Schwartz has become chair of the membership committee and Ryan McKelley has agreed to become our first communications director.
We’ve become more organized and structured in other ways. This includes the formation of three Special Interest Groups (SIGs), one focusing on violence and victims (contact: Chris Kilmartin), one focusing on ethnic minority men (contacts: Joel Wong, Jennifer Primack), and one on focusing on sexual minority men (contact: David Whitcomb). Our graduate students have also become more organized, largely through the efforts of Brandon Youngblood and Chris Mackowiak. They now have their own officers and a separate list serve, and have been developing a system through which senior graduate students will mentor newer students. Chris Mackowiak also nominated Division 51 for the APAGS (Student) Division of the Year, an award that we received at the 2011 APA Convention.
Psychology of Men and Masculinity had an impressive 2011, largely due to the ongoing efforts of it's editor, Ron Levant. PMM received it's first Impact Factor of 2.208 (for articles published in 2010). That score ranked us in the top 10 of social psychology journals. It was also a little earlier than usual; journals typically need 10 years of quarterly publication before receiving an impact factor, but PMM was issued one after 8 quarterly volumes. PMM received 100 new manuscripts in 2011, which bodes well for it's future. Kudos here should also go to David Lisak and Sam Cochrane for providing the journal with such a strong base.
Under the leadership of Jay Wade, we codified a longstanding tradition of the division’s by formally designating our Member-at-Large seats for an ethnic minority member, a sexual minority member, a woman, and an “open” seat. Sadly, those constituencies continue to make up only small percentages of our membership. We also created two new Members-at-Large positions, one for an early career psychologist and one for a graduate student. We’ll be electing our first ECP in 2012.
And if all that wasn’t enough, we also met at the 2011 APA Convention. The division had a hospitality suite for the 2nd consecutive year, providing us with a space to hold additional functions that served a variety of programmatic and organizational purposes. Our sessions highlighted relatively understudied populations, particularly ethnic minority men. The Convention also featured our first ever “Town Hall” meeting, an event we’ll be reprising this year. I hope you’ll join us in Orlando.
Looking ahead, I’m excited by the presidency of Jay Wade. The 17th president of our division, he’s the first ethnic minority man to serve in this role. More importantly, he’s hit the ground running. His efforts will be most prominently on display at the 3rdPsychotherapy with Men Conference (PMC), to be held at Lincoln Center in New York City in June, but his vision and organizational skills have already shaped who we are and how we function. I look forward to traveling this road with you all. Andrew Smiler, Ph.D. |
| 2011 PRESIDENTIAL WELCOME |
As president for 2011, my goals include
On a personal note, I’d like to say that it’s both an honor and a privilege to be president of this organization. It’s an honor to be recognized by my peers as a leader and to receive their support of my goals. It’s a privilege to be given the opportunity to create change. I hope my efforts translate into a larger, broader, and stronger division. I also hope that you’ll join me in these efforts, by becoming a member, providing input, and volunteering to help.
In service,
Andrew Smiler, Ph.D. |
REFLECTIONS FROM 2011 APA CONVENTION IN WASHINGTON, D.C. August 10, 2011
Another APA convention has come and gone. It’s my 12th conference and my 10th as part of D51. I’m having a hard time believing I’m in double digits in both those categories. The conference was also my first as President. I’m pretty sure I’ll never be in double digits there.
One of the things I like best about the convention is hearing friends and colleagues present their work. Seriously. We spend a lot of time hanging out with each other, but we rarely talk about our research or practice in any real detail; I hear those details when I attend symposia or talk to people about their posters. It sounds trite to say there are a lot of people doing good work, but it’s certainly true. I think the most surprising thing I learned was a simple fact: prostate cancer is nearly as common as breast cancer. While “we all know” about breast cancer and the pink ribbon campaign, we know so little about prostate cancer and how men respond to this enormous public health concern. My thanks to Holly Sweet for organizing the session.
I also attended an APA Education Advocacy session. It reminded me – for the second time in a week – that one of the things that APA does, and does well, is lobby Congress. We’ve been doing this for a long time and are reasonably good at it. APA helps Congress understand psychological knowledge to help craft (social) policy. They also lobby for continued funding of psychological research via NIH and NSF.
I had two highlights. One was Saturday afternoon – the whole afternoon. I’d been somewhat concerned with how my presidential address would come across, and it seemed to go well; reviewing the division’s performance in relation to our mission statement carried some real risks. I received what seemed to be a long ovation, and at least a dozen folks – founders, former presidents, and students - told me they really liked the talk. The address was followed by a town hall meeting that featured a lot of good energy about things we – as individuals and as a division – can work on in the next decade.
The other highlight was spending time hanging out with friends, old and new, during the convention. I spent a fair amount of time with a fair number of people, and I’m not going to try to name them all. Perhaps most noteworthy for me was a group of eight on Saturday night: four students (Brandon Y., Ryon M., Whitney K., Jeff N.) and four presidents (me, Chris K., Sam C., Fred R.). Two hours later, we were joined by Sam B., Dan S., and Chen O. It’s been a few years since I felt like a “new guy” in this division, but that might have been the first time I really felt like one of the “old guys.”
I guess that’s what happens in ten years. I look forward to another ten.
Andrew Smiler |
END OF YEAR UPDATE ON 2010 PRESIDENTIAL INITATIVES December 7, 2010
A year has passed since I wrote the above welcome message and stated initiatives. Below, I wanted to comment briefly on the progress of these goals. In doing so, I hope to encourage future leaders to document their own goals for our division and to emphasize the importance of keeping these objectives on our “divisional radar.”
Expanding our visibility with other divisions, organizations, and the public Looking back, we made some significant strides in this area over the past year. A few initiatives stand out: Our significantly re-vamped website (launched in January 2010) and our collaboration with the widely read, Good Men Project. Also I think our PMC-II videos will help spread the word of our division into new circles. Finally, our new membership drive, coordinated by Jim O’Neil, stands to be quite successful in bringing new people into our division.
However, we need to continue to have this initiative remain as a priority for our division. The work we do is of interest to many, including other APA divisions, associations, communities, the media, and private and public agencies. We need to continue to network and better publicize our work.
Increasing our use of technology for various division purposes I believe we made some considerable strides in this area during the past year. Some projects recently launched include: A division facebook page, new website, videotaped presentations from the PMC-II, and an online CE based collaboration with the Zur Institute. Further, this year I sent frequent updates on various projects via our announcement list. Other ideas I would like to see unfold include producing and posting short videos from members (in particular our founding members). This will help document the history of our division and the range of perspectives held by our members.
Initiating new planning strategies for key division issues (e.g., expanding membership, facilitating dialogue around diversity, programming, etc.) This was a particularly important goal for me in 2010. My aim was to help initiate important conversations that could better address needed areas of division growth and “blind spots.” Looking back, I think the most important contributor to progress in this realm was the Hospitality Suite Functions held at the Hard Rock Hotel in San Diego during APA. These programs (on topics including sexual orientation, men of color, division mentorship) were well attended and successful. These discussions have led to sub-groups comprised of members who are passionate about these topics. Further, promising ideas have surfaced as a result of these meetings (e.g., special journal series possibilities, special interest groups, etc.). However, we need to keep these dialogues going to bet able to translate ideas into action.
Conducting a successful 2nd Psychotherapy with Men Conference in Austin, TX This goal was definitely met! While there were moments of uncertainty, our 2nd conference was a smashing success. The event was profitable and the food was outstanding. But most importantly, we introduced over 200 non-members to what we do best, talking about how to help men. I am very proud of our Division for continuing this tradition. I’m also indebted to Sam Buser, the conference Co-Chair for his help and to all of the presenters for having a great attitude and putting on such a meaningful conference. I look forward to PMC-III in NYC.
It’s been an honor, folks. The division has given much to me over the years. For this reason, it was easy to give back.
Respectfully, Aaron Rochlen |
Welcome to the Society for the Psychological Study of Men and Masculinity (SPSMM), Division 51 of the American Psychological Association. I am honored to be the President of the Division for 2013. SPSSM has been my home in APA for many years. It has been a place where my intellectual curiosity has been nurtured and where I have formed meaningful friendships. I hope you will find the Division to be as stimulating and welcoming of diversity as have I.
Welcome to the Society for the Psychological Study of Men and Masculinity (SPSMM), Division 51 of the American Psychological Association. Knowing the impressive professionals who have led Division 51, I am honored to be President of the Division for 2012. SPSSM has been my home in APA for many years, and hopefully is or will be yours as well. If you currently are not a member, I encourage you to join our division to appreciate many of the benefits of membership. If you currently are a member, I hope that you will continue with the division and I encourage your involvement.
Welcome to the Society for the Psychological Study of Men and Masculinity (SPSMM), Division 51 of the American Psychological Association. On this website, you’ll find some information about who we are, the projects we’re involved in, and the opportunities available to get involved. If you’re not a member, I hope you’ll join. If you are a member – even a new member – I hope you’ll become more involved.