Happy Veterans Day to SIOP’s military community and beyond. The sacrifices our military men and women and their families make daily are commendable. These sacrifices often go unspoken because it is a way of life for them. Many times when someone stops a veteran to say “thank you for your service” you’ll find the veterans pauses and has to think about a reply. It isn’t that they are not thankful for your gratitude and acknowledgment; it is often that veterans simply do not see their daily actions as anything different from those not wearing a uniform around them. The first few times I (Kristin) was welcomed with such a comment in public after I joined the Army, I fell mute because, in reality, I was simply doing my job as an I-O psychologist in uniform. I, like so many veterans and family members of veterans think of this as a job to be done but to those they protect and enable freedom for, it is far more than that. It is a sacrifice few – about 8% of the U.S. population are veterans – are willing to make for an outsize impact on the world.

SIOP’s Military and Veterans Initiative (MVI) Task Force was launched in fall 2018 after maturing from a prosocial effort first founded in 2012. Focused internally, the Task Force builds a community for those that work on military-relevant or funded topics whether through research, practice, and/or identification as a military community member. Externally, the Task Force communicates best practices of I-O psychology relevant to Veterans’ and their families’ well-being, work conditions, and employment topics.

SIOP elections for president-elect and four members of the Executive Board are open through December 2. Member participation in the election process is important for maintaining strong leadership for SIOP and the field of I-O psychology. Positions and candidates on the ballot are:

The Office of Evaluation Sciences (OES) is currently accepting applications for fellowships beginning in Fall 2020 in Washington, DC. The application deadline is December 15, 2019

Based at the General Services Administration (GSA), OES is a team of interdisciplinary experts that works across government to help agencies build and use evidence. Team members work alongside agency collaborators to apply behavioral insights, make concrete recommendations on how to improve government and evaluate impact using administrative data. OES is uniquely situated at the center of government to share leading practices, develop resources, and build skills in the federal workforce on evidence and evaluation.

On November 1, APA will ask its members to vote on a bylaws amendment. 

The bylaws change would grant voting privileges to graduate students and associate members after one year of APA membership.  Graduate students currently do not have voting privileges, and associate members are currently granted voting privileges after 5 years of APA membership.

These privileges extend to electing the APA president and members-at-large to the APA Board of Directors; and to voting on bylaws amendments and apportionment,  which determines the number of seats each APA division and constituency has on the APA Council of Representatives

The four SIOP Consortia are full day events held on the Wednesday prior to the start of the annual SIOP conference and include lunch and receptions. The consortia are only open to SIOP registrants. Each consortium is described below with specifics on how to nominate or register attendees. Please share this information with your students and alumni via your program’s newsletters or listservs.