APTC Elections:  Candidate Statements

President-Elect

Tony Celucci

   I am honored to be nominated for President-elect and would be delighted to serve on the APTC board. For this past year, I have been Clinical Professor and Director of the Psychological Assessment and Specialty Service (PASS) clinic at East Carolina University, but I’ve been a clinic director (Idaho State 1998-2010) and APTC member for almost 14 years. Understanding training clinics requires a bit of an ideographic approach. Building a new clinic has stretched me (e.g., new university budget system, serving school-pediatric program as well as clinical, configuring Titanium) and I hope my transition (tenured faculty member to contract) would allow me to better appreciate our differences as well as commonalities.

   My professional career has overlapped and been intertwined with APTC’s history as I was present in Chicago as the group was evolving into a national organization. I don’t believe I have ever missed a meeting since! I served as secretary/ treasurer for two terms, presented at several of our meetings, represented our group (e.g., CoA summit), mentored new directors, helped to revise our guidelines, and monitored liaison activity, assisting with their reports. I also served on APA Council for six years and most recently completed a three year term as membership chair for Society of Clinical Psychology. If re-elected to the board, APTC would be my priority.

   For many of us, APTC is our professional home. I think it most important that we always reflect on how to best serve members. This includes maintaining a high value conference with opportunities for networking, personal and professional development. The current board has done a great job and I would hope to build on their efforts and involve more folks. Our group obviously should continue to support Bob Hatcher’s work on competencies and facilitate training research in concert with others. Diversity in training and service should be one of our organization’s highest values. I also think APTC members are thinking through the use of various technologies. As a board member, I would hope to listen, help find consensus, support, and appreciate the many APTC members who contribute so much to our group.

Treasurer

Bill Rae, Ph.D.

   I am interested in self-nominating for Treasurer of APTC; I am the current Treasurer and have gained valuable experience during the last two years.  I am currently Director of the Counseling & Assessment Clinic (CAC), the training clinic for the Counseling Psychology and School Psychology programs at Texas A&M University; I have been the Director there for 12 years.  The CAC is unique in that our clinic is located off-campus in a federally-qualified community health center where we provide the mental health services for low-income clients in collaboration with community practitioners. I also teach in both the School Psychology and Counseling Psychology programs where I teach therapy-related courses (e.g., Child Therapy, Child Psychopathology, Adult Assessment) as a Clinical Professor. My professional background has been varied, but I have always considered myself first and foremost a professional psychologist.  For the first 20 years of my career I worked as a full-time practitioner and developed hospital-based pediatric psychology programs in Texas, Michigan, and Missouri. I have been active in several professional organizations through the years.  Besides being the current Treasurer of APTC, I have held offices as President and Member-at-Large in the Society of Pediatric Psychology (Division 54) and as Treasurer in the Society for Child and Family Policy and Practice (Division 37).  As Treasurer of Division 37 and APTC I became acutely aware of the importance of fiscal management which aids an organization to be viable and vibrant.  I am an advocate of subsidizing the annual meeting which is the most valuable benefit of membership as well as continuing our Social Hour at APA each year which provides valuable networking for our members.  I also would like to continue to support both new and experienced Directors of APTC through new initiatives, but always being careful to spend the APTC monies with care.

Secretary

   I have served as the Clinic Director at Eastern Michigan University since the inception of our doctoral training program in 2001. As such, I have seen our program develop from the ground up, including full renovation of the building that now serves as our Clinic. APTC has been instrumental in my ability to develop and now maintain the operations of our clinic. Therefore, I would like to take this opportunity to continue to give back to the organization that has been such an invaluable professional resource to me.

   I joined APTC in 2001, and, shortly thereafter, took on the responsibility of expanding member resources, including the web site and listserv.  I continue to manage the website, including overseeing a major overhaul a few years ago, now enabling online dues payments and incorporating various other new features that make it more flexible and user friendly.  I also manage our listserv, and I keep Training & Education in Professional Psychology’s editorial office current on APTC members who should be getting the journal as a member benefit. These activities tend to keep me involved with APTC on what literally amounts to a daily basis, answering member inquiries, updating membership status lists, and assisting APTC members in accessing resources. Although I have fulfilled these roles at times informally and at times as an APTC Member-at-large, these functions probably really fall more in the bailiwick of the Secretary position.  For that reason, I would like to serve as a formal candidate for that role now.

   Beyond these day-to-day activities for APTC, I co-chair the Membership and Resources Committee and I have served on the New Director Support, Research, and Diversity committees. Other contributions to APTC have included a presentations on “Designing a New Clinic” (2003), a collaborative effort with Elaine Shpungin for our Chapel Hill presentation (2009), entitled “Diversity climates in psychology training clinics: Realities, priorities, and opportunities,” and, most recently (2011), I participated in a panel discussion about our APTC Research Initiative, Multi-study of client expectancies.    

   If elected, I hope to aid our organization in continuing to function effectively so as to attract new members and broader visibility. Through smooth internal functioning and effective external liaisons, we may develop a greater voice and greater visibility in matters affecting psychology training and, by extension, the integrity of our profession.

Thank you for considering me for this position.

Donald Morgan, Psy.D.

I would be happy to serve again as Secretary to the ADPTC board, beginning in 2012.  I've done it over the past two years and have enjoyed it very much.   I have been a member of our organization since becoming Clinic director at Rutgers Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology in 1997.  ADPTC is my favorite group of colleagues and I would be honored to be of service for another two-year term. 

I have previous experience on a number of professional and community boards in the roles of president, vice-president and secretary.  I served in all of these roles over 10 years in my community’s Girls Softball League.  I was secretary and then president of the Society of Psychologists in Private Practice in New Jersey.  I have also been on the board of the New Jersey Psychological Association.  I am now past-president of the Northeast Regional Biofeedback Society, completing a five-year term.   I have worked on all these boards and enjoyed the interaction as well as advancing the causes of the organizations. 

One of the areas that I have become experienced at is the organization and running of conferences, and I’d be happy to contribute to creating our ADPTC meetings.  I also now contribute the “Cool Little Reviews” column to the ADPTC newsletter and will be happy to continue doing that.  I’ll always come to the mid-winter meeting of ADPTC and be available for ongoing projects as time permits. 

And, finally, I am an excellent typist and will take great minutes of meetings on my laptop and send them to board members pronto. 

Member-at-Large   

Michael Taylor 

   My name is Mike Taylor, and I have been clinic director for almost four years at the SDSU Psychology Clinic. Our clinic is the initial practicum site for all students in the SDSU/UCSD Joint Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology.

   I became a member of APTC as soon as I took over as clinic director, and have found it to be an incredible resource. At my second meeting, while networking in Chapel Hill (actually sitting in a bar), Randy Cox suggested that Karen Fondacaro and I get involved with conference programming. Karen and I have been program co-chairs since then. I have also worked with Phyllis Terry Friedman on the newsletter, and worked to acquire our new website domain name.

   As a Member at Large, one committee that I would like to chair is Programs & Conferences. Although I have co-chaired the programming committee for the last few years, I would like the opportunity to increase attendance at our meetings. I would particularly like to reach out to our members who don’t typically attend our yearly meetings, and determine what the barriers are to attendance. In addition, several ideas have been brought up recently that merit consideration, including the addition of technology vendors for computerized record management and digital recording solutions.

I hope to move forward with these ideas as a Member at Large in APTC.

Thank you for your consideration!

Dinelia Rosa

   It is a great honor to consider the nomination to Member-at-Large of APTC. I am a member for 11 years and have a long standing commitment to issues of training and practice.

   As director of the Dean-Hope Center for Educational and Psychological Services at Teachers College, Columbia University for the last 12 years, I developed guidelines and procedures to improve the practical experience of students, secured a donation of 1.5 million to renovate the training facility and most recently in collaboration with the clinical program began the development of an innovative system of training in an effort to offer more diverse and intense opportunities to our trainees. Additionally, besides my responsibilities at the training clinic, I established collaboration with administrators in the College to develop policies and procedures for handling students throughout the College at risk for mental health issues, which were approved by Teachers College Board of Trustees.

   I served three years as member of the Multicultural Advisory Committee (MAC) for the New York State Office of Mental Health. At present, I serve a second three-year term at the Council of Representatives of the New York State Psychological Association (NYSPA). I also serve in NYSPA’s Finance and By-Laws Committees, and Chair the NYSPA Task Force on Diversity. In the past, I served in the Membership Committee and chaired the Mentoring Program. I bring seven years of experience in the Committee of State Leaders first as NYSPA Diversity Delegate, later as Chair of the CSL Diversity Subcommittee, and currently as Representative of APA Division 31. At Division 31, I am Chair of the Membership Committee and recently we began a mentoring program.

   I am very eager and enthusiastic to bring my leadership to another level at APTC and I see the Member-at-Large as a great fit. I will have the opportunity to delve into the current issues being dealt by APTC, and collaborate with the executive committee. I will support the main goals of the president, and I will bring my interest on issues of diversity by endorsing and supporting recommendations that will continue to integrate diversity throughout APTC. I am also interested in exploring ways in which APTC can continue to collaborate in the implementation of core competencies benchmarks. Lastly but not least,  I am interested in exploring ways in which APTC can spearhead initiatives and innovative ways to increase students preparedness for internship during these time of internship crisis.

Leticia Flores (Lettie)

   My name is Leticia Flores (Lettie), and I have served as director of VCU’s training clinic since 2007.  Since joining APTC in 2008, I have steadily increased my engagement in the organization.  With the assistance of fellow members Kelly McDonnell, Karen Saules  and (past member) Stephen Cook, I have become actively involved in welcoming new directors and new members of APTC to the organization.  My activities include welcoming people identified as new members through email, and pairing new members with veteran members of APTC  at annual conferences.  I have also become more engaged by creating social dinner groups for APTC members during our yearly conferences, to enhance more informal networking between members of the organization.  In the past, I have worked with the APTC Diversity sub-committee, and helped create a resource list for diversity-themed films, books, podcasts, and related media.  In general, I have remained regularly engaged in the APTC listserve.  I am nominating myself for a position as a Member At Large.  I have thoroughly enjoyed meeting and working with fellow APTCers, and would love to continue the efforts of enhancing our organization.  As a MAL, I would continue to manage the New Member Committee and would strive to improve upon the system that has been established. I hope to implement the current technology and possibly add some new “features” to the current system to foster a continued sense of engagement among the new members (ie, implementing a more formal introduction process for new members in our regular newsletter, possibly including images of new members or their clinics).  I am also very excited about the various technologies APTC members use at their clinics, and I hope to be more involved in helping to highlight these technologies at our conferences.  I am very happy to be able to “give back” to such a welcoming organization, and think that I may be able to accomplish this more effectively as a MAL.

Thank you for the opportunity!