Erica Wise Honored as Recipient of the
Fifth Annual APA Ethics Committee Award for Outstanding
Contributions to Ethics Education

The following is adapted from the nomination to APA by the North Carolina Psychological Association:
 
Erica Wise has been an ethics educator for the past 30 years.  She served on the NCPA Ethics Committee (1982-1988), was a member and chair of the APA Ethics Committee (1990-1993), a member and chair of the North Carolina Psychology Board for 10 years (1993-2003), and co-chair of the NCPA Professional Affairs and Ethics Committee.
    In her role on the NCPA Ethics Committee she has offered countless individual consultations on ethical and legal questions and concerns to NCPA members.  This is a very valuable service that often goes unsung due to the nature of the consultation.  NCPA has received several contributions in Erica’s honor and in appreciation of her efforts – psychologists who are very grateful for the service she has done for them.
    Erica has made numerous ethics workshop and continuing education presentations throughout the state over the past 20+ years. Workshop topics have included ethics and supervision, ethics and self-care and managing complex ethical and legal dilemmas in clinical practice.  She makes regular presentations to psychologists at the Duke University Medical Center for local internship programs at UNC, Duke, and the Durham VA on a variety of ethical and legal topics.  Her integrative approach to conceptualizing and teaching ethics has also resulted in several presentations on infusing multicultural and ethical competencies into the education and training of professional psychologists.

Erica Wise APA Ethics Award

Social Justice Advocacy:

Erica’s commitment to the integration of ethics and social justice issues at the local level is also exemplified by her service as the liaison from Division 31 (SPTA’s) to the Division 44 public policy committee and by her active membership on the BEA Working Group on Legislative Restrictions Affecting Diversity Training in Graduate Education. In addition, last spring Erica played a key role in developing the public position that NCPA took in opposition to the discriminatory “defense of marriage” constitutional amendment which codifies the discrimination of LGBT citizens in our state. She was co-author of the influential NCPA resolution opposing this amendment that was approved by the NCPA Board and became the model for similar resolutions that were endorsed by other professional associations throughout North Carolina. She represented NCPA at a high profile press conference in Raleigh to speak out about psychology’s opposition to this amendment. In addition, she took a leadership role in crafting a joint statement with the NC Psychiatric Association that was published in newspapers and promulgated on influential websites.