The Behavioral Neuroscientist and Comparative Psychologist Division 6 — American Psychological Association Volume 21• Number 1 • Spring, 2006 Editor Eric P. Wiertelak, Macalester College NEW ORLEANS 2006: In This Issue A Message from the President 1-2 --Tom Zentall Looking Ahead Report on Council 3-4 --Bruce Overmier A Message from the Introducing new President Divsion 6 Fellows 5-8 Tom Zentall The 2006 annual APA meeting will Announcements 8-11 be unusual this year because we will be meeting in New Orleans. When Ka- trina struck last August there was the DIVISION 6 EMAIL very real possibility that APA would REFLECTOR not be meeting there. In fact, because of the size of the APA meeting (there are only a few North American Division 6 maintains an email reflector to cities large enough to house the meeting) and the fact that hotels book keep members up to date with the latest meeting several years in advance, there was the very real possibility information on research funding, employ- ment opportunities, and other items of gen- that APA would not be meeting at all this year or at least not without eral interest. If you have recently changed severely reducing the size of the program. After careful consideration your email address, you may need to re- and evaluation of the damage to New Orleans and especially to the subscribe to the reflector. To update your convention center and hotel accommodations, it was decided to proceed current address or to join the list for the first with the meeting as originally planned. I think this was a wise decision, time, follow these simple instructions: first because the major damage to the city was in the poorer, below sea Send precisely the following 4-word mes- level, areas of the city and the damage to the convention center and the sage: warehouse district around it in which many of the hotels are located was SUBscribe div6 John Doe not nearly as great as originally thought. Second, because, as psycholo- Change John Doe to your first and last gists, we should be sensitive to the devastation suffered by the people of name; the computer will find the subscrib- New Orleans and uphold our commitment to do whatever we can to help er’s email address in the message auto- that city become functional again. Although many of us in Division 6 matically. Put nothing else in the message. think of ourselves as scientists rather than practitioners, APA represents Mail the 4-word message to the folowing address: a broad spectrum of members who consider themselves as belonging to [email protected] a helping profession. It is my feeling that the least we can do is provide moral support as well as some indirect financial support to the rebuilding More info can be found at: of this unique city. (Continued on Page 2) http://listserv.apa.org Page 1 Division Officers and The Behavioral Neuroscientist and Comparative Psychologist is the official news- Committees 2005-2006 letter of APA Division 6 — Behavioral Neuroscience and Comparative Psychology President: Tom Zentall — and is published 3 times a year. Mailing addresses used are those appearing on the University of Kentucky official APA roster and a separate Division roster. Corrections and changes of address [email protected]. should be sent directly to the APA Directory Office, 1400 North Uhle St., Arlington, VA 22201, and to the newsletter editor (see below). Past-President: James Grau As the official newsletter of Division 6, BNCP publishes official business, commit- Texas A&M University tee reports, news items, job announcements, information on technical issues, topics [email protected] of current interest, and information about the professional activities of Division 6 President-Elect: Karen Hollis members. News items and articles should be submitted to the Editor at the address Mount Holyoke College below (preferably by email). Paid advertisements are not officially endorsed by Divi- [email protected] sion 6. The Editor welcomes comments and suggestions for ways in which BNCP can better serve the needs of the members. The preferred method of submission is Secretary/Treasurer: Chana Akins by email. Send correspondence and submissions to Eric P. Wiertelak via e-mail at University of Kentucky [email protected]. Postal mail should be sent to Eric P. Wiertelak, Department [email protected] of Psychology, Macalester College, Saint Paul, MN 55105. Other contact information: Council Representative: Bruce Overmier Phone: (651) 696-6111; FAX: (651) 696-6348. University of Minnesota [email protected] Members-at-Large: (Message, Continued from Page 1) In an effort to do something more con- Mark E. Bouton crete for the city of New Orleans, APA, in collaboration with Habitat University of Vermont for Humanity, is organizing a house building project that will take place [email protected] on Wednesday August 9, the day before the start of the meeting (see Melinda Novak Karen’s piece in this issue of the newsletter). If you are interested in University of Massachusetts participating in this worthwhile project (a number of us have already [email protected] volunteered), Karen has indicated how you can sign up. Chair of Membership & Growth We also have a terrific program put together by our Program Chair, Committee: Gary Greenberg Mark Blumberg, and coordinated with the Program Chair of Division 3, Wichita State University Marvin Lamb. I hope you can attend. See you all in New Orleans. [email protected] Chair of Fellows Nomination Committee: Steven Reilly University of Illinois at Chicago [email protected] Chair of Program Committee: Mark Blumberg University of Iowa An Evening With Bill Cosby [email protected] Saturday, August 12, 7:30-9:00 p.m. Chair of Awards Committee: Ernest N. Morial Convention Center Mark Bouton La Nouvelle Orleans Ballroom University of Vermont Tickets Required: $10; Limited Seating [email protected] Proceeds to be donated to the New Orleans Public Schools Newsletter Editor: Eric P. Wiertelak Tickets for this event may be ordered by filling Macalester College out the APA special events form and returning it to [email protected] APA. Tickets are nonrefundable. Tickets will be available for pickup at Division Historian/ Archivist: the APA Special Events Desk in the APA Registration Area in the Ernest Donald A. Dewsbury N. Morial Convention Center during registration hours. La Nouvelle University of Florida Orleans Ballroom at the Morial Convention Center will be set with open [email protected]fl.edu seating, first-come, first-served. Page 2 COUNCIL REJECTS NEW DIVISION FOR HUMAN-ANIMAL STUDIES REPORT ON APA COUNCIL, FEBRUARY, 2006 by Bruce Overmier Council Representative for Division 6 The February 17-19, 2006 meeting of the APA Council of Representatives was not one your representative looked forward to because it represented a risk point for Division 6 and for APA. The key issue for Division 6 was the proposal for a new division for Human- Animal Studies. The petition put forth an agenda for study of many legitimate topics. However, the Society for Human-Animal Studies appeared to many to have its roots in PsyETA (Psychologists for the Ethical Treatment of Animals where the petition for the division first appeared) and several of the advocates for the proposed division were persons who had spoken out in their criticism of and opposition to the laboratory animal researchers that are represented in Division 6. It seemed likely to many that the proposed division would come to advocate for a liberationist or animal rights agenda—or at least set a climate supportive of such. The coalition of divisions to which Division 6 belongs (and pays dues to), the “Coalition for Academic, Scien- tific, and Applied Psychology”, heard Division 6’s concerns and helped organize an opposing set of presenta- tions. At Council, our concerns were listened to and APA President-elect Sharon Brehm and Past-president Ronald Levant spoke in support of the science community. Levant called upon the “practice community” to respect our concerns and to recall that when the practice community was under threat and in need, the “science community” endorsed and voted in aid of the practice community for a “Public Education Campaign” speaking to the value of psychological services. Leona Aiken (Div 5), Ronald Brown (Chair of BSA), Manny Donchin (Div 3), Kimberly Kirby (Div 28), and others all gave informative, impassioned speeches opposing the pro- posed division. Council also received thoughtful letters from Presidents of several Divisions: Larry Alferink (Div 25), Alan Budney (Div 28), and our own Thomas Zentall whose carefully crafted letter drew heavily upon the careful research work by Nancy Dess and the previous compilations by Mary Lou Cheal. It was a real team effort. The result was that the proposed division was soundly defeated (after almost being approved last year). We in Division 6 owe all our supporting colleagues on Council— across the full spectrum of psychology—our thanks for protecting Division 6 from this threat to our and our students’ futures! The nearly 500 page agenda contained some 36 other items. I will comment only on those most important to Division 6. Council voted on a couple of measures likely to increase minority participation in APA and in all fields of psy- chology including our own. A new Division of Trauma Psychology was approved. Council approved a new budget for 2006 of slightly more than $100,000,000. Dues support only about 15% of the APA budget. Dues will increase only by the cost of living. [Recall that Division 6 members who are (Continued on Page 4) Page 3 (Report, Continued from Page 3) also members of another scientific society that is a member of the Federation of Behavioral, Psychological, and Cognitive Sciences—such as the Psychonomic Society as one example—are eligible for a 25% discount on their APA dues.