Secretary-Treasurer’s Report
Jennifer Pals Lilgendahl
Hello, members of ARP! I hope the new school year is off to a great start for everyone. What has happened since our last issue of P? Two very important things. First, we finally achieved tax exempt status! This is a huge step for the organization, and although it was certainly a team effort, I want to thank Lynne Cooper for her tireless, “above and beyond”- level efforts to make this happen for us. Thank you Lynne! Second, we had our third successful stand-alone ARP Conference in Charlotte in June. I would like to thank our president, Will Fleeson, and everyone else on the ground in Charlotte for hosting a very well-organized, fun, and intellectually engaging event. Thanks also to the program chairs, Jess Tracy and Oz Ayduk, for putting together a power-house program featuring an exciting slate of talks, symposia and posters that successfully captured the current state of our vibrant and diverse field. For me, the Gala Dinner at the Mint Museum was a highlight of the weekend and a fitting finale for a spectacular conference. The bar has been set high for 2015!
At the conclusion of our meeting in Charlotte, the ARP Board had a very productive and forward-looking meeting, in which we discussed strategies for securing our long-term financial stability, and many exciting new ideas, including building our relationship with the European Association for Personality Psychology (representative Jaap Denisson was in attendance), supporting an ARP pre-conference at SPSP each year, and various possible technological interfaces with the Journal of Research in Personality. We were very pleased to have Irene Kanter-Schlifke, our new representative from Elsevier, join us at the Board meeting and we look forward to working with her. We also heard reports from each of our sub-committees (Web, Awards, Publication and Communication, Training) and anticipate benefiting in various ways from their efforts as the organization continues to evolve and grow. Please let me know if you have any specific questions about what was discussed at the Board Meeting in Charlotte or if you have ideas about what should be discussed at our next Board Meeting at SPSP in February.
As I have mentioned several times recently, it has become apparent that the size of our membership fluctuates in relation to whether or not it is a conference year. Right now, we are enjoying that “conference bump.” I am pleased to report that we have a very healthy and (I think) record high current membership total of 359, which breaks down to 219 regular members and 140 post-docs and graduate students. We continue to offer fee reductions for multi-year memberships in order to stabilize the membership base across the years, which will help our financial stability. With respect to our financial stability, a significant decision that was formally approved by the ARP Board in Charlotte was to work toward building up our financial reserves to a cushion of $100,000. Such a reserve will better secure the future of ARP, give us the capacity to develop a wider array of programs, benefits, etc. for the membership, and, ultimately, strengthen our field as a whole. Such a goal requires us to consider various ways to generate more revenue, so stay tuned for more communications about this issue in the near future.
Finally, as we look to 2014, I would like to note that two of our Board Members, Dan Ozer and Simine Vazire, will be concluding their terms as of January and two new faces, Kate Mclean and Erik Noftle, whom we elected in the Spring, will be rotating on. We are certainly not saying goodbye to Dan and Simine, however, as Dan begins his term as our president and Simine has agreed to serve as the local conference committee chair for our next ARP conference in 2015. Looking ahead a bit, Lynne Cooper and I will be concluding our terms at the end of 2014, so please consider whether you or someone you know may be interested in serving as our next Executive Officer or Secretary-Treasurer.
In conclusion, it is an exciting time for ARP and we look forward to 2014. Please be in touch if you have any questions for me or ideas for us to consider, jlilgend@haverford.edu.