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Text of Letter:
The University of Alabama in Birmingham
University of Alabama Hospitals
Neuropsychology Laboratory
205/934-3537
October 24, 1983
Linus Bieliausks, Ph.D.
Department of Psychology
Rush-Presbyterian
St. Luke's Hospital
Chicago, Illinois 60612
Dear Linus:
The Division of Clinical Neuropsychology is planning its mid-winter meeting of the Board of Directors on February 16, 17, and 18. That is Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Everyone should plan to arrive in time for an evening meeting and dinner on the 16th with full day meetings on the 17th and 18th. That means that many of you,or at least some of you traveling west may find it necessary to stay over Saturday night. If you catch an early evening flight out that will be fine but the meeting will very probably go til 5:00 and no one should plan to leave before that. I very much want to avoid the attrition that tends to develop in meetings as people rush for 2:00, 3:00 and 4:00 airplanes. Plan to stay from Thursday early evening through Saturday for the complete business day.
The purpose of this letter is several. The first is to solicit from each of you agenda items. The agenda has not been developed and it will not be developed until I have heard from you. If you have issues that you think should be raised, I would hope that you would not only send those to me with copies to Gerry Goldstein but also send support documents to me. I will review them and send them on the Gerry for inclusion in an agenda booklet which we will plan to mail to you sometime in January. We will be dealing with a variety of issues such as a) the designation criteria, b) possible changes in our bylaws to allow students affiliates, c) the use of physical stimuli and physical interventions in neuropsychology, d) the designation criteria as it relates to nonclinical programs,e) a continuing discussion of the development of new specialities and, of course, f) our favorite all time topic- the budget. In addition,the involvement of new members is critical in our relationship to groups that have a strong number of new and active members such as National Academy of Neuropsychology should be fully discussed. We obviously have strong ties to INS and have no formal ties to NAN even though their membership overlaps ours by more than two-thirds. We have no formal Division 40-NAN Task Forces or other relationships as we do with INS and we should certainly at least discuss the value of doing that both with regard to the pros and the cons.
I hope to be able to get us in touch with several staffers from APA who will provide us some background information. Additionally, I hope that Clarence 619 South
19th Street / Birmingham, Alabama 35233 An Affirmative Action / Equal Opportunity Employer
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October 24, 1983
Martin will be able to arrange a cocktail party for us on Capitol Hill Friday night. That will involve meeting congressmen and senators or their staffers and presenting some of the issues that Division 40 members should be able to provide. We not only have something to ask for such as research and clinical training support but we also have something to give. Our work in the area of rehabilitation clearly has cost benefit effects that congress needs to know about when they are considering health legislation. Our work in the area of head injury and the knowledge that we have developed that could lead to possible prevention of significant numbers of highly morbid conditions is something that congress should be aware of as a very cost effective issue which has a real constituency for them. There are obviously other issues and we will attempt to develop those.
I know each one of you is dealing with at least one issue of some importance which should be discussed. If it is important to you it obviously is going to be important to others. Please think about these issues and send them in with the supporting documents so that we can have an agenda that will allow us to use the time that we have to its greatest productive benefit.
One item which must be discussed in some detail is the need to raise our dues. Division 40's dues are now significantly below those of both Division 38 and Division 12. If we are to take on the numbers of activities that we are invisioning and if we are to continue to grow as a powerful division we are going to need some increase in our financial resources which cannot be accounted for simply by a continuing increase in numbers of members.
I would hope each of you would take an active role in calling members and potential members of Division 40 and encourage them to use their allocation ballot to benefit Division 40. A Division is as good as its representation and as good as its participation. If we can raise our representation to 2 members oncouncil we will be even a more attractive division for new individuals to join. Please take a little time and do something for the Division inthis context which can return dividends many times over.
You will behearing from me again. I look forward to receiving your input.
Best personal regards.
Sincerely,
c-Thomas J. Boll, Ph.D.
President Division of Clinical Neuropsychology TJB/sw
(End of letter text)