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Text of Letter:
Clinical Neuropsychology
Division 40
America; Psychological Association
October, 1994
Dear Division 40 Colleague:
Your interests in nemopsychology are at the forefront, as far as Division 40 is concerned. APA is an incredibly powerful tool to help meet your professional objectives in neuropsychology. In order to meet those objectives, however, we must have a significant representation at APA. We can do this by increasing our APA Council of Representatives from two to three, but to do so we need your 10 apportionment votes on the ballot you will soon receive from APA. Here are reasons why you will want to give these votes to Division 40 this year:
1. We speak clearly and unequivocally for neuropsychology.. We are the only group that does this. Years ago, I would spread my votes over several divisions in which I had an interest. Now, however, it is clear to me that if my primary area of endeavor languishes, my interests in the other areas would be irrelevant. Is neuropsychology your primary area of commitment? If so, then why not also commit your votes to this area?
2. The representation of divisions on the APA Council is diminishing. While 82% of Council was made up of divisional representatives in 1966, only 64% of Council is now made up of divisional representatives (American Psvchologist, 1994, 49, 655). Furthermore, if the recent changes in Council representation adopted by Council are affirmed by the membership, the divisional re further reduced and apparently to under 507 resentation as a fraction of Council will be o. This is true because representatives from groups other than divisions would be increased. This boils down to a simple point: if we don't increase our divisional representation on Council, our influence on Council may actually decrease. In the current health care era, we cannot afford this.
3. Your votes will make a difference because we are very close to getting that third representative now.In the last voting we got 2.33% whereas we needed 2.50% to get the third representative.The difference a mere 426 votes needed, or only l/3 of a single vote per voting member.By the way, only l/3 of us voted which is typical in APA but not nearly as good as we can do in our division.
Let's join together, get that third representative, and really make our voice heard in APA!
Cordially,
Carl B. Dodrill, Ph.D.
Division 40 President
Regional Epilepsy Center (ZA-50)
Harbor-view Medical Center
Seattle WA 98104
Phone (206) 223-3557
Fax (206) 223-4409
(End of letter text)