The Road to Remarkable: Directed by Vision, Driven by Strength: 2010 Five-Year Report of the Policy and Planning Board

The 2010 Policy and Planning Board of the American Psychological Association (APA) was chaired by Elena J. Eisman, EdD. Other members of the board included Gwyneth M. Boodoo, PhD; G. Rita Dudley-Grant, PhD; Beverly Greene, PhD; Christopher W. Loftis, PhD; Michael J. Murphy, PhD; Paul D. Nelson, PhD; Kurt Salzinger, PhD; and Michael Wertheimer, PhD. Melba J. T. Vasquez, PhD, was the liaison for the Board of Directors. APA Bylaws Article XI.7 (http://www.apa.org/about/ governance/bylaws/article-11.aspx) requires that the Policy and Planning Board report annually by publication to the membership and review the structure and function of the Association as a whole every fifth year. This report is organized according to the three major categories in the 7 Measures of Success study: commitment to purpose, commitment to analysis and feedback, and commitment to action. The seven measures of success are addressed as subtopics in each of these categories. To gather information about how APA functions in regard to these seven measures, the Policy and Planning Board posed questions in surveys of APA division presidents (41% responded); state, provincial, and territorial psychological association (SPTA) presidents (39% responded); and chairs of APA boards and committees (22% responded), as well as in interviews with all of the APA executive staff (hereafter referred to as the Executive Management Group, or EMG). The questions are presented in Appendix C. In this way, the Policy and Planning Board attempted to assess how a broad sample of the APA and affiliate-group leadership perceives the Association in relation to characteristics of "remarkable" associations. The Policy and Planning Board was also concerned with whether the perceived characteristics of APA would change the further they went from the day-to-day operational functions of the staff level, that is, to the direct governance functions of the board and committee level, to the "one-step removed" issues of the APA divisions, to the "two-steps removed" concerns of affiliated SPTAs. In each of the next three sections of this report, critical questions that the Policy and Planning Board poses for the Good Governance Project Team and the APA membership are followed by analyses of responses to the Policy and Planning Board surveys and interviews.