This year's candidate for the position of Psi Chi Southwestern Regional Vice-President for the 2008-2009 Psi Chi National Council is Randall Osborne, PhD, Texas State University–San Marcos. His biographical and position statements are as follows.

Randall Osborne, PhD

Biographical Statement
Dr. Osborne received his Ph.D. in Social Psychology from The University of Texas at Austin in 1990. He successfully defended his dissertation in the Fall of 1989 while serving as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Luther College in Decorah Iowa. After serving two years as an Assistant Professor at Phillips University, Dr. Osborne joined the faculty at Indiana University East in 1992 and was tenured and promoted to Associate Professor in 1997. In 2005 Dr. Osborne received Full Professor status at Texas State.

Dr. Osborne has served as chair of the Behavioral and Social Science Division at Indiana University East and the psychology department at Texas State. His colleagues describe him as endlessly enthusiastic. He himself lives by the motto, “take your job seriously and yourself lightly.”

Dr. Osborne has served as Regional Coordinator for the Midwestern Region and then President of the National Council of Teachers of Undergraduate Psychology. He has been a Psi Chi advisor for over 15 years and helped establish the Psi Chi chapter at Indiana University East.

Position Statement.
Being a member of Psi Chi should be perceived as a lifelong commitment to the ideals of excellence in teaching, service and scholarship. As a student, this meant going beyond the expectations of the classroom and devoting time to serving others and scholarly inquiry. As an educator, I have always envisioned the three areas of my professional life (scholarship, service and teaching) as intertwined. The paths mutually inform each other. Through service I am a more compassionate teacher. Through teaching, I can demonstrate the importance of scholarship and service. Through scholarship I can do research that can be applied to real world issues.

My position is one of empowerment, communication, active listening and follow-through. As Vice President for the Southwestern Region, I would work: (1) to empower all chapters to add their voice to Psi Chi’s future, (2) to communicate those voices forward to the national level, (3) to actively listen, without employing my own biases and filters, to what these chapters have to say and offer and (4) to follow-through on those communications so that the flow of information truly moves both ways.
 
How Does My Chapter Vote?
First, chapters should plan to organize a chapter meeting where all members can be present when the candidate(s) for office are announced. Use this meeting time to read the candidates’ background information. Have your chapter make an informed decision about selecting which candidate your members think would best benefit Psi Chi in the upcoming year.

After your chapter has made a decision on a candidate, your Psi Chi Chapter President, with assistance from the faculty advisor as needed, can access the electronic ballot by logging in as a chapter administrator between February 1 and March 15, 2008 on the Psi Chi website at www.psichi.org/chapters/login.asp.

If your chapter has lost its chapter administrator login information, it can be emailed to your chapter’s current email contact by going to www.psichi.org/chapters/login_forgot.asp.

A menu of administrator options will appear after successfully logging in, and a new section named “Ballots/Voting” will appear at the top of the list of options. Click on the “Ballots/Voting” link to continue. This section will only be visible February 1–March 15, 2008.

You will then be presented with your chapter’s ballot(s). Chapters in the Midwestern, Southeastern, and Southwestern Regions will be able to vote for their respective region’s vice-president. All active Psi Chi chapters are eligible to vote for the Psi Chi National President-Elect position.

Select the ballot you want to cast a vote for, choose the candidate your chapter has selected, and click on the “Submit Ballot” button. A confirmation screen will appear with your candidate selection and, if necessary, allow you to cancel your vote and resubmit it if you made an error. Just as with mail ballots, once you submit your vote, you cannot edit or change your vote.

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