Western Regional Fall 2012 Letter
Dear fellow Psi Chi members, chapter officers, and faculty advisors,
I hope your fall semester has begun smoothly and you are ready for an exciting academic year. This is a particularly exciting year for Psi Chi members as we have been invited to collaborate with the Open Science Collaboration to give chapter teams or members an opportunity to contribute to an open, large-scale, collaborative research effort to estimate the reproducibility of psychological science. Contributing teams conduct replications of published studies following the protocol established by the Open Science Collaboration, and team members earn authorship on the publication of the aggregated results across dozens of replication projects. For more details, please go to www.psichi.org/pdf/PsiChiProjectOSC.pdf. I strongly encourage you and/or your chapter to contribute to this project.
In addition to this new and exciting opportunity for Psi Chi and psychological science, there are numerous research and travel awards available each year from Psi Chi. Below is an abbreviated list of awards that are available for Psi Chi members, but please visit the website for a complete list (www.psichi.org/Awards/). Please apply for these awards and encourage your fellow members to apply as well as there may be fewer applicants than you expect for each award.
*In addition to the Regional Travel Grants, Psi Chi recently approved Unrestricted Travel Grants to help defray travel costs for graduate and undergraduate students presenting at psychology conferences other than the 6 regional meetings. Details about these will be available soon on the Psi Chi website. In addition, members will be informed about them in Digest emails to all members and on Psi Chi's Facebook page.
The 2012 regional meeting of WPA will convene April 25–28, 2012 at the Grand Sierra Hotel, in Reno, NV. The submission deadline for symposia, papers, or poster presentations is November 15, 2012, and can be submitted at http://www.westernpsych.org/convention/call.cfm.
Each year at WPA, Psi Chi hosts a number of engaging, student focused sessions. We begin with a student poster session on Friday morning, April 26. Later that afternoon, Psi Chi’s distinguished lecturer, Brian Nosek, will give a talk entitled “Scientific Utopia: A Radical View.” On Saturday, Psi Chi will offer sessions on graduate school and leadership. We conclude the convention with a chapter exchange and awards ceremony. Please plan to come to the exchange to enjoy some collegiality with Psi Chi members from across the region. Finalized schedules and distinguished lecturer information will be posted on the Psi Chi website under Conventions early this spring.
It is easy to stay active in the Psi Chi community all year. If you have not yet liked it, the Central Office Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/PsiChiCentralOffice) offers regular updates to members. If your chapter has a Facebook page, it can be a great resource for meeting other Psi Chi and Psi Beta chapters in your geographic area. Consider having a chapter exchange with a nearby school or collaborating on a research project with members from other schools. If planning events with a Psi Beta chapter, consider applying for a Collaboration Grant due on January 20 to help fund the event. Psi Chi is an international community, take advantage of that diversity.
I hope to see you at WPA this year. Please contact me in the meantime if you have questions.
Sincerely,
Jon Grahe, PhD
Psi Chi Western Regional Vice-President
Department of Psychology
Pacific Lutheran University
Tacoma, WA 98447
(253) 535-7394
westernvp@psichi.org