At the end of 2018, the APAGS Committee invested in a brand new award program to support institutional recruitment and retention of diverse doctoral students in psychology and closely related programs by engaging current graduate students in such efforts. The number of applications received for the “APAGS Student Diversity Initiative Award” surpassed expectations and made this APAGS award highly competitive. A team of committee members awarded five institutions approximately $3,000 each to help them implement new initiatives or support existing programs, committees, and resources. APAGS defined diversity to include identification by race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, ability/disability, religion, language, socioeconomic status, and age.
The following five winners are to be congratulated for their efforts and wished every success as they move forward on proposed initiatives:
Authors from Emory University School of Medicine proposed a training and mentoring program for students of color pursuing graduate education in psychology. The funding will support a weekend workshop for undergraduate students of color interested in pursuing a career in psychology, materials for attendees, and follow-up evaluation of the program’s success. Faculty from across Atlanta will provide training to attendees on the graduate school application process and pertinent issues of discrimination and social justice, and attendees will be paired with graduate student mentors.
Old Dominion University and the Virginia Consortium Program in Clinical Psychology, through the ODU Research Foundation, secured funds to repeat and expand a successful workshop to assist local minority students in developing and preparing a successful application to graduate programs in clinical psychology. Funding would support the workshop by providing attendees with transportation to and dinner at the workshop, GRE preparation materials, and other resources.
University of Houston’s School Psychology Program proposed an immersion program to cultivate culturally responsive service. Funding will go to students who identify as culturally and linguistically diverse to support their participation in training experiences associated with the multilingual training track, specifically an immersion trip to Mexico. This program has the potential to help the program’s reputation for its emphasis in supporting school psychology trainees who are fluent in languages other than English.
University of Massachusetts Boston’s Clinical Psychology Program secured funding for a Student Diversity Coordinator, a current graduate student who will be hired to update recruitment materials (including brochures and digital narratives), serve as a consultant to faculty members looking to share external funding opportunities with admitted students, and coordinate a greatly expanded peer mentoring program to ensure the successful transition into and through doctoral study.
Virginia Commonwealth University’s Clinical Psychology Program secured funds to support various purposes aimed at recruitment and retention, including: An informal meeting between applicants and doctoral students from diverse backgrounds during admission interviews; providing applicants from diverse backgrounds with travel funds to facilitate their participation in this informal meeting; forming a group to foster the professional development and social support of underrepresented students; and bringing in a speaker to address the intersection of clinical work, cultural humility, and social justice to improve the inclusion of diverse perspectives in clinical training.
The APAGS Committee hopes to issue similar awards in future years.
This letter is from John C. Norcross, PhD, ABPP, an internationally recognized authority on clinical psychology and psychotherapy. Dr. Norcross is Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of Scranton, Clinical Professor at The Commonwealth Medical College, and a board-certified clinical psychologist. He has published more than 400 scholarly publications and 20 books, including the 5-volume APA Handbook of Clinical Psychology, Psychotherapy Relationships that Work, Insider’s Guide to Graduate Programs in Clinical & Counseling Psychology, and Systems of Psychotherapy: A Transtheoretical Analysis, now in its 8th edition. He served as president of several APA divisions and international organizations, receiving multiple professional awards, such as APA’s Distinguished Career Contributions to Education & Training Award, Pennsylvania Professor of the Year from the Carnegie Foundation, and election to the National Academies of Practice. For more info, please visit Dr. Norcross’s 
This letter is from Dr. Y. Barry Chung. Dr. Chung received his PhD in counseling psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1996. He was a faculty member at Georgia State University and Department Chair at Northeastern University, before joining the faculty at Indiana University Bloomington where he is currently Associate Dean for Graduate Studies. Dr. Chung is a past President of the National Career Development Association and Society of Counseling Psychology, and is President-Elect of the Council of Counseling Psychology Training Programs. He is known for his scholarly work on career development, multicultural counseling, and sexual orientation and gender identity issues. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association (Divisions 17, 44, and 45), Asian American Psychological Association, and National Career Development Association.