As part of its primary mission to promote quality in educating and training professional psychologists, the National Council of Schools of Professional Psychology (NCSPP) hosted a National Conference in December 1986. Three general and 33 specific resolutions were unanimously adopted. Particular focus was on core curriculum and evaluation related to the knowledge, skills, and attitudes required for careers in professional psychology. The resolutions have significant areas of convergence and divergence with the resolutions adopted at the June 1987 National Conference on Graduate Education in Psychology in Salt Lake City, Utah. The resolutions of the Mission Bay and Utah conferences are in agreement on the primary importance of recruiting and retaining minority faculty and students and developing curricula more sensitive to cultural diversity. Regarding the role of freestanding schools, the Mission Bay conference resolutions maintain that criterion-based evaluations should be applied equitably to all programs in whatever setting and eschew the venue-based orientation endorsed at the Utah conference.
Understanding that the rhetoric of the midwinter 1988-1989 Puerto Rico conference would be of lasting consequence only if it were translated into action, the conferees passed a series of resolutions and guidelines phrased in terms of behavioral objectives that would allow for an assessment of accountability. A general distinction was made between resolutions and guidelines. Resolutions specified actions to be taken directly by the National Council of Schools of Professional Psychology (NCSPP). Guidelines suggested directions for member schools to follow within their own systems, using their own resources. Guideline goals are the same for all member schools, but specific outcomes will be shaped necessarily by the frameworks of individual institutions.Before acting on specific resolutions and guidelines, the membership of NCSPP endorsed the following general philosophical position:As an expression of their professional and social responsibility, NCSPP and its member schools commit themselves to
The problems of minority recruitment are broad based and mirror the wider problems of American society and its professional psychology training institutions. In addressing these problems, one needs to be aware that to recruit minority applicants successfully, institutions must attend to the pervasiveness of resistance and conflict involved in the pursuit of this goal. In doing so, the face of professional psychology can be changed more effectively.Understandably, there is a need to review the reluctance of minority populations to attend clinical doctoral programs. The review must include a discussion of the minority applicant's valid perceptions of the profession and the programs, because those perceptions may fuel the reluctance. As psychology teaches, any significant human problem is created and sustained by multiple forces. The first step in effective minority recruitment b to identify the negative forces. Then, multiple and interrelated strategies need to be developed to redress the problems that most programs experience.
Problems in Recruiting Minority Applicants
UndergraduatesOne major source of applicants for psychology programs is the undergraduate pool. According to recent studies, there has been a slight decline in the number of 137
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