Student Affiliates of Seventeen (SAS) 2020 Report: Transitioning to Leadership in a Historic Year

Abstract

The University of Missouri–Columbia was selected to host the Student Affiliates of Seventeen (SAS) Executive Board from 2019–2022 and began their term in August 2019, following a successful three-year tenure by Ball State University. The new executive board has anchored its term in four pillars—Growth and Sustainability, Justice and Equity, Excellence and Innovation, and Wellness and Positive Development—which have guided the organization over the past year. This report reviews the purpose of SAS and discusses membership development, programming, advocacy, and the organizational development activities of the organization, including progress on goals to increase and engage membership and foster a more equitable and socially just organization that embraces liberation as a value. Counseling psychology students’ and the organization’s response and adjustment to the COVID-19 pandemic and national reckoning with police brutality and anti-Black racism are also discussed.

2022 Report: Student Affiliates of Seventeen (SAS)

“…Traditionally, the SAS executive board has drawn members from one APA-accredited doctoral program for a 3-year period. During the first year of our tenure, the executive board consisted of master’s and doctoral counseling psychology students at the University of Missouri (McGillen et al, 2020). In Fall 2020, SAS adopted a hybrid leadership model, with a more limited cabinet of student leaders (including the chairs) at the host institution and a majority of the SAS executive board from a wider range of schools.…”

Student Affiliates of Seventeen (SAS) 2021 Report

“…After onboarding the first hybrid national SAS Executive Board, our first official Executive Board meeting, which took place on January 13, 2021, included a brainstorming session to develop ideas for the year's theme. We agreed that our theme would be in alignment with the SCP's 2020-2021 Presidential Theme, It Takes a Village: ENGAGING with Solidarity in Practice, Anti-Black Racism, Leadership, Advocacy, and Big Ideas (SCP, n.d.), chosen by Dr. Mary O'Leary Wiley; it would also incorporate SAS's four focus areas or "pillars," stated in the original proposal from MU's counseling psychology program: (a) Growth and Sustainability, (b) Justice and Equity, (c) Excellence and Innovation, and (d) Wellness and Positive Development (SAS, n.d.;McGillen et al, 2020).…”

“…In response to the COVID-19 pandemic and its adverse financial impact on graduate students, and prior concerns expressed by SAS student members about reduced funding, assistantship opportunities, and cuts to health insurance for graduate assistants, the SAS Executive Board created an emergency relief fund in July 2020 for students in counseling psychology doctoral programs and affiliated master's programs. The board allotted $15,000 towards the fund (McGillen et al, 2020). Given that the total amount requested exceeded our fund, the SAS tri-chairs advocated to the SCP Executive Board to secure additional funding to support all students that submitted a request.…”

“…During the 2020 APA Convention, SAS recognized six individuals and groups with the SAS Award for Outstanding Dedication to Social Justice and Liberation in Counseling Psychology (The Counseling Psychologist, 2020). The award resonated with SCP's 2019-2020 presidential theme, Building a Counseling Psychology of Liberation (D17 CounselingPsych, 2020), with ongoing student activism and advocacy, including student participation in the public uprisings against anti-Black racism that intensified in Summer 2020 (McGillen et al, 2020). In October 2020, the SAS Tri-Chairs and SAS Advisor Dr. Lisa Flores provided a space for award recipients to connect to discuss their shared challenges related to activism, both in their programs and…”

“…The SAS Restructuring Task Group initially convened in 2019 to examine how SAS has traditionally been structured and explore the possibility of a new, more equitable and inclusive alternative structure, outside of the traditional host institution model (McGillen et al, 2020). In Summer 2021, two of the SAS Tri-Chairs, Gloria McGillen and Alexis Rhames, current SAS Executive Board members, Satveer Kler, Rachel Chickerella, and Kareema Smith, past SAS Co-Chair, Ashley Schoener, and early career professional, Roberto Abreu, reconvened to discuss possible options for moving forward.…”