Message from President-elect Mary Gregerson
We need your feedback!
This year, Division 10 is debuting a hybrid program called a Structured Poster Session (SP; see the last paragraphs for the circumstances promoting this creative formatting). Two Division 10 programs are Structured Poster Sessions:
Session Title: 1280 Structured Group Poster Session I
Date: Thu 08/03 2:00PM – 2:50PM
Division/Sponsor: 10-Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts
Building/Room: Convention Center/Halls D and E Level Two
Session Title: 2071 Structured Poster Session II
Date: Fri 08/04 9:00AM – 9:50AM
Division/Sponsor: 10-Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts
Building/Room: Convention Center/Halls D and E Level Two
For an SPS a group of topically related posters/presenters are clustered together and separated by empty poster boards from other SPS groupings. The Poster Hall setting becomes like a village center where “soapbox” talks occur as each poster presenter talks, one at a time, at the outset of the time allotted to briefly describe her or his work to the audience standing in close proximity. One person serves as “Chair” to introduce the overall theme and then keep the beginning brief talks moving along until the gathered group transforms by breaking into the informal discussion so valuable to typical Posters.
In July each Chair of the SPS will be designated and confer with me. If the SPS is a converted symposium, the Chair of the Symposium becomes the Chair of the SPS. If a newly formed SPS, then the most senior person will be invited to assume Chair responsibilities:
- Who acts as Chair?
- Who presents first, second, third, etc.?
- How long does each person present?
- How much time is there to walk around for informal Q&A after these brief talks?
The innovative SPS hybrid of a symposium and poster presentation capitalizes on centralizing those presenting on a common topic while still fostering the give-and-take of informal conversations as well as more interaction between presenters. Audience members efficiently locate in the same area all those presenting on a range of similar topic. The audience is also being afforded the opportunity often missed in symposia for informal Q&A with presenters. For many symposia, such informal Q&A often happens in the hallway outside the conference room after the symposium ends.
A number of pioneering Div 10 members have agreed to present in an SPS. You, too, can participate in creative Convention programming as audience. We need audience members with the same spirit of exploration. Come join us Thursday afternoon at 2pm or Friday morning at 9am, both sessions located in the Convention Centers Halls D & E, Lower Level.
Then, we will seek immediate feedback from both presenters and audience so we can plan for the future.
Why, you may ask, has this innovative format occurred in 2017? This year our Division 10 Society for the Psychological Study of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts had an over-abundance of symposia proposals. What good news that we have such productive, motivated members!
And, now, for the bad news. We only have a modest numbers of Division 10 Convention Hours, based upon a formula derived somewhat from attendance at our past Convention sessions. Over recent years the APA Board of Convention Affairs has trimmed Division 10 Convention hours by siphoning all Divisions’ hours to experiment with re-assigning hours to the Collaborative Programming Group (CPG).
More good news. Any Division 10 sponsored CPG proposal that wins acceptance does not consume any of our coveted Division Convention hours. And, yes, more bad news. Thousands of CPG proposals were submitted for the 2017 Convention, each sponsored by at least two Divisions. Division 10 did not win any CPG slots (30 or so hours) so all our proposals had to be served by our modest number of hours. Hence, the emergence of SPS.
If you have any questions beforehand, feel free to contact me, mary.gregerson@aol.com. Thanks in advance for your interest and for hitching your Conestoga wagon to our pioneering effort!