World*Go*Round, Vol. 29, No. 4, September, 2002

Letter from the President          

To those of you who attended the 25th ISPA colloquium in Nyborg, Denmark this summer: Thanks for coming! Wasn’t it a great colloquium?! For those of you who weren’t able to attend, just to give you a flavor of what you missed, here’s are some of the email messages I received from participants after the colloquium:

• This was my first ISPA colloquium but not my last. I thoroughly enjoyed it and hope to be in China next summer.
• Nyborg Colloquium was very important and interesting for me and I enjoyed it very much. I´m sure, I´ll attend one of the next colloquia. And I will try to motivate members of the Bavarian School Psychology Association and other school psychologists in Bavaria to attend it too.
• I really enjoyed my stay in Nyborg and I really enjoyed the colloquium. Thanks for the great support from ISPA. I am very grateful to you and members of the executive committee.
• I will remain a permanent member of ISPA. I have also started advertising ISPA to colleagues in the whole continent of Africa.
• I am very pleased that I entered ISPA and I think this is just the beginning of the fruitful cooperation.
• I do plan to continue my membership in ISPA and my support for the organization generally in any way I am able. People are intrigued when I describe the uniqueness and richness of the experience of associating with school psychologists from so many other countries. I am always amazed at the level of professional interest of those from tiny countries like French Guyana, Estonia, Georgia, etc. They have many of the same concerns we have…I find that just incredible! I was especially impressed with the graduate student presentations from Greece. The rigor in the scientific process they reported was refreshing and reminded me of how I loved the intense academic work as a graduate student and researcher.
• You did a wonderful job with the colloquium. The experience of the ISPA conference with good friends from all over and an almost unimaginably beautiful setting is one I will cherish life long.
• I found this the best colloquium I have attended, and that’s saying a lot. Loved it being all together--better opportunity to talk with people. Well organized. Super. Thanks so much. 

After reading these messages, can there be any doubt that ISPA is alive and flourishing? Those of you who read my columns last year know that I raised questions about the future of ISPA – both in terms of the kind of organization we want to be and whether we had the financial resources to do what we wanted to do. Those questions still exist, but I came away from Nyborg with my batteries recharged and my spirits renewed. I still can’t quite put my finger on what makes an ISPA colloquium magical, but I think I’m closer to the answer. It has something to do with the people who attend – bringing people from all over the world together to share diverse experiences and common concerns creates an energy that is unlike anything I experience in the other professional meetings I attend.

But let’s go back to those questions I referred to above:

Given the meetings attended and decisions made in Nyborg, let me give you an assessment of where we are in terms of the answers to those questions. What kind of organization do we want to be? This was the question addressed by the Leadership Workshop held the day the colloquium opened. Peter Farrell will summarize this meeting elsewhere in the newsletter, but the centerpiece for the day was a discussion about ISPA’s future. While there were some »givens« all participants could agree on – the central role of the colloquium in ISPA’s mission, for instance – a wide range of opinion emerged regarding other aspects of our mission and identify. Some participants want to continue to build ISPA around the colloquium, while others envision a more ambitious association. In one scenario, ISPA was depicted as acting as an umbrella organization for a federation of school psychology organizations around the world – with a broader role for those affiliate organizations as well as a greater opportunity for ISPA to be an influence in shaping policies for children at an international level. Some saw a grand restructuring of the governance and purposes of ISPA, while some saw incremental change as more realistic. Those individuals (and I suppose I place myself in this camp) argued for continuing to do what we do well while gradually expanding our capabilities through some kind of planned change efforts. While the fact that the Leadership Workshop participants did not achieve consensus by the end of the day may have disappointed some, I believe the discussions were productive in laying critical issues on the table. Furthermore, as the colloquium progressed, I was gratified to see how well attended both the General Assemblies and committee meetings were. Even more, I was impressed by the level of participation in all those meetings. 

Do we have the financial resources to do what we want to do? The short answer to this question is: No. This answer almost applies equally whether we’re talking about maintaining ISPA’s status quo or about creating a new design for the future. The Central Office operates on a shoestring and relies heavily on volunteers and donations of members, staff, and friends. Our current Executive Secretary, Anders Poulsen, will serve for one more year, and although his assistant, Elisabeth Jacobsen, has agreed to assume the role of Executive Secretary in the short-term, she made it clear this is a temporary arrangement. This necessitates ISPA planning for a future that may require moving the Central Office to a new site and enlisting assistance and support from new people in new ways. The Executive Committee took steps to reduce the financial strain on the association that we believe will help in the short-term. These include reducing committee budgets and making a decision not to hold this year’s midyear meeting (unless we are surprised from a greater profit from this year’s colloquium than we anticipate). These efforts, we hope, will give us a financial cushion to help build back the reserves we have had to dip into over the past 2-3 years. We took steps to address the longer term financial stability of the association. We are taking the first steps to put together a fundraising committee and we have already had a number of heated discussions in the EC about the balance we need to strike between raising sufficient money from membership and colloquium fees to keep going as an association and charging more money to members than they can afford to pay. These discussions, I am quite sure, will continue for the duration of my time on the Executive Committee. 

One thing I love about my involvement with ISPA is that each year I come away from the colloquium having learned something new about myself, about how school psychology is practiced, and about ISPA itself. What did I learn this year? This year I realized that ISPA members really do feel they own their association and they care passionately about its survival and growth. With that sense of ownership among such a large percentage of its members, ISPA will be around for a long time to come. 

Peg Dawson, President