Reaffirming STP’s commitment to inclusive pedagogy and representation

Stephanie Afful,
STP President

May 2, 2025 

This has been a challenging semester, as the current U.S. administration threatens our academic freedom, funding, and curriculum, particularly for psychology educators. The STP presidential initiatives this year center around preventing burnout. I suspect that many of you are feeling burned out at the end of the semester, which may be exacerbated by the constant news about executive orders and the subsequent changes at institutions. Personally, I have felt more vulnerable and unstable in the classroom than I ever have before, as I teach Social Psychology, Psychology of Prejudice, and Human Sexuality. Given this suspected shared vulnerability, I wanted to share some of the work the STP Executive Committee has done to protect our mission and continue to provide resources that align with our values.

In March, the Executive Committee reviewed our mission statement (as we do annually), and affirmed our mission to “promote equity and social justice for teachers and students of psychology with marginalized, racially minoritized, and intersecting identities” as well as to continue to seek diverse candidates for all positions, and include our Statement on Addressing Systemic Racism in STP in all position announcements. STP does not receive federal funds, and therefore, we have the freedom to choose not to yield to the anticipatory fear and over-compliance. As re-organizations are happening on college campuses, we hope that STP, along with APA, can provide resources and community that demonstrate our continual commitment to inclusive pedagogy and representation.

To that end, we want to mention a few resources that may be helpful during this time:

• APA has published resources to navigate these policy changes in their advocacy center. APA is also asking members to share their stories of how these executive orders have affected their professional efficacy and use those stories as they meet with lawmakers. Our own APA Council representative, Linda Woolf, shared her experience on Capitol Hill in our last newsletter.
  
  
• Another way we support each other is to join our Affinity Groups. We have groups (e.g., Latinx educators, Queer educators) that share resources on their own Listserv, and some meet virtually or at ACT. You are not alone, and one of the greatest strengths of our STP community is the generous social support we give to each other.
  
  
• We also have created three new travel grants that aim to assist under-resourced groups to travel to this year's STP in-person Annual Conference on Teaching (ACT). In addition to our other travel grants, we hope those eligible will consider applying for the Minority Serving Institution (MSI) Instructors ACT travel grant, the Community College Instructors ACT Attendance travel grant, or the Caregivers ACT travel grant (to help alleviate some of the financial burden of caregiving responsibilities). The MSI and Community College grants were recommendations from Past-President Diane Finley’s task forces. We owe a big thank you to Vice President for Grants & Awards Morton Ann Gernsbacher and Vice President for Membership Danae Hudson for their work on the Caregiver grant.
  
  

• Finally, please do check out our existing Diversity & International Relations related resources. While the new Vice President for Diversity & International Relations and committees work to update these offerings and launch new projects consistent with our mission, we also have many years of Diversity Matters blog posts, guidance on decolonizing Introductory Psychology, resources from other agencies, and more. We will continue to work to advocate for and recognize the important diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging related work our members are doing. 

As you may already be aware, STP has made significant financial cuts this year. Our goal continues to be to protect funding for under-resourced groups (e.g., the aforementioned travel grants, protecting reduced student ACT registration rates, and STP member rates). As an organization, STP will continue to seek programming and resources to advocate for psychology educators and our students! We welcome all viewpoints and your feedback as this conversation evolves. Thank you for being an STP member during this critical time in our discipline.  

Read past letters from the STP President