August 10, 2019

Presidential Citations and Recognitions

One of the great joys of being STP president is being able to recognize those individuals who have provided outstanding service over the years to our division.

At the APA Convention, I was honored to give a Presidential Citation to Barney Beins. Barney’s contributions to teaching have involved active service to STP and APA as well as his involvement with the Advanced Placement Test. There is not much that STP does that Barney Beins has not been a part of, including editing our e-publications, serving on the editorial board of Teaching of Psychology, advising TOPSS, and working with psychology teachers at community colleges. He has served on or chaired a multitude of STP committees including the G. Stanley Hall/Harry Kirke Wolfe Lecture Series, Project Syllabus, and the Computer Initiatives Committee to name but a few.

I presented a Special Recognition to Chris Cardone, the psychology editor at Worth Publishers. Chris is a true friend of teachers of psychology. She does not compromise quality in the name of profit, and she is a cheerleader for her authors even when their current books are with another publisher. She has been a serious advocate of research in support of teaching. After working in psychology for so long, she actually understands the discipline in ways that most other editors don’t. In addition, when projects end, Chris maintains contact with authors and supports them.

I presented a Recognition for Service to Lyra Stein. For the past several years, Lyra has served, first as co-editor and more recently as sole editor of the E-xcellence in Teaching series. Lyra has been indefatigable in soliciting manuscripts on interesting topics and has helped authors to bring out the best in their writing. Lyra took over the sole editing job when Bill Altman became Vice President. She also stayed on an extra year to help create staggered editing posts, while helping to train the incoming editor. Thank you, Lyra.

Finally, I was able to recognize Jamie McMinn’s years of service in organizing the STP program at APA. Through his efforts and involvement in STP at APA, literally thousands of STP, and more importantly, non-STP members have been introduced to the leading scholars of teaching of psychology that invariably has had a profound impact on teachers around the country and the world. Jamie is incredible and has become the wizard of division programming at APA. Candy Won at APA has relied heavily on him to mentor other division chairs. Thanks, Jamie.

Rick Miller

President, Society for the Teaching of Psychology