2019 APA President-Elect Candidate Statement - Susan Krauss Whitbourne

Request for Endorsement from Division 35, Society for the Psychology of Women
Susan Krauss Whitbourne, Ph.D., ABPP

My interest in serving as APA President stems from four decades of involvement with the Association. Identifying primarily as an academic, my work in clinical geropsychology reinforces my belief that science and practice are integrally connected. I believe we must work together to bring psychologists into our primary national association by highlighting APA’s value, stature, and source of professional identification. To further this goal, enhancing the involvement of women at all levels is vital. My presidential initiative of bringing psychology “home” to APA reflects my commitment to APA’s future as an organization that is inclusive of all voices.

Throughout my 5 terms on the Council of Representatives, I was on the Women’s Caucus, serving as Chair of Nominations and Elections, Chair, and Secretary, allowing me to mentor dozens of women seeking elected positions in APA. I have given special emphasis in this work to women with little experience in governance. This emphasis on advocating for women in psychology is also reflected in my role as educator. While at UMass Amherst, I served as teacher and advisor to hundreds of women, giving them the professional tools to succeed in their careers within the field. In my retirement, I teach as an adjunct professor of gerontology at the University of Massachusetts Boston where I am able to reach a diverse student body, primarily of women, to provide them with similar expanded access to resources that will allow them to fulfill their career goals.

My research focuses on identity and aging include gender as a key variable. Sexism combines with ageism, racism, heterosexism, and ableism to make the adaptation to later life potentially more challenging, though as I have pointed out in much of my work, women bring greater coping strengths to bear on these challenges. Much of my research concerns women’s development, going back to some of my earliest publications on identity and intimacy development in college and young adulthood. I have published several chapters in edited volumes that specifically concern women’s development. In my popular Psychology Today blog, I often take up women’s issues to inform my readership. I have written a chapter on gender fluidity and aging for the most recent edition of the Handbook of the Psychology of Aging, which includes the most recent research on the experiences of LGBTQ aging individuals and the unique challenges they face. My work is recognized in a number of areas in textbooks on the psychology of women. I was also selected for the Twenty Sixth Eminent Women in Psychology Symposium in 2005, and I will be featured in an upcoming book on women leaders in psychology.

I considered it a great achievement to have received Fellows status in Division 35, and count many in the Division as my friends and colleagues. I have always supported the women who decided to run for this position throughout my years in governance, and through my own candidacy, am putting my philosophy into action. I therefore would consider it a great honor to receive your endorsement.

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