External Board Representation
Dr. Suzanne E. MacDonald
CPA Board Member representing the CCDP
suzmac@yorku.ca
Website: ccdop.ca
Council of Canadian Departments of Psychology (CCDP)
Formed in 1999, the CCDP’s primary objectives are to represent and promote psychology as a scientific discipline inside and outside university settings. They serve an advocacy and informational role with regional and national agencies which provide research and scholarship funds, and provide leadership and perspective in the areas of undergraduate and graduate education, program accreditation, and research that takes place within departments of psychology. The CCDP maintains an active listserv, website, and database to ensure that its members are informed and connected. The CCDP has over 60 members from institutions across the country, from Vancouver Island to Newfoundland.
The CCDP works closely with the Canadian Psychological Association as well as the Canadian Society for Brain, Behaviour and Cognitive Science (CSBBCS). They are also active members of the Canadian Council on Animal Care and the Canadian Consortium on Research. Working together, we and our partners lobby national agencies to advocate for continued support for research and teaching in psychology. Many CCDP members are also active in the Council of Graduate Departments of Psychology.
For more information about CCDP, please contact:
Dr. Suzanne MacDonald
Executive Director
suzmac@yorku.ca
CCDP Reports to the Board
March 2008
Recent months have been relatively calm for the CCDP. Following a transfer of the office from the University of Windsor (Dr. Ron Frisch, past Executive Director) to the University of Calgary, some time was spent updating the web site and ensuring that the list of Departmental heads and chairs was current. The web site also contains job postings and award winners from the teaching assistantship program http://bolt.lakeheadu.ca/~psychwww/CCDP/CCDPindex.html
Discussion was held with the President of the CSBBCS (www.csbbcs.org), Dr. Doug Mewhort (Queens University) about a possible meeting at their conference. The CSBBCS will next meet June 19- 21, 2008 at the University of Western Ontario, however, so that will not be possible. In 2009, CSBBCS will be hosting a joint meeting with the BPS in York, England (July 8- 10, 2009). It is possible that CCDP will meet in conjunction with CSBBCS in 2010; that issue will be discussed when we next meet.
The CCDP was asked by CPA about the issue of problems with SSHRC fellowships. An informal survey was conducted of CCDP members. Of the 11 departments who responded, 7 reported not having problems with eligibility of students, but 4 did. The distinction between these two sets of programs clearly seems to be that programs with a formal distinction between master’s and doctoral program requirements, and a formal application and transfer between degree levels, do not have problems with SSHRC. One program wrote and said that the SSHRC reviewed their program and in the end agreed that students were eligible for both masters and doctoral fellowships, as they did not find any “evidence of accumulation of credits from the master’s to the doctoral level.”
The CCDP will hold its next meeting in concert with the CPA conference in Halifax in June, 2008. It has decided to move the date and time, though, to be a dinner meeting on the Saturday evening (the past meetings were typically on the Sunday morning). We are in the process of inviting a speaker to the dinner on a theme of interest to CCDP members, which this year will be benchmarking for undergraduate curricula.
Respectfully submitted,
Keith Dobson, Ph.D.
Executive Director of CCDP and CPA Board Member