Have you ever wondered about the process by which candidates are nominated?

Have you ever wondered about the process by which candidates are nominated? This year's Nominating Committee thought APA members might be interested to know how their colleagues came to be on the ballot.

The process starts with the appointment of members of the Nominating Committee. The president-elect appoints a chair, traditionally the immediate past president, and a member from each Area Council and the Committee of Minority/Underrepresented Groups from a list of three names submitted from each Area Council and the committee.

The Nominating Committee's charge is to select at least two candidates for each office: president-elect, vice president or secretary-treasurer in alternate years, trustee-at-large (ECP trustee every third year), and member-in-training trustee-elect. Area trustees are elected on a rotating basis. Nominations are made by the appropriate Area Councils, which report their nominees to the national Nominating Committee by September 1.

Recommendations for nominations are solicited through standard announcements in Psychiatric News, the Daily Bulletin at APA's annual meeting, a link on the APA Web site, and letters to district branches, Area councils, and residency training centers. (Look for such announcements in May and June next year.)

A form is sent to every eligible member who is recommended to ascertain whether he or she wishes to be considered for nomination and, if so, which offices he or she is willing to accept. To inform the Nominating Committee's deliberations, the member is asked to submit a brief statement of professional activities and to complete and sign a standard disclosure of interests and affiliations statement and a statement that there are no charges of unethical behavior pending at the local level.

The committee holds conference calls during the summer prior to meeting in September. The first call is to discuss operating procedures. The second call is held in late summer to make preliminary selections after reviewing the members' forms and other materials. The committee then meets during APA's fall component meetings to make its final selections and secures acceptances of the nominees.

The process for selecting nominees for the member-in-training trustee-elect (MITTE) is more complex. To be eligible for consideration, residents must be APA members-in-training and in their PGY-2 or PGY-3 year the summer prior to the election, and they must have the training director or department chair sign a statement indicating that if the resident is elected, the training director agrees to allow him or her to honor this two-year commitment as MITTE and member-in-training trustee (MITT) as part of training. PGY-3 residents must plan to be in training through PGY-5 so as to be in training through the term as MITT and must submit a signed statement of intent to do so. Residents submit contact and demographic information, a brief curriculum vitae, and a one-page personal statement.

The residents' materials are reviewed by the MITTE Nominating Subcommittee, chaired by the immediate past MITT and composed of the current MITT and the chairs of the Committee of Residents and Fellows, and Committee of Area MIT Representatives, and a representative of the fellowship groups chosen on a rotating basis. This subcommittee reviews the submissions and recommends its top five choices to the Nominating Committee, which selects the final nominees.

Any APA voting member who wishes to be considered for nomination may so inform the Nominating Committee and/or may ask other members to contact the committee on his or her behalf. (Voting members are members-in-training, general members, fellows, life members, life fellows, distinguished fellows, and distinguished life fellows.)

Eligible members may also be nominated by a petition signed by 400 eligible voting members (100 for Area trustee). The petition must be submitted to the APA secretary-treasurer by October 15 of the year prior to the election.

More information on the nomination or petition processes is available by contacting Carol Lewis by e-mail at [email protected] or by phone at (888) 357–7924, ext. 8527.