AK-PA’s 2025 Annual Meeting and Psychology Awards were held Sept 20th at UAA’s Rasmusen Hall. Members and guests attended in person and online to meet the incoming 2025 officers and new board member at large  who took office on August 15th.  The Annual meeting provided an overview of membership numbers, finances, a legislative update, and update from our APA Council Representative. After the official meeting ended seven (7) AK-PA Psychology Awards were presented.

New Board President, Ruddy Taylor told members one of her goals is finding new ways to collaborate with other state psychological associations as well as other behavioral health organizations in Alaska. She then invited all board members to come up or un-mute to introduced themselves.

Board of Directors Updates:

President – Ruddy Taylor, PhD

President Elect – Marjorie Kyle, PsyD

Member at Large – Kyle Gore-Hall, PsyD

The full board can be viewed at this link: https://www.ak-pa.org/about/board-of-directors/

2025 Board President welcomes everyone to the Annual Meeting and Awards.

Executive Director Update

Membership:

Over the past three years Ak-PA has averaged 134 members (full and affiliate members combined). The board will work on developing new member benefits and CE programming to draw in additional members. Alaska is the only state psychological association that also includes other behavioral health professionals in its membership ranks.

Finances:

AK-PA remains financially sound with 12 months of reserves  and averaging a break even at year end. The chart below show a loss in 2024 correcting the gain in 2023.

 

Executive Director, Marvo Reguindin, providing a membership and finance report.

Legislation Update:

Dr Marjorie Kyle is both our President Elect and APA Federal Advocacy Coordinator (FAC). She presented legislative work on the federal level from APA and our state advocacy priorities shown in the slides below. We send out a weekly update from APA and emails about the state priorities we are working on through our legislative listserv. We invite you to join it at this link: https://groups.io/g/AKPA-Legislative

Federal and State Advocacy Coordinator, Dr Marjorie Kyle, provides a legislative update. Dr Kevin Tarlow (far right) also provided a report on state initiatives AK-PA is working on.

 

 

APA Council Update

Dr Joel Wieman is serving his second three-year term as AK-PA’s APA Council Rep. He had also served as APA Council Rep in the early 2000s.

APA Council Structure and Role

  • Each state has a representative who attends annual meetings in Washington and APA summer meetings.
  • There are about 180 council representatives; Dr Wieman noted his voting number is 176.
  • Council votes on APA policies and the association’s direction.

Recent Votes and Policies

  • Recognition and approval the master’s level license, a policy Alaska has had since the early 1980s.
  • Passed a statement emphasizing the benefits of inclusivity in psychology.
  • Passed a resolution bringing together the traditional therapeutic wisdom from Native American, African, and Eastern communities with the western psychological science and training we have as psychologists
  • Passed a resolution highlighting the need for therapy for children growing up in disaster areas.

 

Dr Joel Weiman, AK-PA APA Council Rep

 

 

The full Annual Meeting and Awards was recorded and can be viewed at the link below (1 hr, 11 mins). A recap of the Awards blog post can be found at this link: https://www.ak-pa.org/2025-psychology-awards/