Although I just wrote yesterday about the dangers of predicting the future, this was an easy one for me to predict. The New York Times reports that Democrats are working to overturn the latest Supreme Court case dealing with age discrimination. The case and ruling makes it harder for older workers to prove age discrimination. My guess is that the Supreme Court ruling was a practical one, wanting to avoid having the courts overwhelmed with layoff cases alleging age. It would also seem easy to predict that the Democrats will pass legislation overturning the decision in the case of Gross v FBL Financial.

Everyone is probably interested in sports psychology for one reason or another. For those with a professional interest, the following workshop is being offered for psychologists (and students):

10th Annual Sport Psychology Professional Training Workshop
Date: June 26-27, 2009

“Developing Your Knowledge, Skills, and Practice in Sport Psychology”, an intensive workshop, will be conducted by the Ohio Center for Sport Psychology, June 26-27, 2009, Friday and Saturday, at the Courtyard by Marriott, Middleburg Hts., OH, a suburb of Cleveland. The program is designed for mental health and sport science professionals and students who are interested in starting or expanding practices in sport psychology. The workshop will be conducted by Jack J. Lesyk, Ph.D., author of Developing Sport Psychology Within Your Clinical Practice. For additional information check the center’s website www.SportPsych.org or contact Dr. Lesyk at (216) 575-6175 or jjlesyk@SportPsych.org.

The Akron community and the University of Akron lost an oustanding Dean and faculty member when Paul Lam passed away this week. I have written before in this blog about my work with Paul on STEM projects at the University of Akron. We were just in the process of completing work on a three year grant investigating a STEM grant aimed at increasing participation among middle school students. On a personal level, I will miss Paul a great deal. He was an oustanding professional and a great person to spend time with whether discussing soccer, golf, or academics. Or eating.

Paul’s obituary appears here and I want to reproduce it here in full as a way of honoring my friend.

Paul Chi-King Lam, Ph.D., 62, died May 24, 2009 after fighting a courageous battle with Kidney disease. Dr. Lam was born in Nanking, China and had resided in Cuyahoga Falls the past 34 years, moving here from West Lafayette, Ind. Dr. Lam was a true scholar and valued all aspects of the educational enterprise including research, teaching and service. His academic journey began at Purdue University, where he received a B.S. in Engineering Science in 1969. His graduate education next took him to the University of Illinois where he obtained a M.S. in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics in 1970. After Illinois, he attended The University of Akron, where he received the Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering in 1978.

After brief sojourns into the corporate world at Pratt Whitney, Babcock & Wilcox, and General Motors, Dr. Lam began his academic career as an Assistant Professor at the University of Akron in 1980. He was to serve Akron with all his amazing devotion to students and research for the 29 years. Most recently, he served with distinction as Associate Dean, Undergraduate Studies and Diversity Programs, and as a Full Professor of Mechanical Engineering.

As a faculty member and Dean, Dr. Lam worked with many students and he truly loved watching students grow into active professionals. There are far too many students whose lives he influenced to ever list them all. This included students at every level, from Ph.D. to grade school children in the workshops he delivered at local schools. Dr. Lam was an advisor for ASME and participated in over 57 Ph.D. or Master’s level committees.

A phrase that could be used repeatedly to describe Dr. Lam “is too numerous to mention.” This expression certainly describes his professional service and activities. Some of the technical societies in which he held membership include American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE), American Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), National Assoc. of Minority Engr. Program Administrators (NAMEPA), and National Advancement Council of Minorities in Engineering (NACME). Honor society memberships included Omicron Delta Kappa, Phi Eta Sigma, Sigma Gamma Tau, Tau Beta Pi, and Sigma Pi Sigma. He served on committees for many of these organizations, including the Ohio Space Grant Consortium K-12 Education and Pipeline Committee, and also reviewed for journals and federal agencies.

Dr. Lam set high standards for his students and for himself. He was a tireless worker, who also found time to pursue his passion for knowledge. His accomplishments included a patent and over 120 journal, conference, or book publications. There were of course many additional conference presentations and technical reports. As further recognition of the high quality of Dr. Lam’s work, he received over 50 grants or donations of funds as a source of support for his research and his minority programs. His areas of research interest and publication included structural dynamics, rehabilitation and adaptive devices for cerebral palsy patients, finite element analysis of structures, fatigue and fracture evaluation of material behavior, minority engineering education, pre-college math-science-technology programs, and retention models of engineering education.

The Northeast Ohio area has many strengths. Unfortunately, all too often, we fail to emphasize our strengths. Even more tragically, many people inside of Northeast Ohio are unware of the tremendous talent pool the region has to offer.

This is especially true in the area of human resource consulting, especially as it relates to employment testing and development. The Northeast Ohio area has many top companies that enjoy a favorable world wide reputation. Of course, I would like to think that in large part that is due to the many impressive alumni turned out by the University of Akron, and also Bowling Green State University and Case Western. (If we expand our reach eastward a couple of hours to include Pittsburgh, then the concentration of companies is even more impressive). We really do have a tremendous resource – which can be even more impressive if we find ways to work together and share ideas.

I hope to highlight various firms doing great work in the Northeast Ohio area, many of them staffed in part by our alumni from University of Akron. In this blog I would like to mention O.E. Strategies. They offer a number of excellent services including assessment and coaching. They have put together a short white paper that makes for an easy read on employment testing. This white paper emphasizes two important points 1) the need for validity evidence and 2) the importance of expert advice when implementing a testing program. The white paper can be found here.

The Psychology Archives will present a colloquium by Dr. Marigold Linton on Thursday, March 5th from 12:30 – 2:00 pm in Room 335 of the Student Union. The title is “Living a Life, Archiving a Life.”

Dr. Linton’s main research area involves the examination of very long-term memory. For those interested in STEM, as Director of American Indian Programs at Arizona State University, Dr. Linton worked with all the tribes in Arizona to improve math/science education. Her distinguished career has included major roles in creating programs that have enabled many American Indians to earn advanced degrees in the sciences.

The Psychology Archives Colloquium Series is free and open to the public.

I just returned from the SPIM - SCP (Society of Counseling Psychology, Division 13 of APA) conference in San Diego. This was my second time at a SCP Conference and I would certainly recommend their conferences to practitioners, especially those interesting in consulting psychology, coaching, and individual assessment. This is a small, intimate conference, and everyone was very friendly. The weather in San Diego did not quite cooperate, it was wet and cold, but being from Ohio I know you cannot do much about the weather.

Due to a heavy schedule and multiple commitments, I could not attend as many sessions as I might have liked. However, standouts for me included a dynamic presentation by John Hofmeister (former President of Shell and now President of Citizens for Affordable Energy). Although his talk covered a number of bases, I would nutshell it as “selection of key personnel, especially executives, is critical; make sure you carefully select your top executives.”

Some of my other learning points:

• Distance coaching can work
• Ethics remains an important and complex issue
• People are worried about the economy and the impact it will have on consulting and human resource practice (this comes from both sessions and cocktail hours)

 Are you involved in leadership and executive coaching and interested in information on dealing with the challenges organizations face during the current economic crisis? If so, RHR International has let me know that along with Decision Strategies International, they will be presenting a Free Webinar on Leading Through Uncertain Times. RHR would like to invite readers of this page to the Webinar.

The Webinar will be offered on February 9, 2009, from 2:PM through 3:00PM EST. If you are interested, please email rhrinternational@rhrinternational.com to confirm your attendance and receive dial-in information.

Topics to be covered include how to deal with anxiety, lack of productivity, and strategic direction.

I received this question for discussion. Here goes:

Basically, some US Cities are starting to eliminate questions from their job applications asking whether prospective employees have been convicted of a crime. The purpose – to keep convicts from being shut out of the workforce.

They may still conduct background checks before hire, but the basic idea is to get more convicts in the workforce.

As an interesting side note, one of the cities is New Haven, CT, although a number of major cities have taken the same step or are considering doing so.

So what do you think? Should applicants be asked questions about their criminal record?

What should be the policy toward hiring people convicted of crimes?

Results from an Akron Public Service Lawsuit. A federal jury awarded 23 Akron firefighters nearly $2 million after finding that a 2004 test Akron used for lieutenant and captain positions skewed against white applicants for captain’s rank and black candidates for lieutenant.

The jurors, who delivered their verdict this afternoon before U.S. Judge John R. Adams, also found that the results of the lieutenants’ test also discriminated against candidates over the age of 40.

OK – and now to cheer you up, some Holiday music.

Two recent reminders from the IPMAAC listserv.

First, on the non-definition of applicants. A couple of years ago, I laughed when I commented on what was going to take so long. In the end, no definition was reached.

Second, on an EEOC conference on criminal records.