Deadline for 2025 Nominations July 8th, 2024 at 5pm Central Time
Please complete the APPIC CoA Nominations Interest Form by July 8th at 5pm CST for review by the APPIC Board of Directors.
Information for Prospective Members of the APA Commission on Accreditation (CoA)
Prospective members of the Commission on Accreditation (CoA) are drawn from those who are knowledgeable about education and training in psychology and who have had broad, national exposure to multiple aspects of the profession. Members of CoA are appointed by the APA Board of Educational Affairs (BEA).
The CoA meets four times per year; one meeting is conducted virtually via Zoom, while the other three meetings are held in a hybrid format, allowing for in-person or virtual participation. All CoA meetings are scheduled for 4 days each and start on Wednesday and end on Saturday. The first meeting of each calendar year, typically held in early February, is focused on developing and reviewing accreditation policies and procedures. No program reviews are conducted during the policy meeting. The subsequent three meetings each year, typically held in late March/early April, July, and late October/early November, are focused primarily on comprehensive reviews of programs in health service psychology, currently at the doctoral, internship, and postdoctoral residency levels. Please note that master’s accreditation policies and procedures are currently being developed. As time permits the CoA also addresses policy issues during these three program review meetings. On rare occasions and with substantial advance notice, additional meetings may be added to the regular schedule to allow the Commission to complete major policy-related tasks.
Considerable preparation is required prior to each of the three program review meetings. Each CoA member is usually assigned 5-8 programs for which they serve as a reviewer. Review of a program is very thorough, including review of the program’s self-study, the program’s response to preliminary review of the self-study, the site visit report, the program’s response to the site visit report, and all the program related correspondence. As an important note, the accreditation program review process is now online – due to this change these materials are reviewed from an online portal. Each member will serve as a reviewer for programs that represent their substantive area or specialty as well as for programs from other areas. In addition, all CoA members are responsible for the review of programs at all levels. Preparation time for these reviews is quite substantial, requiring detailed study that typically runs anywhere from 5 to 15 hours for each review, depending on complexity. All program reviews are completed within the four weeks immediately preceding each of the three program review meetings.
In addition, the agenda for the Commission’s policy discussions normally requires several hours of preparation. Policy issues range across a broad spectrum and include topics such as specific provisions of the accreditation standards as well as the general conduct of the accreditation review process. To facilitate this policy work, each CoA member participates in a CoA work group (e.g., Communication, Training, Research, or Complaints) and a policy group (e.g., Master’s, Doctoral, Internship, Postdoctoral Residency).
Beyond the expectations described above, other potential service tasks for CoA members may include:
• preliminary reviews of self-studies from applicant programs
• chairing or co-chairing a program review panel during a program review meeting
• serving as a chair or co-chair of a work group or policy group
• conducting workshops, virtually, for site visitors or training directors
• representing CoA at various group meetings (such as CCTC, CCPTP, APPIC, CoS, etc.)
• participating in CoA governance via membership on the CoA executive committee
• occasionally participating in special site visits
Service as a member of CoA is clearly a heavy work-load appointment and an appropriate allocation of time and effort is an important consideration. Finally, prospective members need to know that while serving as a CoA member (and for one year after ending CoA membership), they may not serve as a regular accreditation site visitor and may not serve as a formal or informal consultant to any program. However, CoA members can serve as special site visitors on behalf of the Commission.
2025 CoA meeting dates
New member program review training: January 29, 2025
CoA policy meeting: January 31 - February 1, 2025
Spring program review meeting: April 2-5, 2025
Summer program review meeting: July 16-19, 2025
Fall meeting: October 15-18, 2025
Fall program review meeting: October 16-19, 2024
https://www.accreditation.apa.org/important-dates
www.apa.org/ed/accreditation/about/coa/