SCP President-Elect Candidate Statements

Bongjoo Hwang, Ph.D.

I am honored to be running for the president-elect position for the Division that I have found home as a counseling psychologist. If elected, I would like to continue our divisional efforts to make our division as a professional home to everyone and to have our division more positive impact on the global society. The 3 visions I have include:

1. Make more diverse and inclusive leadership structure. This will include providing a structure and opportunities to the traditionally underrepresented and underserved members, such as practitioner, international, BIPOC members etc., for their professional and leadership development.
2. Make truly diverse and inclusive SCP community. We as a division need to continue to examine how our division polices and structures affect our members and how we as members affect each other and continue our efforts to make all of us feel welcomed and included.
3. Make more impact in our global society. We as the society and as the global community have seen the old and new challenges that only one group or one country cannot solve, such as inequality, poverty, violence, war, COVID-19, and racism to name a few. This effort requires regional, national and international collaboration, and our division has a lot to offer.

My experiences of serving our division and the International Section in various leadership roles have prepared me well to lead and work together for our beloved division.  Please feel free to reach out to me if you have questions or suggestions for me.

It is my honor to run for the president-elect position for the Division that I have found home as a counseling psychologist.  If elected, as the president I would like to establish Diversity and Social Justice (DSJ) Team in order to continue our division’s efforts on uprooting anti-Black racism within our structures and practices. The DSJ Team can work as a permanent committee that works with the President, the Executive Board, and other groups within the division to continue to provide growth opportunities, assess our progress, and provide feedback and solutions to uproot anti-Black racism and also strengthen diversity and inclusion within our division.

My experiences of serving our division and the International Section in various leadership roles have prepared me well to lead and work together for our beloved division.  My greatest accomplishment is increasing the visibility of members of the organization that I serve. For example, as a co-chair of the International Section I worked with a Special Task Force to conduct a comprehensive needs assessment to accurately address international practitioners’ needs and create a resource list of legal and professional support. I also worked with the section’s student representatives as a mentor to address the needs of the international student members. I believe my ability to follow through with both short-term and long-term goals, to work collaboratively with colleagues with different backgrounds, and to lead with cultural humility will help us accomplish more and better things together.

Shavonne Moore-Lobban, Ph.D.

It is an honor to be nominated for President-Elect of our beloved SCP! I am a Campus Director of Training, Assistant Professor, and Director of an APA-accredited internship at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology. My leadership experiences span across APA Divisions (17, 35, 56), workgroups (Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Workgroup, Presidential Task Force for Expanded Advocacy Integration Model), and state psychological associations (DC and MA). Most recently, I served a 3-year term on APA’s Board for the Advancement of Psychology in the Public Interest (BAPPI). I was Chair of BAPPI in the final year of my term, which was a pivotal year for addressing the COVID-19 pandemic, ongoing societal racism and brutality against BIPOC, and the APA strategic plan. Within SCP I have held leadership positions in the Section for Professional Practice and on the Steering Committee for the 2020 Counseling Psychology Conference. I am currently the Liberation Lounge Co-Chair, APA Elected Positions Coordinator, and lead guest editor for a special edition of The Counseling Psychologist on practice, science, and advocacy. My vision for SCP involves:

• Recommitting to our cherished CP values as we continue progressing toward liberation and anti-Black racism positions in SCP.
• Taking a deep look at our history to understand the ways that power, privilege, and oppression have permeated our CP systems and practices.
• Implementing our strategic plan so we connect and reengage our CP colleagues.

I will lead as a compassionate, relational, strengths-based President with an action-driven approach to move our Division forward.

In alignment with my vision, I specifically plan to support SCP’s efforts to address anti-Black racism by:

• Furthering the leadership opportunities for SCP students and colleagues of color.
• Developing mentoring opportunities for SCP students and ECPs of color to connect, engage, and build relationships with more senior professionals in our Division.
• Expanding our educational initiatives geared toward dismantling systems of supremacy that have permeated our practice, research, education, and training.
• Engaging in thoughtful evaluation about how we recognize and award our colleagues’ social justice and advocacy efforts toward combatting many of the ‘ism our communities are plagued with.
• Creating healing spaces both virtually and (as we can) in-person to dialogue about our path toward racial reconciliation.

I see the progress that we have made within SCP, and I also see the potential for further growth and healing. Hopefully soon, we will have the opportunity to reenter spaces where we can gather, connect, and continue progressing forward. We can engage in this work with our SCP members and reengage the SCP members that we lost along the way. Collectively, we will have intentionality about the ways in which we address anti-Black racism. As SCP President-Elect, I will lead through a compassionate, relational, and action driven approach to move our Division forward.

Aligned with our counseling psychology values, I will take a strength-based approach to understanding the needs and challenges of our Division, while also holding us accountable to the growth and healing that I believe we can achieve.