Article archive / January 1, 2012
Originally published: . Volume 3, No. 5. Source pages: 1, 6, 7.
This year, Tulane’s Dr. Adrienne Colella has taken her position as President of the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP), the largest group of IO psychologists in the country. Dr. Colella holds the McFarland Distinguished Chair at the A.B. Freeman School of Business at Tulane University. She is a Fellow in SIOP and the American Psychological Association and served two years on the SIOP Board before being elected President.
“…there are things that presidents have to do all the time,” Dr. Colella explained to the Times regarding her busy role in SIOP. She spends her time handling regular business, developing agendas, and responding to issues that come across her desk. “The last thing that came up,” she said was “…some new regulations about privacy training for people doing research with the government, which is of concern to a lot of our members, especially practitioners …” She noted that responding to federal regulations and also to changes in licensing acts is often part of the job.
Deciding on the theme for the conference is another important task. “This year we are focusing on the impact IO psychology has had on individuals, organizations, and societies,” she said. “… we determined we need to revisit our strategic plan so I have been really involved in developing a task force to get that going.”
Through her SIOP presidency and her teaching role, and also her administrative responsibilities at Tulane, Dr. Colella stays very busy. But she also keeps the contributions in mind of what psychology can offer.
“IO psychologists do a lot that impact how people perform in organizations,” she told the Times. “We help with the efficiency of organizations…by developing better training, selection, and fairness procedures.”
Much of Dr. Colella’s research has focused on how individuals with disabilities are treated and also workplace accommodation, an early interest she built while at Rutgers. As an undergraduate at Miami University, Colella began to develop her enduring interest in research, working in jury decision- making, and also conformity and opinion research. “I had a class where I read Rosabeth Moss Kanter’s Men and Women of the Corporation,” she said. “So that kind of steered me more toward applied psychology.”
After Miami, Dr. Colella attended Ohio State University where she worked as a research and teaching associate while obtaining her masters degree and PhD in IO psychology.
After graduating from Ohio State, Dr. Colella held professorships at Rutgers and Texas A & M University before coming to Tulane in 2005. She told the Times that she preferred the academic sector because, “I like doing research. I like the freedom of being able to pursue whatever questions you find interesting.”
Dr. Colella feels that IO can offer a comprehensive set of services to benefit others. “We help individuals through coaching and welfare programs, and EAP programs,” she said. “I teach in a business school and I have all my career,” she explained. “One of my basic tenets is that nothing happens in an organization without people.” And, “IO psychology is concerned with the welfare and functioning of those people. So I think it has a huge impact.”
With the A.B. Freeman School of Business, Dr. Colella is associated with one of the premier business schools in the country. Founded in 1914, the school is known for its outstanding faculty and active research culture. The school is continually recognized as one of the top business schools in the United States by publications such as U.S. News and World Report, BusinessWeek, and Forbes.
Dr. Colella’s research focuses on issues related to people with disabilities. She has received numerous grants for this line of work including support from the New Jersey Developmental Disabilities Council and Texas A & M University. Her work has been published in top journals such as the Journal of Applied Psychology and the Academy of Management Journal.
“For about 15 years I have done a lot of work on disability,” she told the Times, “A lot of it is from the discrimination standpoint and issues regarding integrating people with disabilities into the workplace.”
Dr. Colella considers her SIOP presidency one of her biggest accomplishments to date. “Two of my professors [from Ohio State], Richard Klimoski and Milton Hakel were always very involved in SIOP, so that was always a dream … to become president,” she said. “It keeps me very busy! Busier than I thought it would.”
Founded under the umbrella of the American Psychological Association (APA), SIOP began as a way of supporting applied psychology during the early years of the APA. Today SIOP boasts a membership of over 6000 and remains one of the leading organizations for applied psychology, with a goal to enhance human well-being including performance in organizational and work settings.
When asked where she felt IO psychology was heading over the next years, Dr. Colella said, “I would like the identity and knowledge of what an IO psychologist is and what we can do to be out there in front of policy makers and in front of the general public.” She continued, “Right now we are looking at proposals from public relations visibility firms to aim at the general public to see what can be done and we have also just come up with this big advocacy proposal which is aimed at educating policy makers, decision makers, politicians.”
What is her advice to new psychologists? “First of all love what you do. It depends on whether you are interested in going into academics or applied work, but one thing that is true for everybody is the importance of networking. And not just with people who are senior to you but also people at your peer level.”
“Don’t do it unless you love it, and if you love it, it’s the most rewarding career ever.”
Courtesy Tulane Public Relations
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