Ron Riggio, the Henry R. Kravis Professor of Leadership and Organizational Psychology, has been elected president of the Western Psychological Association (WPA), a three-year term that begins in 2007, and for which he will serve one year each as president-elect, president, and past-president.
Founded in 1921, the WPA is one of the largest regional psychological associations in the United States. Riggio, who is also director of the Kravis Leadership Institute, has served as the WPA's secretary-treasurer for the past four years, and was the inaugural recipient of the Western Psychological Association's Outstanding Teaching Award. He joins professor Diane Halpern as the second Claremont McKenna College psychologist to be elected WPA president.
In his candidacy statement, Riggio promised to "keep the Western Psychological Association the most active and exciting regional organization in psychology."
As president, one of Riggio's functions will be presiding over the organization's 2009 conference in Portland, Ore., an important event because of the high rate of student participation, he says.
"It is a forum for faculty-student research, and gives students exposure to professional research in psychology," Riggio says.
A substantial number of CMC faculty and students have presented research at the WPA conference in the past several years, and the conference features an impressive slate of speakers representing many of the top research psychologists in the United States and Canada.
Riggio is the author or editor of more than a dozen books, and nearly 100 journal articles and book chapters in psychology, leadership and management. His most recent books are Transformational Leadership (co-authored with Bernard M. Bass; Lawrence Erlbaum Associates) and The Practice of Leadership: Developing the Next Generation of Leaders (co-edited with CMC professor Jay Conger; Jossey-Bass). His textbook, Introduction to Industrial/Organizational Psychology (Prentice-Hall) will soon be published in its fifth edition.