SPSSI | Forward Winter 2025 COVER

			From Our Editor Kala J. Melchiori, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, James Madison University Our Winter 2025 issue of The Forward has a focus on community. As we move forward into a new year, we have glimpsed an unpredictable and concerning future. The Trump Administration has put forth a dizzying number of executive actions designed to overwhelm and demoralize vulnerable people and their allies. But we persist. As you browse this issue of The Forward, I hope you are ignited by the policy, classroom, and everyday work and action our SPSSI membership undertakes. In this issue, we hear from our SPSSI leadership as well as our recent teaching award winners. SPSSI President Heather Bullock highlights the significance of our New Year’s resolutions in supporting our social justice values and goals and calls on our membership to come together and build community. SPSSI’s Policy and Communications Director Sam Abbot urges our social science community to prepare for increased scrutiny while also emphasizing advocacy and collaboration to combat mistrust in science. Continue reading this article here
			A Message from the SPSSI President: Standing Resolute Together Heather Bullock, Professor, Department of Psychology, Director, Center for Economic Justice and Action, Incoming SPSSI President, University of California, Santa Cruz Although making new year’s resolutions has become cliché, I appreciate the reflection that accompanies setting resolutions. Mainstream media bills it as a chance to set individual intentions for personal change but it can be so much more. Resolutions are also an opportunity to affirm support for our shared work and for cherished societal beliefs, values, and goals, and to pledge to stand resolute in the face of the challenges to them. What can we do to challenge discrimination and inequality? What will we do to promote peace? How can our work inform policies that advance social justice? How can we better serve the communities we work with? I anticipate that many of us, regardless of whether we made new year’s resolutions, will be called to stand resolute in our commitment to societal beliefs and values that we hold dear. The first weeks of 2025 offer a glimpse of the challenges before us, some foreseen and many others still unknown. As I write, wildfires spurred by climate change are ravaging Los Angeles, California; Meta is rolling back its fact-checking and moderation programs, no longer seeking to limit the spread of disinformation and hate speech; and numerous programs, policies, and institutions that many regard as integral to U.S. democracy and to social justice are in the crosshairs of the second Trump administration. SPSSI members work on issues that are likely to take center stage this year – immigration, reproductive justice, climate change, academic freedom, homelessness, authoritarianism, transgender rights, war, and DEI initiatives – to name a few. Standing resolute, we must work together to advance the shared values that have long guided SPSSI and its members. Continue reading this article here
			From Our Director of Policy and Communications: We Need Champions of Social Science in 2025 Sam Abbott, Director of Policy and Communications, SPSSI As we prepare for President-Elect Donald Trump’s second administration, the social science community needs to be clear-eyed about what the next four years may mean for the field. While it may not have always felt this way, academia and social science largely flew under the radar in Trump’s first term. This time will be different. Backlash to social justice protest movements in 2020 inflamed, and in some cases re-ignited, political firestorms over Critical Race Theory and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion practices, joining an ever-expanding culture war on race, gender, and social values. Many in the “anti-woke” camp directly blame social science as a source of a changing world they reject. In 2015, 89 percent of Republicans expressed confidence in higher education. Today, that number is just 50 percent. The trend for Independent and Democratic voters is smaller but directionally the same (Jones, 2024). As harsh as it may sound, for a growing swath of the American public, higher education has become synonymous with elitism, political indoctrination, and ideological extremism. Continue reading this article here
We hope you will join us for #SPSSICON25 in Portland, OR!