The Robert W. Goldberg Division 18 Memorial History Photograph Collection consists of images related to the division’s activities. These include photos taken by Robert Goldberg, PhD, and others, to visually capture and document the division’s historical events.
If you have photos you’d like to be included in the collection, please submit them to Division 18 Historian Timothy Carmody, PhD. Along with any photos, please include information about the Division 18 event at which they were taken (for example: date taken, name of event, and location) and the names of individuals in the photos.
It is our hope that the collection will grow as new photos of Division 18 activities are added in the future.
Dr. Goldberg began his professional psychology career as staff psychologist at the VA medical Center in Cleveland and Brecksville from 1975-90. From 1982-2016 he also served as the psychology training director. He additionally served as assistant chief of psychology at the now-named Louis Stokes Cleveland DVA Medical Center from 1990-98 and as associate chief of psychology from 2005-2016. He retired from the VA in 2016.
Dr. Goldberg was chair of the VA Section of Division 18 from 1997-98, Division 18 president from 2004-05, and served as the third Division 18 co-historian and historian from 2010 until his death. During his thirty-year involvement with ABPP, he served their board of trustees as secretary ex officio, newsletter editor, and historian. From 1994 until his retirement he edited the APPIC newsletter and was secretary on the APPIC Board from 1995-2001.
In addition to these formal appointments, Bob was the ubiquitous photographer for many years at meetings of Division 18, VA psychology, ABPP, and APPIC. Many of the photos he took over the years are in the VA psychology and Division 18 archives at the Cummings Center for the History of Psychology at the University of Akron, but you will not find one with the camera around his neck—the photographer rarely gets in his pictures. The above photo of Bob was taken during his presidency of Division 18 in 2005 when the division first became a co-sponsor of the annual VA Psychology Leadership Conference. He represented Division 18 and the VA Section at that 2005 conference.
Sadly, in 2018, Bob lost his battle with lymphoma. Cynthia (Cindy) Goldberg, Bob’s wife, was contacted regarding Bob’s collection of psychology professional files and, especially, his many photographs. She later accepted the offer of assistance by Ed Padin, a colleague of Bob’s, to help sort through those files and photographs which were then sent in 2020 to Tim Carmody, the current Division 18 historian.
Approximately 1,000 of Bob’s photographs were collected and initially sorted into four groups. Most depicted Division 18 and VA psychology events but the collection also included those with APPIC and ABPP event content. The latter photographs were sent to those organizations in 2020. The photos of VA psychology events were prepared for eventual archiving to be sent to the VA psychology historian in 2021.
Rod Baker, former Division 18 historian and past president, worked tirelessly for several weeks creating captions describing the content of each photograph. Kathy McNamara and Tim Carmody assisted in the proofreading of these captions to ensure accuracy. The collection currently includes 110 photographs, grouped into 17 categories (albums) that represent past Division 18 activities (e.g., business meetings, award presentations, past-president breakfasts, etc.) all of which have taken place at past APA Conventions from 1997 to 2016.
