Mission

To create a supportive and collaborative learning environment for students from diverse backgrounds and cultures to acquire knowledge, attitudes, and skills essential in the practice of counseling.

To help students become exemplary in applying essential counseling knowledge and skills in a variety of settings with individuals from diverse backgrounds.

To promote, model, and develop our students to become leaders and advocates for ethical practice of counseling.

Learning Outcomes

1. Diversity:  Students will possess the knowledge, skills and disposition needed to provide effective counseling and developmental services to clients diverse in age, gender, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and sexual orientation.  Students will gain an understanding of counseling practice in a global environment and are able to work effectively with international clients in the United States and to assist clients and counseling professionals with transitions to global career locations.
2. Professional Identity:  Students will acquire sound identities as professional counselors with a commitment to continued life-long learning and professional development.  Graduates will be actively involved in professional associations and possess effective networking skills.
3. Ethics:  Students will be knowledgeable of the ethical guidelines developed by the American Counseling Association, the American Psychological Association, the American School Counselors Association, the American College Personnel Association, and other relevant professional organizations.  Students will demonstrate their knowledge and use of at least one ethical decision-making model as they apply it to cases involving various professional domains.
4. Developmental and Career/Life Planning:  Students will possess the knowledge of career, developmental, and life planning processes as well as the skills needed to provide individual counseling, assessment, and other training to facilitate decision-making and developmental life transitions.
5. Individual and Group Counseling Skills:  Students acquiring competencies in individual and group counseling will be able to demonstrate their knowledge and skills related to several of the more commonly recognized counseling theories, including psychodynamic, person-centered, reality theory, gestalt, Adlerian, cognitive-behavioral, and others.
6. Research and Analytical Skills:  Students will demonstrate the knowledge, skills and dispositions associated with conducting and interpreting social science research.  Specifically, students will demonstrate their abilities of developing research and evaluation questions and selecting and using appropriate methods for data collection and analysis.  Students will also show their ability to apply existing theory and research to the practice of counseling.
7. Leadership and Advocacy:  Students will demonstrate their ability to go beyond the conventional practice of providing individual and group counseling and to take leadership in advocating for clients and for systemic change to improve counseling and developmental services and programs.  Graduates will be able to work collaboratively with others and to lead teams of professionals in delivering innovative approaches and methods in the field of counseling.  Moreover, they will internalize and demonstrate the value of client advocacy.
8. Assessment:  Students will have the ability to gather, interpret, and utilize a variety of assessment data.  This will include the ability to select, administer, and interpret appropriate standardized tests for individual and group assessment of client needs and to complete program evaluations.
9. Consultation and Conflict Resolution:  Students will have the knowledge and skills necessary to provide professional consultation to a variety of client populations including colleagues, teachers, administrators and managers, parents, and community members. Students will have the knowledge and skills necessary to plan, advocate for, implement, provide program leadership for, and to facilitate conflict resolution and violence prevention programs that can be used in a variety of settings with diverse populations of clients.
10. Technology:  Students will possess the knowledge and skills to utilize technological resources in professional practice and in research and to understand the application of ethical practice to the use of Web-based counseling, assessment and information management tools.