Dear
Students and Friends,
As
reflective practitioners, we professional counselors take concluding moments
such as the end of the academic year to ponder where the year has taken us, how
we achieved our goals and the learning wisdom we acquired throughout our
journey of the past year.
This
has truly been an extraordinary year for our Counseling Program. A number of our students and alumni were
recognized for their service: Kirsten
Perry, ASCA School Counselor of the Year; Katie Styzek, Illinois Elementary School Counselor of the Year; Brian Coleman, Illinois High School
Counselor of the Year and Illinois School Counselor of the Year. Brian will represent Illinois in Washington
DC for the ASCA School Counselor Award Ceremony. Congratulations and well done to our students
and alumni.
In
addition, several of our Counseling Faculty have been recognized and honored
this year. Dr. Melissa Ockerman was awarded Illinois School Counselor Educator
of the Year Award. Dr. Darrick Tovar Murray was recognized by the ACA Journal of
Multicultural Counseling and Development for his work in multicultural research
and education. Dr. Becky Michel’s article was recognized as the ‘Most Valuable
Article of the Year’ by the ACA AdultSpan
Journal. Congratulations to our faculty for their many
accomplishments.
A
major focus for the year has been the process of seeking CACREP
accreditation. The implementation of many of the CACREP standards,
structures and procedures have already shown to improve our program. As we all know, such progress demands much
change for all of us. As Eckhart Tolle states, “Some changes look negative on the surface but you will soon realize that
space is being created for something new to emerge.” Changes are never easy to make. On behalf of the faculty, I want to thank
you for your support, many contributions and openness in working with us and
helping us usher in the needed changes to meet the CACREP standards for
accreditation.
I want to share with you briefly some updates on the CACREP
process. We submitted
our self-study and were approved for a site visit which will be held October 7-10, 2018. There were two
town hall meetings (Fall and Spring) held, where we spoke with students and
received their feedback about the program. The faculty held a program
evaluation meeting in Fall where we looked at data from students, supervisors,
and alumni, and planned changes to improve the program. We also held a
student evaluation meeting in Spring where we assessed the progress of all of
the students in the program. Most recently, we moved the program to a
cohort model in order to ease the burden of course cancellations for students
and to help us to maintain the necessary faculty to student ratios that are
required for CACREP accreditation. We are excited about the prospect of
becoming accredited and are working hard to ensure that our program meets the
CACREP requirements. We will keep you
up-to-date on the progress of our accreditation.
As
we approach graduation on June 9th, we congratulate all of our
graduating students. We will hold a
special reception for our graduates on Wednesday, May 30th. And, during this reception we will recognize
and honor two of our Counseling Alumni – Kirsten Perry and Ashley Knight. This graduate reception and alumni
recognition is another first for the Counseling Program.
I
want to take a moment and recognize and thank Dr. Michaela Sacra for her work with us this past year. She will be leaving us and taking a new
position with the University of Wisconsin
- River Falls. We wish her the very
best.
Finally,
I want to share with you that I will be on sabbatical next year. Dr. Melissa Ockerman will act as the Academic
Unit Leader for the Counseling Program in my absence.
Have a good and safe summer.
All the best,
Fr. Patrick McDevitt, C.M.,
Associate Professor
Academic Unit Leader, Counseling
Program
