2018 Annual Report

Program Objectives

During the 2018 academic year, the counseling faculty began the process of creating and defining their program objectives. The main goal was to create a set of standards that reflect how the program and its faculty effectively train future counselors to be reflective and confident practitioners. The counseling faculty spent upwards of 15 faculty meeting hours and countless hours of outside meeting time working on how to better align the programs core values with the program objectives. Once the program objectives were created and reviewed by the entire faculty, future work on aligning these objectives began. This included revising syllabi and course work as well as setting expectations of site supervisors and their internship placements. The new program objectives are now the governing standards to which the counseling programs operate.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and Key Professional Dispositions (KPDs)

Once the program objectives were completed, faculty began developing key performance indicators and key performance dispositions. These indicators and dispositions are the means to which the program objectives can be actualized in course work and during clinical experiences. Meetings were spent cross referencing the new program objectives with current CACREP standards in order to best construct a set of indicators and dimensions that fit the current course work. Indicators and dispositions were reviewed by all faculty members and were then linked to specific courses and syllabi. Linking the key performance indicators and dispositions to specific syllabi allows them to serve as a guide on how coursework, readings and clinical experiences effect and support future counseling practitioners. Assessment data can now be collected from these well-organized indicators and dispositions.

Course Revisions

Once the KPI and KPD’s were completed, faculty began revising their course work assessments and syllabi in order to reflect these new set of overarching standards.  All counseling syllabi were reviewed and re-aligned to current CACREP standards in order to reflect both the new standards introduced into the course and the newly created KPI’s and KPD’s. This included making sure that the weekly schedule was reflective of each standard being assessed in the course and that program objectives were transparent and a prominent feature of the course. During the review process, faculty became aware of gaps in the program that needed to be addressed. For example, it became apparent that school counseling students did not receive exposure to methodology, models, and theories in program evaluation and needs assessment. This information was missing from the COCO 709 course and therefore it was modified to include additional CACREP standards. Once syllabi and assessments were peer reviewed students can be assessed on their performance and data can be collected. This allows for feedback to be given to students on important knowledge, skills and dispositions and also provides aggregate data to review program objectives.

Counseling Identity

During the fall semester, the counseling faculty created a faculty professional identity profile in order to better inform current and future students of their interests and expertise as counseling practitioners and in counseling education. This included giving an overview of how the School of Education counseling program has evolved over the last decade and how the faculty has created a professional environment of excellence for in counseling education.