Beyond Admissions: Retaining Students of Color in Counselor Education
Conference Strand
Social Change, Leadership, and Advocacy
Abstract
In recent years, more people of color have pursued graduate training in the field of counseling. Although the demographics are changing, studies have found that these students’ experiences in counseling programs at predominantly White institutions (PWIs) have been challenging. This presentation will discuss ways to support students of color pursuing master’s and doctoral degrees in counseling and counselor education.
Evidence
Baker, C. A., & Moore, J. L. (2015). Experiences of underrepresented doctoral students in counselor education. Journal for Multicultural Education, 9, 68-84.
Cartwright, B. Y., Washington, R. D., & McConnell, L. R. (2009). Examining racial microaggressions in rehabilitation counselor education. Rehabilitation Education, 23, 171-181.
Haskins, N. , Whitfield‐Williams, M. , Shillingford, M. A., Singh, A. , Moxley, R. & Ofauni, C. (2013). The experiences of Black master's counseling students: A phenomenological inquiry. Counselor Education and Supervision, 52, 162-178. doi:10.1002/j.1556-6978.2013.00035.x
Hipolito-Delgado, C. P., Estrada, D., & Garcia, M. (2017). Diversifying counsellor education: A case study of U.S. students of colour. British Journal of Guidance and Counselling, 45, 473-488. doi: 10.1080/03069885.2017.1379597
Williams, M. S., Burnett, T. J. B., Carroll, T. K., & Harris, C. J., (2018). Mentoring, managing, and helping: A critical analysis of socialization in doctoral education. Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory, & Practice, 20, 253-278. doi: 10.1177/1521025116657834
Format
Individual Presentations
Biographical Sketch
Rachelle Redmond Barnes, Ph.D., LPCA, CRC is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences at Winston-Salem State University. She received her master’s degree in Rehabilitation Psychology and Counseling from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and her doctorate in Counseling and Counselor Education from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She is a Certified Rehabilitation Counselor and a Licensed Professional Counselor Associate in the state of North Carolina. Her research interests focus on issues of diversity and inclusion in counselor education, specifically as it relates to the experiences of Black Americans. She currently serves as treasurer for the North Carolina Association for Counselor Education and Supervision.
Tyra Turner Whittaker, Rh.D., LPC, CRC is currently a Professor of Counseling, Department Chair, and Program Coordinator of the PhD in Rehabilitation Counseling and Rehabilitation Counselor Education Program at North Carolina A&T State University where she has received over $12 million in grant funds to meet the needs of racial and ethnic minorities with disabilities and addictive behaviors. She has numerous presentations and publications in the area of rehabilitation and multicultural counseling and has served on numerous professional boards.
Location
PARB 128
Start Date
2-8-2019 10:45 AM
End Date
2-8-2019 12:00 PM
Recommended Citation
Barnes, Rachelle R. and Whittaker, Tyra T., "Beyond Admissions: Retaining Students of Color in Counselor Education" (2019). National Cross-Cultural Counseling and Education Conference for Research, Action, and Change. 3.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/ccec/2019/2019/3
Beyond Admissions: Retaining Students of Color in Counselor Education
PARB 128
In recent years, more people of color have pursued graduate training in the field of counseling. Although the demographics are changing, studies have found that these students’ experiences in counseling programs at predominantly White institutions (PWIs) have been challenging. This presentation will discuss ways to support students of color pursuing master’s and doctoral degrees in counseling and counselor education.
Description
In recent years, more people of color have pursued graduate training in the field of counseling. Although the demographics of the counseling field are changing, studies have found that these students’ experiences in counseling programs at predominantly White institutions (PWIs) have been challenging. In addition to a sense of marginalization (Hipolito-Delgado, Estrada, & Garcia, 2017), tokenism, and isolation, students have reported their need for more mentoring and support from their faculty (Haskins et al., year). Some of these findings mirror the experiences of faculty of color in counselor education programs (Cartwright et al., 2009). The findings in these studies are aligned with the tenets of critical race theory (Baker & Moore, 2015), which also has been used to explore Black doctoral students’ experiences of socialization in their graduate programs (Williams, Burnett, Carroll, & Harris, 2018). Since the majority of counseling and counselor education programs are housed at PWIs, it is critical to address and remediate these issues to avoid an increase in the attrition rate of counselors and counselor educators of color. The purpose of this presentation is to discuss ways to remove the barriers students of color face and to support them as they pursue master’s and doctoral degrees in counseling and counselor education. In addition to highlighting the best practices in student retention across disciplines, additional focus will be given to the retention strategies used by faculty in a graduate training program at a historically Black university. Those who attend the presentation will have an opportunity to share their personal experiences as students in graduate training programs, provide insight on the challenges they observe in their programs currently, and present retention strategies used by their departments to support students of color.