SAS Division 17 Pillars

Pillars

Each host institution, in its application to host Student Affiliates of Seventeen, must identify areas it will focus on during its term. These areas of focus are called pillars, and they will form a foundation for our work during our three years as SAS host. The areas we have identified as essential to our field are scholarship, professional development, diversity and social justice & advocacy. Learn more about the pillars and our plans for our term as SAS host below.

Pillar I: Scholarship

Recognizing the honored tradition of the scientist-practitioner model, our program recognizes the importance of taking a scientific approach to our work within the field of counseling psychology. We believe that scientific inquiry informs our work as clinicians, and that our clinical work provides a wealth of information that may continue to inform and guide our research. In this way, science and practice are viewed as complementary and interdependent. One of the primary ways in which we intend to promote scholarship is to increase students' self-efficacy as it pertains to research. Gelso (1979, 1993) lamented the fact that the majority of graduates of counseling psychology doctoral programs do not publish research beyond their dissertations. We share this concern and seek to address it by sponsoring programming that will foster student interest, efficacy and involvement in research. Toward this end, we seek to recruit speakers and facilitate roundtable and panel discussions at regional and national conventions to address issues related to student research. We believe these programs will provide a forum for students to voice concerns about their research involvement,to network with fellow researchers and gain invaluable opportunities to engage in research with professionals in our field. We would especially like to emphasize research which promotes multiculturalism and social justice as these are areas in which there is an empirical void.

Additionally, it is our intention to increase student knowledge of research forums and funding opportunities. We intend to create a web site and listserv where members from around the country are able to post upcoming announcements for regional and national conventions, panels, and roundtables specifically geared to student research. We also intend to enlist SAS members in helping us to compile a list of potential funders, including private, public and non-profit organizations and state and federal governments. We believe that promoting student research and providing avenues for fostering student interest in scientific exploration will benefit us in the long term as we seek to enhance our standing as a discipline and contribute to the knowledge base of couseling psychology.

Pillar II: Professsional Development

Historically, our program has excelled in training counseling psychologists who are adept in the diverse realms of intervention, outreach and education. Our students are provided the instruction and experience necessary to become proficient in numerous aspects of clinical practice. We are proud that we can offer students numerous opportunities to teach undergraduate and graduate courses and serve as supervisors to master's level clinicians. We are equally proud that many of our students, with faculty encouragement, both facilitate and participate in trainings, workshops and roundtable discussions on myriad topics both locally as well as regionally and nationally.

We seek to expand these activities and to promote increased student and professional participation in Division 17. We believe increased participation will facilitate communication and cooperation between scholars, early career professionals and psychologists-in-training. Toward this end, we seek to utilize the SAS website as a vehicle for promoting professional development opportunities. The web site will become a national forum for students to become involved with SAS regardless of region or financial circumstances. We intend to maintain an online database of contacts and to encourage involvement at both regional and national levels. Additionally, we will launch an online message board where SAS members may discuss their concerns, ask questions and share their experiences. The message board will also be used to announce local, regional, national, and international conferences and training opportunities. We would like to place specific emphasis on providing a place for students to promote conferences and other events sponsored by their institutions.

Additionally, we seek to promote special topics central to our field through the use of our newsletter, workshops, conferences and relevant conference programming. Specifically, we would like to address issues of multiculturalism, social justice, supervision, and applying for internship. We also intend to promote workshops in which graduate students are provided the opportunity to learn from professionals in the field. We hope to recruit scholars, practitioners and prominent psychologists to discuss their careers in psychology and provide students with the opportunity to learn from their experiences. Through our workshops we endeavor to promote topics central to the concerns of SAS members.

Finally, we intend to increase mentorship within our own program and those in our surrounding area. SAS leaders will reach out to undergraduate institutions in our region to educate students about graduate study in psychology and provide guidance about the graduate application process. We will also seek to provide opportunities for master's-level students to become involved in SAS, to encourage increased participation in Division 17, and to ensure they have the same access to education and training opportunities as those provided to doctoral students.

Pilar III: Diversity

We share a commitment and aspire to the ideals of multiculturalism, and are aware that there are long strides to be made both within our program as well as within the field of counseling psychology. We continue to challenge ourselves to enhance our own multicultural awareness and seek to share our experiences with other SAS members. At the forefront of this effort is our facilitation of an annual diversity conference. Our 2010 conference, "Barrier Awareness," sought to make explicit barriers faced by oppressed groups with the intention of increasing awareness and promoting action. It will be part of our mission as host institution to expand future events into regional conferences and invite students from other institutions. Additionally, we endeavor to create and disseminate a manual that provides guidance and direction to student groups at other insitutions seeking to host similar conferences. We will also invite students from other schools that host similar conferences to contribute toward creating a list of tips and best practices. Finally, we intend to consolidate a database of web sites for centers of Multicultural Studies from numerous institutions from throughout APA. We believe such a list would be a fantastic resource for students and professionals seeking to enhance the cause of multiculturalism.

In order to facilitate our growth as mulitculturally-competent professionals, our students have initiated a forum in which we openly discuss personal issues of multiculturalism in a safe environment. The Multicultural Counseling Coalition is a student body that meets regularly to share our growth, address barriers and discuss our ongoing experiences with multicultural issues in practice, supervision and research. We intend to replicate this forum in an anonymous posting format to the online community of SAS. We believe that the journey of self-awareness and the struggles we face are worth sharing and would be of benefit to our fellow students throughout SAS.

Furthermore, we would like to share the experience many of our students gain by teaching an undergraduate-level course on multicultural awareness. We will be encouraging open discussion on the message boards regarding similar experiences in either taking or teaching a multicultural course. We will ask former instructors of our course to offer advice with regard to appropriately and effectively addressing these topics in an undergraduate class. We also hope to create a resource center for all master's and doctoral programs to share possible materials and syllabi for the development of such courses throughout the country. Finally, issues of diversity will be prominently featured in the SAS newsletter.

Pillar IV: Social Justice and Advocacy

Our program has a commitment to promoting social justice and advocacy. During our term as the SAS host institution, we hope to expand our activities and provide opportunities to share our experiences with others. Our faculty and students share an enthusiasm and passion for social justice and are continually searching for ways to implement social justice and advocacy work into the curriculum through partnerships with community organizations, brown bag luncheons, and undergraduate coursework. One result of this commitment has been a partnership developed with the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants. UAlbany counseling psychology students registered for multicultural counseling volunteer at the USCRI's downtown Albany location and provide career guidance workshops for refugees and help them adjust to their new surroundings and circumstances. Our program has also encouraged students to facilitate psychoeducational groups for high school students from impoverished communities and centers for single mothers. We endeavor to create more partnerships and expand our activities into new areas of our own community. Additionally, we seek to share our experiences by sponsoring relevant workshops on social justice and advocacy at roundtable discussions at regional and national conferences. To achieve this goal we seek to recruit professionals with backgrounds in social justice advocacy to create workshops on best practices for addressing social justice issues.

We also plan to promote the inclusion of social justice and advocacy as natural outcomes of our current roles as scientists and practitioners. We applaud our colleagues at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, for stressing the importance of social justice by implementing the first scientist-practitioner-advocate model of Counseling Psychology. We believe that we can contribute to this work by creating a message board for our website where students may discuss the challenges of implementing social justice and advocacy into our research and intervention activities. Furthermore, we believe that such a site would provide opportunities for our students to share ideas and become more involved in their programs and national association. Finally, we believe that through this site we may address our experiences trying to promote social justice within the structures of our own institutions.

The information on this web site is intended for students who are interested in learning more about field of Counseling Psychology. The views expressed on this web site do not necessarily represent the policies of the APA, the Society of Counseling Psychology, or the Univesity at Albany.