Video Transcript
[Dr. Diana Doumas, Professor – Counselor Education]: At Boise State, we have two CACREP-accredited masters degree programs one in school counseling and one in addiction counseling. We also have a CACREP-accredited doctoral program in Counselor Education and Supervision, and this program is housed in the College of Education’s Curriculum and Instruction Doctoral degree program.
[Dr. Raissa Miller, Assistant Professor – Counselor Education]: Supervisors love working with Boise State students. They have reported that they are prepared, enthusiastic, and bring a lot of energy and knowledge to their internship experiences. Students complete year-long internships in schools and addiction behavioral health treatment centers. I love that we have so many students who are willing to be leaders. We have two student organizations in our department, and they are filled with students in leadership positions and it shows that they care about what’s going on in the classroom, but they also care about participating outside the classroom and with the community.
[Dr. Diana Doumas]: In the Counselor Education Department, faculty are involved in research in the schools as well as throughout the community, and many students work with faculty either in paid or unpaid positions on those projects. My personal research is on prevention of underage drinking, and I have several programs right now in the high schools working with online programming to reduce drinking among those students.
[Dr. Aida Midgett, Chair of Counselor Education]: I bring students into my research by training them to actually be the trainers when they’re out in the schools. They train elementary school students and they train middle school students to intervene. Then they also return to the school to provide ongoing support. My research really centers around involving our counseling students. I really like to bring service learning into my classroom experiences because I think it provides students with an opportunity to engage in the community and it also provides them an opportunity to apply skills that they’re learning within the context of the classroom and in real-world situations.
[Dr. Diana Doumas]: One of the things that I like most about the Department of Counselor Education is the relationships that the faculty members have with each other as well as with the students. We’re really a very collegial department and it’s a really great place to work, and I think a great place to be a student.
[Irene Tornello, Counselor Education student]: Here, I get support from not only resources on campus but also one-on-one support from professors. You’re provided a lot of guidance but also a lot of freedom and independence.
[Dr. Diana Doumas]: Another unique thing about our program is our job placement rate which is actually really quite high. Over the years it varies, but we’ve had placement rates as high as 96% and so our students whether they’re on the school emphasis track or the addiction track they are successful in working in both school and community agencies.
[Dan Arnold, alumnus and adjunct faculty member]: Being a part of a group and walking through this whole journey as a part of a whole is extremely meaningful. The way it’s set up, we’re really pushed and encouraged to challenge those biases that we came in with, to expand our world-view. And when you do that together, as a group of students going through the process together – it was twenty-two of us when we started – there is a special bond that’s created. We became very close, very quickly, and it really becomes like a family between not just your peers but with your faculty as well.