CECP
2008 News
A high level multi-sector delegation from the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands met with researchers from Western Michigan University to discuss on-going projects directed at the childhood obesity epidemic that has captured the attention of governments around the world. A multidisciplinary team of College of Education faculty have teamed up with the CNMI public school system to offer a program to primary caregivers that has the potential to impact childhood obesity through household behavioral changes. These faculty are Mozhdeh Bruss, Joseph Morris, Linda Dannison, Tim Michael, Brooks Applegate, Andrea Smith, and Judy McGowan representing dietetics, adult education, counseling psychology, exercise science, early childhood, parent education, program development and evaluation, research methodology, and teacher education. Other faculty members including Lonnie Duncan, Suzan Ayers, and James Lewis from the College of Education and Amy Curtis from the College of Health and Human Services will participate in upcoming meetings discussing multifaceted and multilevel aspects of childhood obesity in the CNMI and exploring strategies for its reduction and prevention. The project is supported by the Larry L. Hillblom Foundation, CNMI Public School System, and Western Michigan University.
LaShonda B. Fuller, doctoral student in counselor education, presented her research on "African American Women's Reactions to Group Counseling" at the 20th Annual Ethnographic and Qualitative Research Conference, in Cedarville, Ohio June 6 - 7, 2008.
Dr.
Alan J. Hovestadt, professor, received an American Counseling Association Presidential Award for 2008. The award was presented in recognition of more than three decades of service as a counselor educator, mentor and advocate for interprofessional collaboration.
Congratulations to the 2008 College of Education Award Winners
 Mary Z. Anderson received the Mary L. Dawson Teaching Excellence Award |
 Darryl Plunkett received the Rising Star Award |
Dr. Lonnie Duncan, associate professor, and Dr. Patrick Munley, professor and chair, co-authored a paper with William E. Pate of the American Psychological Association, on "Demographic, Educational, Employment, and Professional Characteristics of Counseling Psychologists" published in the March 2008 issue of The Counseling Psychologist.
Dr. James Croteau, professor in the Department of Counselor Education and Counseling Psychology, counseling psychology doctoral student Jessica Manning and national colleagues Kathleen Bieschke, Penn State, and Ruth Fassinger, University of Maryland, co-authored the chapter on sexual orientation issues in the new 2008 4th edition of the Handbook of Counseling Psychology published by Wiley. This is the first time that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender psychological research, theory and practice have been covered in the handbook of the counseling psychology profession. In the chapter the authors give a historical overview of LGBT issues in psychology and then look at trends in the literature related to counseling psychology including career and work issues, sexual identity theory, professional training, and counseling practice.
The Department of Counselor Education and Counseling Psychology would like to recognize this year’s participants in the 2008 International Counseling Psychology Conference in Chicago. The theme of this year’s conference, the first of its kind as an international forum for the field of counseling psychology, was “Creating the Future: Counseling Psychologists in a Changing World.” The doctoral program in Counseling Psychology was well-represented with three poster sessions and one roundtable presentation featuring:
- Relational Cultural Theory (RCT) Based Supervision, by Julie Davis and Amy Cavanaugh with Karyn Boatwright (Kalamazoo College), Bridget Nolan (Western Michigan University), and Emily Yeagley (University of Akron).
- Understanding Acculturation: Experiences of Male Arab Muslim Immigrants Living in the United States of America, by Nancy Hammoudah.
- Keeping it Black and White, by Kristin Gillen, Kenlana Burton, Victoria Cane, Bianca Fetherson, and Jody Tomko.
- Strategies for Research with Religious Minority Populations, by Nancy Hammoudah with Innocent Okozi (Seton Hall University), Ben Beitin (Seton Hall University), Amanda Leinau (Alfred University), and Arpana Inman (Lehigh University).
Faculty Scholarly Productivity: Academic Analytics recently published the third edition of the Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index. The index is a ranking of graduate programs at research universities based on per-capita scholarly accomplishments. Academic Analytics, a private company owned in part by the State University of New York-Stony Brook, compiled the data which is based on the number of professors in a given program and the number of books and journal articles they have written, the number of times other scholars have cited those publications and the awards, honors and grant dollars received. Counselor education at Western Michigan University was ranked in the top 10 in the discipline nationally.