4 Questions 4 Marcheta Evans, ACA President-Elect

Dr. Marcheta P. Evans, ACA President-Elect and Associate Dean of the University of Texas-San Antonio - Downtown Campus, College of Education, took time recently to answer the following questions. Her 1-year term as ACA President begins July 1, 2010.

1. How can counseling students and new professionals become more effective advocates for their clients and for the profession of counseling?

Students and new professionals should become actively involved with their counseling associations at the local, branch, and national levels. Hopefully, they have been taught the importance of advocacy and that advocacy competencies have been infused into their counselor education training. These competencies provide the framework for them to understand the importance of advocacy and how to strategically approach this important aspect of professionalism that enhances social justice and equity for all.

2. What do you see as the most formidable challenge(s) facing the counseling profession in the immediate future?

The first is focusing on being culturally competent to serve the many diverse client populations that enter our offices. We are becoming a global society and as a profession we must be prepared to address this diversity.

Second, as a profession we need to ensure that the public is aware of who we are and what we do as counselors. The stigma associated with seeking mental health services, especially among minority populations, continues to be a major challenge, and hinders people who need services from seeking help.

Third, we need to ensure that our counselor education programs graduate students who are ethically sound. That includes the cultivation of a commitment to holding themselves and others responsible by demonstrating integrity in their care for and interaction with others; this includes clients, fellow students, faculty, and clinicians.

3. How can students and new professionals get the most from their ACA membership?

It is important for students and new professionals to realize that they must be active participants and that their voices are important. We need to have them "sitting around" the table when decisions are being made that will have a direct impact on them professionally. I encourage all students and new professionals to become engaged in the work of ACA.

4. From your personal experience in the profession, what advice would you offer to students and new professionals as they embark on their career into counseling?

It is important for aspiring and new professionals to keep in mind why they wanted to become counselors in the first place. There will be times when one may question that decision. Rarely will you have someone seek counseling because they are happy. Rather, they will more likely bring a problem that they want you to help them work through.

So, as a beginning counselor, you have to remember why you made this choice and learn how to take care of yourself as you care for others. When you cease taking care of yourself, you will become less effective in working with your clients.

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Dr. Evans graduated from the University of Alabama with a Ph.D. in Counselor Education and Supervision, specializing in Student Affairs and Administration in Higher Education. Additionally, Dr. Evans has a M.Ed. in Elementary Education, an M.A. in Rehabilitation Counseling, and a B.S. in Psychology. She has a private practice where she serves as a consultant/evaluator for various non-profit organizations and has earned the LPC-S, NCC and DCC credentials.

Study Confirms Importance of U.S. Graduate Education for Global Competitiveness

The Path Forward: The Future of Graduate Education in the United States calls on the federal government, universities, and the private sector to work together to ensure that U.S. graduate schools remain preeminent in the world and that growing numbers of citizens begin and complete graduate degree programs. The landmark report, prepared by the Council on Graduate Schools (CGS) and Educational Testing Service (ETS) states that America's failure to address the future of graduate education could have dire consequences for the nation's position as a world leader in cutting-edge research and innovation.

Calling graduate study the "engine of a highly skilled workforce," the report cites the following as areas of vulnerability:

• U.S. jobs requiring a graduate degree are expected to grow by 2.5 million by 2018, including an expected 17% increase in those requiring a doctorate and 18% in those requiring a master's.
• The applicant pool for graduate schools will be affected by demographic changes, including the emergence of populations of students with a lesser history of graduate degree attainment.

The report takes aim at changes that need to be made and concludes with a series of recommendations targeted at policymakers, universities, and employers.

A New America Ahead for Counseling Students and New Professionals

American society, according to the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution, is in a state of flux that requires attention on a variety of fronts. An expert team of Brookings' demographers, public policy analysts, and economists has been analyzing data since the beginning of the current millennium to identify the most critical challenges the nation must address in coming decade. Their findings are of particular relevance for counseling students and new professionals who are now embarking on their professional careers.

The Brookings State of Metropolitan America report documents a decade of dynamic economic and social change, and five key trends that demand a renewed national public policy focus -population growth and outward expansion, growing racial and ethnic diversity, a large aging population, wide disparities in educational attainment, and polarizing incomes.

Trend 1: Population Growth and Movement

America's population is 300 million people and counting. Large metropolitan areas grew by 10.5% during the last decade, as compared to 5.8% for the rest of the nation.

Trend 2: Population Diversification

The U.S. today is one-third non-white, and those groups accounted for 83% of the population growth in the 2000-2008 period. Large metropolitan areas have already seen their under-18 population reach majority non-white status.

Trend 3: Aging of the Population

Seniors and "baby boomers" represent more than 100 million people. Metropolitan areas are getting older faster than the rest of the nation, witnessing a 45% increase in 55-64 year olds in the 2000-2008 timeframe.

Trend 4: Uneven Education Attainment

While more than one-third of the population had earned a college degree in 2008, younger people are not on track to achieving similar education attainment. African Americans and Hispanics are not keeping pace with white and Asian American students in degree earning.

Trend 5: Income Polarization

In the 10-year period ending in 2008, the typical American household witnessed an inflation-adjusted income decline of more than $2,000, an economic characteristic that was still declining at the time the report data was collected. During this period, middle- and low-wage workers saw the most significant declines, while high-wage earners saw increases.

These challenges differ dramatically in magnitude across the country's 100 largest metropolitan areas and they compel local and regional public policymakers to confront the issues most pressing to them in ways that transcend the socioeconomic lines between cities and suburbs. The Metropolitan America Indicator Map offers a glimpse of demographic and trend data through a lens that focuses on100 metropolitan areas and all 50 states.

Quotable Quotes of Notable People: Peter Drucker

"We now accept the fact that learning is a lifelong process of keeping abreast of change. And the most pressing task is to teach people how to learn."

Peter Drucker (1909-2005), management guru, writer and self-described "social ecologist."

Worth Reading: 30 Tips for Academic Writers

Curtis J. Bonk, Professor of Instructional Systems Technology at Indiana University was asked by a colleague recently to identify 10 important tips that graduate students should consider in meeting their writing obligations. Ten was not a good stopping point and his suggestions eventually ballooned to 30 and became the subject of a "Career Advice" column in the Inside HigherEd electronic newspaper.

Here are just 5 of the tips that seemed most relevant to CSNP readers:

• Be a voracious reader (and ponderer)
• Maintain a list of potential research and writing collaborators
• Find professional balance
• Find personal balance
• Quantity matters as much as quality

New Corey Book Features Professional and Personal Milestones as Well as Lessons Learned

Creating Your Professional Path: Lessons from My Journey
by Gerald Corey

Fast Fact: More than 44,000 Active Counselors Certified by NBCC

Since it grew out of the work of an ACA committee in the early 1980s and was incorporated as an independent national credentialing body for professional counselors in 1982, the National Board for Certified Counselors, Inc., (NBCC) has grown to include 44,000 active, certified counselors. In addition, NBCC examinations are used by 49 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Guam to credential counselors at the state level. California, which just enacted counselor licensure in 2009, is using the NBCC exam during the grandparenting period and is considering its adoption as a permanent test.

Penetrating the ACA Blogosphere: You Never Know What You Will Discover

Counseling Jobs Posted on ACA Blog Page

Counseling Today's "New Perspectives" Wants to Hear from You

ACA Conference & Expo in New Orleans 2011: Register by August 31 to Save

Mark your calendar for March 23-27, 2011 and be a part of what promises to be another "blockbuster" professional development and networking experience, this time in New Orleans, LA.

Conference features of most interest to students and new professionals are: the ACA Career Center; the opportunity to network with peers, professors, and legendary counseling professionals such as Gerald Corey, Courtland Lee and many others who regularly attend the ACA Conference; plus a special track of programs titled "For Counseling and New Professionals Only."

On the Lighter Side: Your Opportunity to Banish a Word or Expression

Every year since 1975, Lake Superior State University in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan has released a list of words and expressions worthy of banishment from common communication. This past year words like "czar" and "stimulus," as well as expressions like "teachable moment" and "too big to fail" made the annual list because of their misuse, overuse, or general uselessness.

Do you have a word or term to contribute to the 2011 list? Is there a term or expression that makes you want to scream when you hear it used or misused? If yes, check to make certain it has not been banished previously, and then submit it to Lake Superior State University for the 2011 list.

Inside JCD: Summer Edition Articles of Interest to Students and New Professionals

The summer 2010 edition of ACA's Journal of Counseling & Development (JCD) contains a number of articles that may be of particular interest to you. Watch your mailbox in June for this issue.

Advocacy and Empowerment in Parent Consultation: Implications for Theory and Practice
by Cheryl Holcomb-McCoy & Julia Bryon

Using a Multicultural Framework to Assess Supervisee's Perceptions of Culturally Competent Supervision
by Julie R. Ancis & Doreen S. Marshall

Enhancing Reflective Practice in Multicultural Counseling through Cultural Auditing
by Sandra Collins, Nancy Arthur, & Gina Wong-Wylie

Empathy: An Integral Model in the Counseling Process
by Arthurs J. Clark

Emergent Characteristics of Effective Cross Cultural Research: A Review of the Literature
by Christopher Sullivan & R. Rocco Cottone

The Process of Suicide Risk Assessment: Twelve Core Principles
by Darcy Haag Granello

Mild Traumatic Brain Injury and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Returning Combat Soldiers: Implications for Assessment and Diagnosis
by Karyn Dayle Jones & Tabitha Young

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