Cohort & Counseling Model -
Doctoral Program in Counselor Education & Supervision
Cohort Model of Learning
Counselor Education and Supervision
The doctoral program is built around the cohort model. Each entering class comprises a cohort and matriculates through the program as a cohesive unit. The cohort model fits particularly well with the program's course progression plan in which specific courses are taken each term by all students in the cohort.
Moving through the doctoral program as a cohort is particularly important in an e-learning environment as a way to build group cohesion and association. Ph.D. students who benefit from being able to take coursework at their home location should also be able to be challenged by the camaraderie and personal growth experiences that membership in a unified group brings. We have developed the program with this goal in mind, and structuring each entering class around the cohort model is one of the ways that we will develop the group experience.
The precepts underlying the education and training of counseling professionals follow a developmental perspective. Counselors are trained to understand the individual in terms of where he or she is in the ongoing process of growth, development and passage through life stages, and explore with the individual any aspects of development in social, cognitive, emotional and behavioral spheres that might have been delayed or interrupted. This perspective enables counselors to begin, without judging, with the individual's current state. Counselors also approach problem-solving from an holistic perspective, concerned about every aspect of the individual's functioning. Behaviors, feelings, and thoughts are understood in terms of the individual's world in which they occur. Both in assessing the individual and in planning and implementing treatment interventions, counselors maintain a focus on the whole pattern, and the wellness of the individual's mind, body and spirit. Counselors seek to assist the person in identifying and strengthening personal assets and adaptive abilities; they strive to facilitate normal and optimum development. Typically, counseling professionals provide mental health treatment services in outpatient settings to less pathological populations who are experiencing life adjustment difficulties, although education and training in the doctoral program will prepare practitioners to work in psychiatric hospital settings, as well.
As referenced in the doctoral program accreditation standards defined by the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP), the doctoral program accepts as a primary obligation extending the knowledge base of the counseling profession in a climate of scholarly inquiry, and it prepares students to generate new knowledge for the counseling profession through research and dissertations that are appropriate to the field of counselor education or supervision. The program has taken into account the societal changes of the 21 st century and will prepare graduates to be leaders and advocates for change.