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The Faculty and Staff of the Counseling Department will work to: 

1. Expand the marketing and recruiting efforts for the Pittsburgh Program. 

Under Dr. Witchel's direction and with the help of the Graduate School and Research and Continuing Education, the inaugural Monroeville cohort of 24 was established. The recruiting efforts also identified several students who are on a waiting list for the Fall 2000 cohort group. Drs. Witchel and Dandeneau continued work throughout the summer months to recruit and process the applicants for the second Monroeville cohort. Their efforts were once again successful and a new cadre of 22 students was admitted to the program. There were several students whose materials arrived late and were not able to be admitted to the program, but chose to "start" with the cohort. So, the total number of students in the new cohort is approximately 27. With the addition of the second Monroeville cohort, the counseling department programs became the largest at the University. 
 

2. Develop a plan to coordinate the usage of the clinical space that includes collaboration with the Educational Psychology department. Explore with the help of the COE-ET Dean's Office and the Graduate School and Research the possibility of obtaining external/internal monies for the development of the departmental clinical space. 

Initial efforts to collaborate with the "clinical" space have begun. Several rooms of the Educational Psychology department space were identified as possible sites for use by the Counseling department during Spring 2000; this was necessitated by the Counseling departments need for evening lab space. Dr. Dandeneau and Dr. Rafoth have agreed that whenever possible the sharing of space could be negotiated; they will also be meeting with Brad Smith to discuss digitizing the clinical space and he is in the process of identifying possible vendors who could assist with this planning. With the urging of the COE-ET technology committee, an ad hoc committee was formed to address the clinical and subsequent technical needs of the the Special Education, Educational Psychology, and Counseling departments. The committee met two times during the Spring semester. The committee is trying to identify possible digital options for the various clinical facilities of the departments. Discussions centered around server based solutions. Preliminary investigations have begun. The committee is to slated to reconvene in the Fall 2000. 
 

3. Develop, plan and implement a five year self-study. 

Dr. Witchel and Dr. Dandeneau had a follow-up meeting with Dr. Butzow in February to verify the Dean's charge, to present the preliminary department objectives for the review, and to present the department's timeline. 
 

4. Coordinate a process for helping students understand the new program and how to transfer into the new program and for faculty to do advising within the new program. 

A transition handbook was compiled for the students in the program. This handbook detailed a comparison of the old and new programs and also the new courses that would be used to substitute for the old courses that would no longer be offered. The faculty were trained in advising in the new program at the Spring 2000 retreat held in mid January. In order to facilitate the graduation processing, final graduation audits conducted by the graduate coordinator were completed using the faculty advising form. These forms were then sent, along with the official check-out sheets, to the Graduate School and Research. This was done to ensure that there was no confusion in the interpreting the old and new program graduation standards. In addition, based upon the feedback we received from students regarding the restrictive nature of the electives, the faculty revisited the issue and decided that the students' feedback had merit. Changes in the curriculum were proposed in the college curriculum committee. They approved the changes will minimal corrections. The corrections will be made and routed to the Senate committee in the Fall of 2000. 
 

5. Develop and further on-campus partnerships with: 

The Undergraduate Admissions Office

Several joint meetings held - A joint meeting with the Admission staff was held 
as part of the Counseling Faculty Spring 2000 retreat. Dr. Dandeneau prepared a budget for the resources needed to support the identify goals. Dr. Dandeneau and Mr. Nunn will be meeting to finalize the details. The final details were never completed and this project seem to lose energy and was never completed. 

The University School 

We are utilizing the Spring only assistantship and the other assistantship that is 
normally assigned to Dr. Worzbyt to further our interactions with the University School. Additionally, an intern worked at the University school in the Spring. These initiatives lead to several meetings that further delineated needs/goals. Plans discussed to apply for one of the Elementary School Counseling Demonstration grants. However, it was determined that that would not be appropriate. A tentative strategic plan was developed for the school's counseling program. The counseling faculty agreed to support the assignment of Dr. Worzbyt to the University School for the Fall 2000 semester. Additionally, the faculty agreed to provide Dr. Worzbyt with an additional GA to help support his efforts to being to implement the strategic plan. It should be noted that during Summer 2000, Dr. Marilyn Howe, the Director of the school resigned. She was replaced by Dr. Judi Hechtman. Dr. Hechtman is as 
supportive of the counseling initiatives for the school. 
 

Special Education Department

While this collaboration continues is informal in nature. Special Education faculty are presenting in various counseling classes. 
 

The Counseling Center

Preliminary discussions for possible collaborations. This includes the possible assignment of a year long intern to their office. Dr. Weiner attended a faculty meeting to discuss this possibility and other possible collaborations. Further discussions are to begin in the Fall 2000. 
 

6. Develop and implement a process to conduct yearly student reviews. 

In the Fall, we developed a student database. We will use this database to facilitate our student reviews. However, we still have to delineated the review process. 
 

7. Develop consistent standards for our practicum courses to ensure uniformity of 
student experiences across instructors. 

Several faculty meetings have been devoted to this discussion. Theses discussion have lead to the creation of a program matrix to examine student outcomes, that include the clinical courses. This process was overwhelming and as a result we were unable to devote critical faculty meeting time to this item. The faculty will revisit this issue at the Fall 2000 retreat. 
 

8. Evaluate and revise the departmental admission workshop. 

We have piloted several minor changes, but have not begun the revision process in total. 
 

9. Develop and adopt a set of technology competencies for students (and faculty??). 

As part of examining our clinical courses (item number 7), we will also be looking at students'  competency with regard to technology. As for faculty competencies, we have not had detailed discussion on this topic. However, faculty are using technology in increasing numbers and in increasing frequency. 
 

10. Engage in a comprehensive review all departmental syllabi and explore ways to 
connect and integrate learning across all courses. Upon completion of the review, modify course syllabi to reflect the integrated learning experiences and incorporate a general portfolio plan that includes assignments from several core courses. 

See item 7. 
 

11. Explore and enhance opportunities for more team teaching and the possibility of a developing a departmental teaching circle which includes all faculty. 

There was consensus in faculty interest in this area, especially with regard to supervision. Due to time constraints, the actual implementation of a supervision circle was postponed to the 2000-2001 academic year. Faculty did agree that some readings in this area would be helpful as a precursor to the experience. Dr. Dandeneau was to compile and distribute relevant readings for discussion regarding supervision. In addition, it was decided that the faculty (Dr. Guth, Dr. Dandeneau, and. Ms. Fako, temporary faculty (doctoral intern from the University of Northern Colorado)), teaching the three sections of Basic Skills (CE 617) during the Spring semester would meet on a weekly basis and work collaboratively to insure a consistency across sections with regard to skill development, assignments, and competencies. This collaboration continued for the summer sections of the course. 
 

12. Explore and, depending on feasibility, develop a training/workshop for practitioners. 

This could be a workshop Series offered for CE units. Several ideas have been discussed, especially with respect to the School Counselors Summer Institute and the work of the COE-ET in-service committee. To date no plans to initiate either have been beyond the initial stages. 
 

13. Work in collaboration with CESA and CSI to determine and address the needs of entering students. 

The student group has had a void in leadership. In the absence of student involvement in the organization, it is difficult to work with them on this goal. 
Several student leaders surfaced in the Spring semester. These students, Chance Petro, J. W. Sawtelle, and Kelly Mack, revitalized the organizations. With the assistance of Drs. Dandeneau and L'Amoreaux they organized and conduct an initiation for CSI. An additional 30+ students were inducted to the honor society. 
 

14. Increase departmental diversity and develop a departmental community that values and appreciates diversity. Explore programs to help attract and retain all minority students. 

We are exploring the Gates Millennium Scholars program and how we might use it to attract minority students. We also were able to secure an additional Graduate Scholar through the Spring Assistantships made available by the Dean of the Graduate School and Research. 
 

15. Further enhance our alumni relations and work towards more alumni involvement in departmental activities and increase alumni donations to the Counseling Department Foundation or the Spinelli Scholarship Foundation. 

This goal is in concert with number 16. We continue to publish our departmental newsletter. Alumni have been quite responsive to the newsletter. We did request donations to the counseling department foundation in honor of Mrs. Helen Buggs, the former departmental librarian. A few donations were received. 
 

16. Develop a Community Advisory Board for both the School Counseling program and the Community Counseling program. 

Under the leadership of Drs. Fontaine and Guth, the advisory board had it's inaugural meeting in the Spring Semester. The agenda was designed to develop a mission statement and brainstorm possible goals.  Feedback from the members was quite positive. 
 

17. Facilitate, through increased faculty involvement, expansion and activities of the Counseling Student Association (CESA) and CSI-IUP. 

There was limited activity with in this goal area. However, once the new student leaders were in place, we did have student representatives at the faculty meetings during the latter portion of the Spring semester. 
 

18. Explore and develop more professional collaborations with local schools.

Aside from placing students in internship sites, there was limited work in this area. There were two collaboratives one between the career class and ARIN's pregnant and parenting teens program and one with the group practicum class and Indiana Technology Center. 
 

19. Work (via the departmental library liaison) with the appropriate offices to facilitate library resource availability for our students both in the main campus library and the departmental library. 

Through the collaborative efforts of the ACE, SAHE, and Counseling departments, library software was purchased. The software will allow students to search the library resources more efficiently and also will allow the librarian to track the resources more efficiently and effectively. 
 

Correspondence regarding this site should be sent to its maintainers, Dr. Bob Witchel bwitchel@iup.edu and Kristin Curci fwzj@iup.edu
Please see IUP's statement regarding pages that do not officially represent the
university.

This site was last modified on September 4, 2002.