Counseling Psychology

Striving for Excellence in the Integration of Practice, Science, and Diversity

The Counseling Psychology doctoral program at the University of Missouri - Columbia (MU) was accredited by the American Psychological Association in 1953, and is the 5th oldest program in the United States. The program has been consistently ranked in the top 10 nationally in the U.S. News and Word Report "Best Graduate Schools" annual comparison. Students are accepted into the Ph.D. program through one of three routes: (a) directly after having completed undergraduate training, (b) after completing a Masters degree at another counseling program, or (c) after completing a Masters degree in the MU Counseling Psychology program. In addition to the Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology, the program offers a Masters degree in Counseling Psychology, with specializations in the following: Community/Agency Counseling, School Counseling, and Career Counseling and Development.. The program also offers an emphasis at either the Ph.D. or Masters level in Sport and Exercise Psychology.

The Counseling Psychology program and our students have received several awards and accolades. Many of these awards and accolades are summarized in theattached document. To highlight a few here, in 2000, the Counseling Psychology program was awarded the APA Richard Suinn Award for excellence in multicultural graduate education. Additionally, we were particularly pleased to be selected as the 2000 "Psychology Department of the Year" by the APA Association of Psychology Graduate Students. In a competition open to all APA accredited programs, not only those in Counseling Psychology, we were named the best department by a national panel of graduate students who reviewed the quality of our teaching, faculty advising, and department training environment. In addition, the 2001, 2003, and 2004 Society of Counseling Psychology Training Programs' "Graduate Student of the Year" were selected from our program. Finally, in 2004, two of our students were awarded prestigious awards from APA's Divison of Counseling Psychology: 1) the Donald E. Super Fellowship for support of Dissertation Research on Career Development, and 2) the Barbara A. Kirk Award for Outstanding Graduate Student Research.

The Counseling Psychology program faculty are known for their research contributions to the field and for their professional leadership in national and international organizations. Past published surveys of faculty research productivity have ranked the program from 5th to 2nd nationally. Most recently, a 1999 review (Buboltz et al., Journal of Counseling Psychology) ranked the University of Missouri - Columbia as the 3rd highest in research productivity of more than 70 APA accredited programs over the past 25 years. Program faculty have recently received external funding for research in eating disorders prevention, cancer patient coping resources, blood pressure control for African-American women, and vocational issues for arthritis patients. Faculty have also received numerous awards for teaching excellence. For example, the prestigious William Kemper awards are given to only ten University of Missouri - Columbia faculty each year who achieve the very highest levels of teaching excellence. With more than 1100 eligible University of Missouri faculty, four current (and two former) members of the Counseling Psychology faculty have received Kemper awards. Two members of the faculty are also recipients of Fulbright international grants.

Additionally, our Counseling Psychology faculty and students are invested in creating a community within our program. Our faculty are committed to students' personal development as well as to their development as professionals. Mentoring is a strong value among our faculty and we take the time to foster students' growth in terms of professional identification, involvement in professional organizations, and networking with colleagues across the country and internationally.