The CED program at Auburn University offers high quality graduate education programs for counselors and counselor educators. The program includes Master’s level counseling degrees in Clinical Mental Health Counseling, School Counseling and Clinical Rehabilitation Counseling, and a doctoral degree in Counselor Education. The primary mission of the program is to develop counseling professionals who possess the skills and knowledge necessary to be highly competent and committed professionals in their specialty area.
To accomplish this, the programs focus on student development of competencies to address biopsychosocial and environmental barriers to educational achievement and development. Students also engage in challenging educational experiences focused on enhancing their skills and knowledge with an emphasis on culturally informed and holistic practice. Further, the department seeks to foster an egalitarian culture in which individual creativity, ethical behavior, professional identity, and scholarship are reinforced and nurtured across all programs.
A central foundation of the Counselor Education mission is the preparation of counselors and counselor educators to work in an increasingly diverse society. The program’s understanding of diversity encompasses culture, sexual and gender identity, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, ability, and other aspects of individual identity. The program believes that meeting this goal requires students and faculty engage in the application of advocacy and social justice principles as counseling professionals within the program, University, communities and schools.
The Counselor Education Mission Statement and the program's commitment to diversity is in accordance with the following CACREP accreditation standards: 1.H. - The counselor education program has a process for identifying underrepresented populations and makes continuous and systematic efforts to recruit, enroll, and retain students that enhance and support the diversity of the program; 1.I. - The counselor education program intentionally creates and effectively maintains an inclusive and equitable learning community that respects individual differences.
