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Through my K-12 years as both a teacher and school leader, I came to rely on the substantive role that school counselors and school psychologists provide in supporting our educational endeavors. As a first-year teacher at Linden High School, which was situated amidst cherry orchards in the San Joaquin Valley, I was clueless in how to support the social-emotional needs of my students, including our many migrant farm workers’ children. It was through many conversations that began that year and continued through my tenure as a district office leader, that engendered my profound respect for the essential partnership that teachers and school administrators must form with our counselors and school psychologists.
When I made the transition full time into higher education here in California, I began to work with professors in schools and colleges of education whose teaching, scholarship, and service focused on counseling and school psychology. Just as I had during my PK-12 years, I began to forge alliances with those departments: the triptych of teaching, leadership, and counseling invited us to establish comprehensive community partnerships through which we could serve the needs of our many students.
In one of my recent letters, I shared that my arrival on June 1st led to deep reflection of our School of Education Mission.
Our Mission: The School of Education at California State University Channel Islands serves students, families, and communities by effectively preparing culturally competent teachers and leaders who work collaboratively to inspire learning and promote equity in and through education.
Nuestra misión: La Escuela de Educación de California State University Channel Islands sirve a estudiantes, familias y comunidades por medio de la preparación efectiva de maestras/os y líderes culturalmente competentes que trabajan en colaboración para inspirar el aprendizaje y promover la equidad en y a través de la educación.
As I studied our mission from yet another lens, I recognized that we made no mention of culturally and linguistically competent counselors. To this point, I noted, our School of Education had not yet provided counselors or school psychologists for our region.
In the subsequent days and weeks, other data points emerged.
- In a breakfast meeting with President Richard Yao, Dr. Chuck Weiss, Dr. Sevet Johnson (the newly selected interim CEO of Ventura County), and Celina Zacharias, we discussed the large number of graduates with psychology degrees that CSUCI produces yearly. Both Chuck and I shared how we presently have no graduate programs for those many students, including none for school counselors and psychologists.
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Provost Mitch Avila asked me to author with CSUCI colleagues a Title V grant that our President and he agreed should focus on this significant opportunity for our School of Education. We titled this $3M grant, for which we are eligible as a Hispanic Serving Institution, Caminos for Future Counselors, Psychologists, Teachers, and Leaders. It would provide funding for launching counseling and school psychology programs, along with focused emphasis on Latinx students and broad support for all SOE faculty and students.
- In inviting Dr. Kimmy Kee-Rose, Chair of Psychology in the College of Arts and Sciences, to join our team and serve as a Co-Principal Investigator, we learned that her department has over 1,100 undergraduate psychology majors at CSUCI. In working with our new Director of Institutional Research, Dr. Matt Zivot, it turns out a lot of our students do go to graduate school, but none has options at CSUCI.
- CSUCI commissioned a study this spring of community partners’ views of our university. In the findings we learned that only 19% of regional school counselors would likely recommend CSUCI to their students. Their lack of awareness and endorsement of our university, coupled with the fact that none of them has graduated from a graduate counseling program with us, invites an additional opportunity to support our entire institution as well as our region.
I have had the privilege of teaching Pedagogy of the Oppressed to graduate students many times over the years. I return to Paolo Freire’s words again and again as I consider how to be in the world:
The pursuit of full humanity, however, cannot be carried out in isolation or individualism, but only in fellowship and solidarity.
Sometimes the stars align in strange and wonderful ways, and my first two months at CI have been a whirlwind of doors opening that I believe will benefit our School of Education and each of us. I recognize our professors are off contract during the summer and have not yet engaged in dialogue with the merits of this proposal; I welcome our conversation in the weeks and months to come as we consider the opportunity to ensure that CSUCI meets the needs of our students, schools, and region.
In fellowship and solidarity,
Elizabeth
Elizabeth C. Orozco Reilly
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