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University of Wyoming

UW COUNSELOR EDUCATION GRADUATE PROGRAMS REACCREDITED

All graduate programs in the University of Wyoming Department of Counselor Education recently received full re-accreditation through 2012 from the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP).

CACREP reaccredited three master’s degree programs and a doctoral program for an eight-year period, the maximum possible, following an extensive self-study process and a CACREP team site visit in the spring of 2003.

Programs receiving CACREP approval are the master of science (MS) in community counseling, the MS in school counseling, the MS in student affairs, and the doctor of philosophy (PhD) in counselor education and supervision.
Faculty members Mary Alice Bruce and Michael Loos led the self-assessment leading to UW’s site visit. That process involved carefully documenting how each program met specific curricular standards over time, primarily through review of syllabi. They also documented other structural evidence such as clinical faculty/student ratios, library holdings, college and university support and qualifications of program instructors.


The review team also developed evidence that programming offered outside of Laramie meets the same high standards.

“A big part involved documenting that our cohort program in Casper is comparable and follows the same standards,” Counselor Education Department Chairperson Kent Becker says.

The Casper program, in the midst of its third three-year cycle, serves 22 students from around Wyoming. Cohort members will graduate in May 2005. A new cohort begins in August that year.

While re-accreditation is the ultimate goal, the process leading up to that designation also carries great value.
“As a team, it brings you to a point where you’re really having critical conversations that you might have been having, but not at the same level,” Becker says. “It definitely brought us into many conversations about on-campus programming versus distance programming. It did help us to enhance our delivery of services in Casper.”

Members of the site visit team praised faculty commitment to providing direct supervision of students. While some institutions delegate that responsibility to other sources, Counselor Education Department faculty take responsibility for that work.

“For a Research I university, the amount of daily contact we have with students is extremely high,” Becker says. “We spend a lot of time in direct supervision of students.” Students interviewed during the site visit expressed the same appreciation for faculty involvement and accessibility.

Accreditation has implications for both academic programs and their graduates. It indicates to internal and external audiences that the programs meet standards necessary to assure integrity and accountability in the preparation of counseling professionals.

Master’s-level graduates of CACREP-accredited programs enjoy a streamlined licensing process, since curriculum review can be eliminated. Doctoral-level graduates find that many academic vacancies offer a preference for candidates with degrees from CACREP programs.