Our mission is to foster an experiential and interpersonal learning environment in which the life experience and diversity of each student are valued. Our education is cooperative, egalitarian, and transformative. Students are our colleagues in teaching and learning. We hope to guide students in becoming more self-aware, reflective, sensitive to others and their uniqueness, aware of the diverse needs of the surrounding community, and more connected to and willing to provide service to the local community and larger society. We stress critical thinking that questions one’s assumptions and biases, psychological theories and practices, and the profession. We emphasize integrity, ethical behavior and reflective self-evaluation with the aim of encouraging students to ask questions and make decisions consistent with the values of social justice. We strive to impart current knowledge and teach effective skills, but hold the value that educational and personal change are life long processes to be continued.
To this end we want our students to acquire the following program outcomes:
Theoretical Knowledge — Students will demonstrate satisfactory mastery of the theoretical basis of professional psychology including Theories of Psychotherapy, Human Development, Psychological Assessment, Research Methods, and Psychopathology.
Clinical Skills — Students will be able to demonstrate developmentally appropriate skills related to psychotherapeutic relationships, evaluation and intervention
Professional/ethical awareness — Students will demonstrate the ability to apply the legal and ethical guidelines of the profession and to enact behaviors related to functioning and demeanor as a professional, e.g. submitting work on time, understanding of the professional role
Multicultural competence — Students will acquire knowledge, skills and awareness of the impact of culture on clients and awareness of themselves as cultural beings in order to practice effectively with a diverse client population.
Interpersonal competence — Students will demonstrate a demeanor that is clinically appropriate by showing awareness of the impact of oneself on others, keeping the personal from intruding upon the professional, demonstrating self-reflective capability, and accepting feedback without being overly defensive.
Writing competence — Students will demonstrate the ability to articulate their thoughts about psychological principles clearly and succinctly
Critical thinking — Students can demonstrate their ability to problem solve and to critique the profession by evaluating psychological theories and practices using an analytic frame.
Students will be evaluated in a final professional paper and performance in a capstone course on their ability to integrate information from diverse subfields of clinical psychology into a coherent understanding of human behavior.
