Master of Education/Educational Specialist Degrees in Counselor Education

The faculty of the Counselor Education Program is dedicated to educating counselors as scholar practitioners who can effectively serve diverse populations. We prepare counselors who also seek opportunities to engage in outreach and advocacy through collaborative partnerships. The program provides opportunities for students to apply theory, research, knowledge, and skills through experiential learning, with an emphasis on wellness, prevention, and intervention.

The counselor education program offers a 60-credit hour CACREP-accredited master of education degree with specializations in clinical mental health counseling or school counseling. The program also offers a 30-credit hour educational specialist degree in counselor education. Please see tabs below for details about each program.

Students may complete the program on a part-time or full-time basis. The full-time program can be completed in two years, including summers. All students must complete the program in six years. Courses are taught in the afternoons/evenings, Monday through Thursday. Approximately one-third of the courses are taught at Clemson University and the other two-thirds at the University Center in Greenville over the course of the program. All students will need to travel back and forth to both locations, and carpooling is encouraged. Most students tend to live in Clemson or Greenville. The program does not offer online classes.

Faculty

The program and faculty reside in the Department of Education and Human Development. Current program faculty include Dr. Corrine Sackett (Counselor Education Program Coordinator), Dr. Amanda Rumsey, Dr. Brooke Wymer Ellis, Dr. Liz Boyd and Dr. David Scott.

Counselor Education Program Objectives

• Students will develop and demonstrate a professional counseling identity
• Students will exhibit self-reflection and self-awareness and demonstrate professional growth
• Students will exhibit critical thinking skills
• Students will apply culturally sensitive counseling, career, and human development theories to individual and group counseling practice
• Students will identify and use counseling interventions and techniques that are grounded in research
• Students will identify processes of intentional and unintentional oppression and discrimination and avenues for advocacy
• Students will acquire the knowledge and skills needed to identify and use culturally relevant assessment strategies
• Students will identify opportunities and processes for collaborating and consulting
• Students will acquire knowledge and skills in their counseling specialty area

Clemson University’s College of Education is a transformative leader in systematically improving education, beginning at birth. We train teachers, counselors and leaders for P-12 schools; prepare counselors to serve in communities; train student affairs practitioners, administrators and faculty to serve in higher education; and prepare training and development specialists for business and industry. But we do even more. We engage tomorrow’s educators in high-quality research and professional learning that will help them make a difference in the world.

The College of Education is dedicated to enhancing the education and development of all students, particularly those in underserved communities. We not only shape the lives of individuals; we also help transform families and communities. We see a significant role for our college in the economic development of our state and nation, and we embrace Clemson’s land-grant mission to better the lives of South Carolina’s citizens.

The College of Education includes three academic departments - Education and Human Development; Educational and Organizational Leadership Development; and Teaching and Learning - and the Eugene T. Moore School of Education, home to nationally renowned classroom and clinical training for pre-service teachers, professional mentoring of early-career teachers, and cutting-edge continuing education for in-service teachers. The school is named for the late Eugene T. Moore, a 1949 graduate of Clemson University who committed his adult life to education as a teacher, coach and principal in Florence County, S.C. In 2002, Darla Moore, daughter of Eugene T. Moore, and Richard Rainwater gave a $10 million gift to Clemson to name the school in her father's honor.

The candidate performance in the College of Education is strong, and we are committed to our conceptual framework. We are nationally accredited by the state of South Carolina, NCATE (recently merged with TEAC to become CAEP), and CACREP. Our teacher preparation programs, literacy, and principal and superintendency educational leadership programs are nationally recognized by their specialized professional association standards.

We embrace a commitment to a diverse faculty, staff and student body and provide all with diverse experiences within our programs. Housed in the College of Education is the nationally acclaimed Call Me MISTER® program, as well as the Charles H. Houston Center for the Study of Black Experience in Education. We also house the National Dropout Prevention Center/Network and the Reading Recovery® and Early Literacy Training Center for South Carolina.