"The issue of what to do in response to suicidal students is anything but a clear one" (Harshbarger, 2014, para. 3). How to best support students with severe mental illness is an ongoing challenge for institutions of higher education. Institutions must adapt to a rapidly changing landscape of evolving federal policy, case law, and…

Graduate school is a high stress situation due to the need of fulfilling expectations while balancing various personal, professional, and educational obligations. As a result, graduate students are especially susceptible to mental health conditions during their educational journey. Take a Stability Equilibrium Course ("Take a SEC") was…

My dissertation studies the relationship between counseling and violence within U.S. schools. Much of the research on school security and school safety tends to lean heavily on routine activities theory and other opportunity theories, which limits the study of other factors critically relevant to this topic such as school climate. This…

Although bullying aggression has been around for a long time, cyberbullying poses a unique and severe threat. With the advent of the internet and digital platforms, a bully can attack anytime and anywhere with exponential and repeatable damage. Before digital media, rumors or singular events were hurtful but did not have the added…

Mental health concerns on college campuses are at an all-time high. Within the student-athlete population, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) reported suicide as the third leading cause of death (Ching, 2018). Furthermore, in a survey conducted by the NCAA of more than 37,000 student-athletes during the month of April 2020, 50% of…

To close the achievement gap between first and continuing generation students, several interventions that specifically target first-generation students have been designed and delivered in a variety of settings. These interventions are typically intended to promote wellness and support academic achievement in students' college careers, which in…

The prevalence of diabetes mellitus (DM) is higher in American Indians/Alaska Natives (AI/AN) than in any other racial or ethnic group in the United States (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services [USDHHS] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2018). In response to this escalating health issue, the U.S. government funded a number…

Many HIV prevention professionals have documented only moderate effectiveness of the Mpowerment Project, an HIV behavior intervention prevention program for minorities. Researchers have concluded that program success depends on effectiveness of peer leader management, yet little is known regarding the experiences of those peer leaders.…

What is the relationship between school poverty and school suspension rates and to what extent do prevention programming and school bonding lower the suspension risk for students in high poverty schools? The present study examined the association between school level poverty and suspension rates in addition to investigating whether prevention…

The purpose of this research was to explore how CACREP accredited Clinical Mental Health Counseling programs conceptualize self-care and integrate self-care education into counseling curriculum. Counselor educators in CACREP accredited Clinical Mental Health Counseling programs served as representatives to their programs and were invited to share…