A variety of means are available to foster student involvement with the Doctoral Program. Doctoral cohorts annually select a member to represent their class at regular faculty meetings. During regular faculty meetings in which issues relevant to Doctoral students are addressed, student representatives function primarily as observers and give feedback to faculty about the issues being addressed. After these meetings, student representatives report to their Doctoral cohorts the contents of the meeting.
Three times a year, student representatives will attend faculty meetings acting as liaisons from the larger student meetings of the Counseling Psychology Doctoral Student Association. During these meetings, student representatives bring issues that Doctoral students raised during their meeting to the attention of Program faculty. In this portion of the meeting, student representatives are responsible for setting the agenda and facilitating the meeting. After student concerns are presented and discussed, faculty may address the issues raised during the meeting, at a subsequent faculty meeting, or may discuss the issues without the student representatives present. The faculty strive to respond in writing to student issues in approximately two weeks, although some issues may take longer for a thoughtful response. In this case, faculty will respond to students with an update after two weeks.
Although the above described procedure is the expected format for student representatives communicating student concerns to faculty, students may want their representatives to communicate directly to the Director of Training concerning a sensitive issue. In this case, student representatives should contact the director to schedule an appointment for such a meeting.
To facilitate communication within the Program, a student/faculty listserv (as well as student-only listserv) has been established. In addition, the Program has instituted a “town-hall meeting” format that is held as needed in response to student or faculty initiative. This format in which all students and faculty are invited to participate allows students and faculty to talk directly to each other about Program issues and developments. For example, the Town Hall meeting format has been used to discuss issues pertaining to the impact of racial and cultural diversity within the program. In recent years, the Town Hall meeting has spawned an ongoing self-reflection process that has provided students and faculty with a valuable opportunity to explore how diversity issues are manifested across the various contexts of the program.
To promote quality and effective student learning experiences, and consistent with APA Ethical Principles (see American Psychologist, December 2002), the Program works to promote interactions that are collegial and conducted with the highest standards of the profession.
Students are encouraged to present scholarly work at professional conferences and colloquia. Students who are presenting papers or who have published their work are encouraged to forward that information (title, place of publication, presentation date, co-authors, etc.) to the Director of Training. In addition, students should give copies of these publications to the staff on the Departmental office (Campion 309) so that the cover page of the article can be posted in the third-floor display of recent research among Lynch School scholars.
Students are encouraged to become involved in the 
Graduate
Education Association or the Graduate
Student Association. These student organizations sponsor research conferences
on campus and may offer financial support for student presentations at off-campus
conferences. Counseling Psychology students are also strongly encouraged to
become student members of APA Division 17 (Counseling Psychology) and the Division
17 Student Affiliate Group as well as other relevant APA Divisions.