Professors, alumnus contribute to journal's special leadership issue

Faculty and an alumnus of the College of Education were recently featured in a special issue of The Counseling Psychologist, a flagship journal among counseling psychology professionals.

Two articles in the journal's special issue focusing on leadership, which was published earlier this year, focus on issues surrounding two segments of our society—racial justice issues and Black Lives Matter, and the importance of culturally grounded principles in counseling. "Black Lives Matter: A Call to Action for Counseling Psychology Leaders" was co-written by Candice Hargons (Ph.D. '15) and professor Anneliese Singh. "Liderazgo: Culturally Grounded Leadership and the National Latina/o Psychological Association" was co-written by professor Edward A. Delgado-Romero.

In the first article, Hargons and Singh, along with co-authors Della Mosley, Jameca Falconer, Reuben Falough, Danelle Stevens-Watkins and Kevin Cokley connect the importance of the Black Lives Matter movement with themes of social justice and resiliency found in counseling psychology. The piece also explores ways counseling psychologists can contribute to Black Lives Matter and build on new opportunities.

"Counseling psychologists in training, as well as counseling psychologists, have been involved in the movements across the country, challenging universities to attend to the calls for racial justice," they write. "Although counseling psychology training programs have begun to explicitly incorporate social justice advocacy in their training models, there is still a need for training that includes a specific focus on racial justice and black liberation, given the continued anti-black racism in this country."

The second article was written by past and current presidents of the National Latina/o Psychological Association, which includes Delgado-Romero. In it, the authors take a look at leadership constructs and the connections counseling psychology and social justice have to the organization's formation and development.

As a professional organization, the National Latina/o Psychological Association focuses on the unique psychological needs, concerns and priorities of Latina/o populations in the United States. The organization takes a "servant leadership" approach, or leaders who collaborate to serve the people they lead; examples include the Rev. Martin Luther King or Cesar Chavez. But the organization also recognizes there are diverse groups within the Latina/o population, and therefore the leadership of the National Latina/o Psychological Association also aims for a diverse leader-member-organizational exchange paradigm that emphasizes these complex relationships.

"Within professional organizations that are composed of predominantly white American members, racial and ethnic issues may go unaddressed or ignored," they write. "Ethnic minority psychological associations are uniquely suited to give voice to these issues."

The articles appear in volume 45 of The Counseling Psychologist.