Article Published: 8/21/2024
NBCC is excited to honor two counselors whose diligence has made a significant impact on their clients and the counseling profession. Dr. Christian Chan and Dr. Meredith Rausch have invested their time, experience, and wisdom to advance mental health care and further the careers of other counselors.
Each of these awardees have demonstrated commitment to celebrating the contributions of other counselors, promoting the power of collaboration, and encouraging resiliency. As counselor educators, they continue to advance the counseling profession through supporting their students.
Christian Chan, PhD, NCC, is the Associate Editor for the Teaching and Supervision in Counseling journal and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Counseling and Educational Development at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
In previous years, he served as the President of the Association for Adult Development and Aging (a division of the American Counseling Association), and the President of the Maryland Counseling Association.
Dr. Chan has also been involved in several other counseling organizations. Despite his involvement, he believes leadership isn’t about the number of roles someone has. Instead, it’s about the quality of that leadership.
“We can continue to be involved in a myriad of ways and it doesn't mean that just because I'm only involved in this way or that way that we have to diminish that. We are making a difference every single day that we are involved in service to our profession,” Dr. Chan says.
Community plays a big role in helping counselors to succeed. Dr. Chan says the different roles he’s held in the profession are representations of the mentors who have dedicated their time and wisdom to him. He pays this forward as a counselor educator.
As the faculty advisor of Chi Sigma Iota at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Dr. Chan says it’s easy to simply advise or offer mentorship to participating students. Instead, he takes a more active role in serving students in the chapter.
He had an idea to put on a five-part webinar series to focus on culturally responsive trauma informed and community engaged leadership. Through the series, Dr. Chan proposed inviting five leaders who embodied those assets. He worked to promote the series and to elevate the leaders his chapter of Chi Sigma Iota worked with.
Individuals involved in the project applied for a chapter development grant. While Dr. Chan drafted and envisioned the idea, he asked the student leaders on the grant to put their names ahead of his in the authorship order.
“I know that it's going to mean more to [their] career development,” Dr. Chan says. “We all have an important part that not only we're playing, but that we are contributing because of the experiences that we bring. It is about how we bring our full selves to this work. That in itself is already a deep leadership contribution”.
Serving in the counseling profession can often go unnoticed. The NBCC Servant Leadership Award seeks to celebrate these actions and to inspire counseling professionals to continue this important work.
“My hope is that I can continue to be a role model. Not only for the legacy [of my mentors] and the future that is ahead of us, but also for the colleagues and peers who I'm in community with,” Dr. Chan says.
Meredith Rausch, PhD, NCC, is an Associate Professor of Counselor Education and Director of Admissions at Augusta University.
Dr. Rausch says counseling changed her life. Growing up, conflict in her personal life drove her to books about counseling. She learned about cognitive behavioral therapy and other ways to help people. Although Dr. Rausch did not originally plan to go to college for counseling, her interest in the profession never changed. After getting a bachelor’s degree in speech communication and rhetoric, she got her master’s and doctoral degrees in counselor education/school counseling and guidance services.
In everything she does—from her role as a mother to her role as an educator—Dr. Rausch leads through service.
“For me, service should be the foundation of everything you do,” Dr. Rausch says. “That's why I'm a counselor.”
Dr. Rausch promotes equity through her work at Augusta University. She recognizes there are many populations that don’t have access to counselors who look like them. As the Director of Admissions, Dr. Rausch works to recruit diverse students who can help meet those needs.
In the classroom, counseling students are encouraged to think about how a diagnosis could impact different populations. Dr. Rausch incorporates multicultural competencies into her lessons to give her students a broader perspective about what it means to be a counselor. For instance, her students are required to be a minority in a group twice, then write about that experience. Dr. Rausch says this work is about encouraging students to take action.
“We can read this. We can learn this,” she says. “But what are different ways we can advocate?”
Dr. Rausch asks students to think about advocacy in a way that’s comfortable for them. No matter how her students choose to be advocates and leaders, Dr. Rausch works to be accessible and compassionate.
“They're gonna know I'm the one who's gonna rock the boat. I'm the one who's gonna speak up, but I'm gonna stand beside them the whole way and make sure that they're safe in it,” she says.
The NBCC Awards highlight how dedicated counselors are impacting others. Both Dr. Rausch and Dr. Chan share the same mentor, Dr. Victoria Kress.
“I've really put an emphasis on the importance of growing advocates and developing emerging leaders,” Dr. Kress says. “I'm very passionate and I'm very much a person who's like, let's not talk about the problems. Let's fix them. Let's do something.”
Dr. Rausch and Dr. Chan say Dr. Kress has made a difference in their lives as a mentor. Now, they’re paying it forward through service for their students and their communities. The NBCC Awards demonstrate the profound effect that leadership can have on other professionals.
Listen to the NBCC Award winners share their stories on the National Board for Certified Counselors’ YouTube channel.
**Opinions and thoughts expressed in NBCC Visions Newsletter articles belong to the interviewees and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or practices of NBCC and Affiliates.
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