About the Graduate School

Vision Mission Guiding Principles The Educational Benefits of Diversity Graduate School History Community Engagement

Links: Graduate Campus Directory Graduate Campus Map

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Vision

We join with students to learn, to serve, and to lead through deep engagement with the self and the world. Together we reach for wisdom, justice, compassion, and bold ideas in education and counseling.

Mission

The Lewis & Clark Graduate School of Education and Counseling is a community that values the rich diversity of voices and perspectives in a complex world. We reach out to those around us, explore new ideas, and pursue the best practice of education and counseling. We promote open dialogue, inquiry, respect, and social action to enhance the learning of adults and children.

Guiding Principles/Standards

The Lewis & Clark Graduate School community has identified nine guiding principles which support our vision and mission. These principles are in addition to the fundamental commitment, which is at the heart of our mission, to cultural competence and advocacy based on knowledge and respect for the vitality of diverse cultural, linguistic, and ethnic groups we serve. Through the development of competencies in each of these areas, our students attain the aims of the graduate school. These standards are:

Learning and Living Environments
Create democratic communities in which caring, equity, social justice, and inclusion are practiced and diverse perspectives are supported.

Disciplinary Knowledge
Integrate fundamental and emergent components of disciplinary knowledge in ways that extend and enhance experiences of the diverse individuals and groups we serve. Use this knowledge to augment our own capacity to solve problems, even as we support individuals and communities in problem solving.

Professional Practice

Engage individuals, families, and the professionals who support them in meaningful learning, counseling and therapy, and community-building experiences responsive to individual differences, interests, developmental levels, and cultural contexts.

Connection to Community
Design learning and counseling activities that cultivate connections between individuals, families, and their communities and region.

Professional/Technological Resources
Incorporate a wide range of professional and technological resources into experiences that support learning, mental health, and community well-being.

Assessment
Assess, document, and advocate for the successful learning and living of all people involved in schools and communities.

Research and Reflection
Adopt habits of personal and scholarly reflection that examine professional practice and lead to systemic renewal.

Leadership and Collaboration
Lead and collaborate with others to plan, organize, and implement education and counseling practices and programs that confront the impact of societal and institutional barriers to academic success, personal growth, and community well-being.

Professional Life
Pursue a professional identity that demonstrates a commitment to the legal, ethical, and professional responsibilities of our profession(s).

The Educational Benefits of Diversity

At its best, liberal education empowers students intellectually to understand the complex geopolitical, socio-economic, ethical, and technological challenges confronting humanity at this juncture in history. Numerous studies grounded in the principles and methods of social psychology indicate that this intellectual transformation happens most effectively in a learning environment where personal interactions, both in the classroom and generally around campus, promote open discussion of new ideas and exposure to social environments previously unknown to students. These studies demonstrate that cognitive development is measurably and permanently enhanced in students who in the course of their daily lives have frequent and intense interactions with others whose backgrounds and whose world views are profoundly different from their own. This growing body of scholarly work also shows that all students in a diverse social environment engage more effectively in discussions about complex issues, becoming more adept at understanding multiple perspectives and more capable of critical thinking in ways that will enhance the quality of their lives and their success within their careers long after graduation.

Lewis & Clark College is an institution of liberal learning that aims to educate its students for successful and fulfilling lives in their chosen fields of endeavor. To honor this promise, the College gives its students the opportunity to engage actively and critically in dialog informed by those richly diverse cultural traditions that comprise our American Heritage. Therefore, the College explicitly acknowledges and affirms its conviction that diversity with respect to race, ethnicity, national origin, socio-economic background, religious orientation or spirituality, physical or sensory disability, gender, and sexual orientation on the Lewis & Clark campus provides an educational benefit for all students that can be realized only by enhancing and preserving the presence of students and education professionals from diverse backgrounds within our learning community. In creating and sustaining such a community, we engage, to the extent possible, in practices that will ensure a high degree of diversity on our campus, simultaneously meeting the highest standards of academic excellence of which we are capable.

History of the Graduate School

Although Lewis & Clark has educated teachers and counselors since its earliest days, the Graduate School of Education and Counseling in its present form dates from 1984. That year, graduate programs were consolidated into a single administrative unit and faculty collaborated on a unified vision for educating students and joining together as a community of scholars and learners. Through this vision, the Graduate School of Education and Counseling has supported the mission of Lewis & Clark by educating thoughtful leaders, innovative decision makers, and agents of positive change in the fields of education and counseling: leaders who actively engage with the communities they serve.

The establishment of Rogers Hall supported the Graduate School of Education and Counseling’s transformational vision and fulfills a need inherent to graduate study: community. Under the roof of a single building, Lewis & Clark graduate faculty and students are able to come together through dialogue, reflection, and collaboration, producing innovative leaders prepared to make significant contributions in the fields of education and counseling.

Community Engagement

The Graduate School of Education and Counseling works in collaboration with community partners to address critical community needs in education and mental health through the Center for Community Engagement. Through these partnerships, we strive to enhance the effectiveness of education and mental health professionals as agents of change; support the self-organizing capacities of groups, organizations and communities working toward social justice; and help meet the educational and mental health needs of marginalized communities with a commitment to address issues of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, power, privilege, language, and ability. The center builds and supports alliance and networks, creates connections with social service organization and schools, and seeks out, explores, and reflects the diversity that exists within communities. Connecting theory and practice, we prepare a cadre of new education and mental health change agents by integrating outreach into graduate coursework and involving graduate students in outreach activities.