Marissa Yang Bertucci, School Counseling ’19, To Deliver Graduate Student Commencement Address
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Marissa Yang Bertucci (she/her) is a School Counseling student at Lewis & Clark. She grew up in in the Bay Area, California, navigating the world with her resilient bi-cultural immigrant family. She attended Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, where she studied English Literature and French with a focus on post-colonial Africa and critical race theory. Marissa lived in the South of France working in public schools and talking to students about immigration and French racial politics before moving to Portland, Oregon to be an attendance and student engagement specialist, debate coach, and LGBTQ youth community organizer. In working with our community’s most marginalized youth, Marissa chose to pursue School Counseling at Lewis & Clark’s Graduate School of Education and Counseling. She believes that humble, critical advocacy and mental health support at the public school level maximizes equitable outcomes for students and families.
Lewis & Clark provided Marissa with a vibrant network of mentors and peers who are engaged in transformative work in the education sphere. She serves the student body as a Student Union Network representative. Marissa has presented research at the Oregon School Counselors Association Conference, the Queer Students of Color Conference, the Social Justice Real Justice Conference, and more. She works as a school counselor in East County. Marissa hopes to center the lived experiences of students in her school counseling practice, continuing research on serving queer youth, youth of color, communities displaced by gentrification, and youth exhibiting high rates of peer aggression to bolster public school reform and policy change.
Full details about the graduate school’s June 2 commencement ceremony are available here.
