Program Earns Eight-Year Accreditation

The SHSU Educational Leadership and Counseling department's community counseling master’s program recently achieved an unusual feat.

Not only did the program become one of 10 in the state to earn accreditation by the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs, but it received an eight-year accreditation, the longest period awarded by the counsel, on its very first attempt to earn accreditation.

“In my six years on the CACREP board of directors, I can recall very few programs seeking accreditation for the very first time that received the full eight-year accreditation period,” said Richard Watts, the counseling program’s CACREP liaison and director of the Center for Research and Doctoral Studies in counseling education.

“Usually programs receive two years with ‘conditions,’” he said. “This means that those programs did not meet some of the accreditation standards and were given two years to make the changes necessary for the program so that the program would meet or surpass the unmet standards.”

“CACREP accreditation is a coveted national accreditation for counseling programs. We are so fortunate to have received this designation,” said Beverly Irby, educational leadership and counseling department chair. “I believe it is due to the expert faculty in our community counseling program who serve the future counselors as role models in teaching and counseling.”

The master’s level program received accreditation in July after submitting a thorough examination of SHSU’s curriculum and resources in a self-study and having a three-person site-team visit from CACREP.

“They turn over every rock,” Watts said. “They are being positive, but they are looking for things that the programs said in the self-study that we meet these standards. They want to see if what was said on paper is actually occurring in the real life situation.”

What the CACREP team reported to the body was that SHSU had met every one of the hundreds of standards set forth in order to receive the full accreditation. If even one standard isn’t met, Watts said, a program will get a two-year conditional accreditation.

“They love this program. Two of the people were long-time site team (members), and they have seen a lot of programs, and they were immensely impressed with our facilities and how we do things,” Watts said. “You can see that opinion coming to fruition in the fact that we got the full eight years, something that is not particularly common with first-time accredited programs.”

This accreditation is the first step in the counselor education program’s goals, which include getting CACREP accreditation for two other programs, which Watt said he hopes will be accomplished within the next two years.

“One of our goals is to get the school counseling program and the doctoral program accredited,” he said. “All three site-team members, two of which are from doctoral programs, said that the potential for our doctoral program is unlimited.”

While many counselor education programs across the state have a general accreditation, the CACREP accreditation is one given by the counseling professions accreditation program, which provides “quality control,” Watts said.

“People who come here to study in the community counseling program will know that they’re receiving a quality education because the program has gone through rigorous examinations and has been deemed worthy, not only of just accreditation, but we met all the standards,” he said.

Other programs in the state that have earned the CACREP accreditation include St. Mary’s University, Stephen F. Austin State University, Texas A & M University—Commerce, Texas A & M University—Corpus Christi, Texas State University—San Marcos, Texas Tech University, Texas Woman’s University, University of Mary Hardin Baylor and the University of North Texas.

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SHSU Media Contact: Jennifer Gauntt
Sept. 20, 2006
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