Department of Counseling, Higher Education, and Special Education (CHSE)

Research activity in the Department of Counseling, Higher Education, and Special Education reflects the diversity of the areas of concentration and academic specializations within the department. Faculty conduct research in collaboration with one another and with researchers and scientists in other disciplines within the university and in other institutions.

The faculty in Counseling Psychology, School Psychology and School Counseling focus on career development and rehabilitation;  the intersection of health and overall psychosocial well-being with a focus on positive adaptation; process and outcome in counseling and psychotherapy; counselor training and development; applications of social cognitive theory to academic and career behavior; emotions and stress as risk and resilience processes among underserved, U.S. minority students; identification of academic resiliency factors among youth of color living in under-resourced neighborhoods; integration of social justice principles in the fields of counseling and counseling psychology; bullying and bullying prevention; using social media in adolescent suicide prevention; school-based promotion of emotional  health services and prevention of mental health problems; help seeking among culturally and linguistically diverse students; multicultural counseling competencies; and sexual identity development.

Faculty in Higher Education, Student Affairs and International Education Policy conduct research on a broad range of topics, focused on higher education in the US and abroad.  Our research interests include: establishing more inclusive environments that support and enhance students' educational attainment; access and retention within graduate education and the professoriate; organizational practices that facilitate the full participation of diverse faculty and the legitimacy of diverse scholarship in the academy; campus racial climate and  difficult dialogues; the economics and finance of higher education; the political economy of educational policy and social change; peace education; environmental ethics and education; and East-West Dialogues in education and culture.

Special Education faculty focus on early childhood, inclusion of children with severe disabilities into school/community settings and curriculum adaptations for inclusive classrooms ; policy and legislative issues in special education; identification of high-incidence, severe and multiple disabilities; language and social-emotional development in early childhood;  secondary and transition programming and supporting persons with disabilities in the community; adolescents with learning disabilities and struggling readers; teacher professional development; behavior disorders;  school discipline, school exclusion, and education programs in institutional settings; language, motivation and literacy;  reading comprehension, differentiated instruction and response to intervention, instructional supports for children from low socioeconomic or English learning backgrounds; adolescent literacy and multi-tiered systems of support for adolescents with and at risk for reading disabilities and behavior disorders,  including those in the juvenile justice system; autism spectrum disorders;  technology-based interventions (virtual and augmented reality, tablets, robots);  video-based interventions.