Overview

Web: Department of Counseling

Dr. Gabriel Lomas, Program Director 

The M.A. in Counseling program prepares graduates to be multiculturally competent professional counselors, able to work skillfully with deaf, hard of hearing, deaf-blind, and hearing clients of diverse backgrounds in a variety of mental health settings. Our training model emphasizes the development of cultural self-awareness, sensitivity, knowledge, and skills essential to becoming effective and ethical practitioners who are able to promote health and wellbeing for all persons in the context of social justice and multiculturalism.

The Counseling program offers students the opportunity to have a clinical counseling emphasis through classwork and fieldwork. Practicum and internship opportunities typically include state, local, and private mental health agencies, addictions programs, psychiatric hospitals, and alternative educational programs serving the mental health needs of deaf and hard of hearing persons and their hearing family members. The program is a low-residency program with two weeks of on-campus work each summer and all remaining work done online, both synchronously and asynchronously.

The master’s degree in Counseling consists of a minimum of 61 credit hours and requires three academic years, including two summer residencies to complete. The low residency program requires only two weeks on campus each summer in the first and second years of study, with the remaining coursework completed online. The former CACREP-accredited counseling programs suspended admissions in 2019. We are now reopened as a low residency program and we plan to stay aligned with CACREP standards until we are able to reapply for CACREP accreditation in the fall of 2024.

Admissions Requirements

• A completed online application including a payment of $75 application fee
• A Bachelor’s degree with at least 6 credits in psychology or other human behavior coursework
• Official transcripts of all previous undergraduate work
• At least a B (3.0) cumulative GPA in undergraduate work (individuals who have a undergrad GPA below 3.0 must take the Miller Analogies Test and report scores to Gallaudet)
• One essay in written English
• An interview with the Program Director
• 3 letters of recommendation (using the provided form in application portal)