Carmen Balthazar '08 was awarded the Regina Mathews Oehmig Award for Excellence in Counseling at the 2009 College of Social Sciences Award Ceremony. Carmen was honored for her enthusiasm for scholarly activities while maintaining a dedication to family, life, and living, and a demonstration of providing service to others with a compassion for and faith in humanity.
Leslie E. Midtbo, M.S. in 2008, is now a full-time doctoral student in the Counselor Education program at the University of New Orleans, and she also works part-time as a counselor at Family Service of Greater New Orleans. Leslie serves on the Executive Board of the Alpha Eta Chapter of Chi Sigma Iota and fully supports the mission of CSI to promote scholarship, research, professionalism, leadership and excellence in counseling.
Matthew R. Wegmann, M.S. in 2008, is in the Ph.D. program at the University of New Orleans, under the Crescent City Doctoral Scholarship Program. He is also the School Counselor at Holy Cross High School in New Orleans.
Parke E. Smith, M.S.'08, is enrolled in the Ph. D. Program at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas.
Michaella A. Neal '94 is the Test Coordinator and School Counselor at The Ursuline Academy, located at 2635 State Street in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Dr. LeAnne Steen published several book chapters and a journal article in the last few years on play therapy, supervision, and ethics. Two of the books were publications of the American Counseling Association on Critical Incidents in Counseling, where she was selected by the editors to respond to critical incidents in a clinically appropriate way.
The Graduate Counseling Department successfully co-hosted the third annual Louisianian Association for Play Therapy Conference, The Many Faces of Play Therapy on March 6 and 7 at Loyola University. The conference attracted 150 counselors, social workers, marriage and family therapists, psychologists, and pediatricians from across the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Florida. Dr. LeAnne Steen, Interim Chair of the Counseling Department, is a Board member for Louisiana Association for Play Therapy (LAPT).
Dr. LeAnne Steen presented several papers on play therapy in the last several years for the Louisiana Association for Play Therapy on theory, grief, limit setting, supervision, and filial therapy.
Steen was invited by Louisiana State University Health Science Center to present presentations in 2008 for their Play Therapy CEU program. In addition, Steen has presented research on supervision, counter-transference, junior faculty, and youthful counselors at conferences in southwestern United States.
Kevin Fall and Justin Levitov were invited by the International Association of Marriage and Family Counselors to present their training session on “Tandem Couples Therapy” at the American Counseling Association conference in Charlotte, NC. Tandem couples counseling has been adopted by several local mental health agencies and additional statewide presentations are scheduled for next year. Students in the Counseling Program also study this unique alternative to traditional couples counseling during academic as well as clinical courses.
He completed his dissertation on the changes in affect, self-efficacy, motivation, and performance among participants in a boring and challenging task.