Higher Education\u27s Contributions to the U.S. Democratic Society

College experiences can contribute to teaching, learning, and instruction within higher education. The framework for this essay treats the college community as prototypic of the U.S. political society. Several aspects of the national political culture have been approximated within a collegiate culture. For example, every political problem within our society can be represented in a miniature fashion within a program of studies in a university. Much of students’ political information can come from the interaction between teachers and students. However, a sizable portion of this learned information can extend through interaction among students. At that point, teachers would point students to information that expands their reservoir of collegiate information. Ultimately, students would refine their political information by exchanging valuable information with one another, as well as with their teachers. We have chosen to target higher education rather than pre-collegiate levels in emphasizing how higher education and our democratic system of government can be intertwined. We highlight the possibilities of college students’ understanding and appreciating others’ political views in working with one another rather than against one another in educational and political planning. Specifically, we include in this report the following issues: (a) political information resources routinely available in higher education, (b) college students’ learning to participate in broader political conversation, (c) college students’ examination of high profile U.S. constitutional declarations, (d) college students’ deepened comprehension of their own political perspectives, and (e) college students’ understanding that the knowledge derived from higher education can strengthen our democratic system of government

Photography as a Wellness Tool for Counselors-in-Training

The academic journey to become a professional counselor can be challenging for counselors-in-training (CIT), adversely affecting their physical health, mental health, and wellness. Counselor educators (CE) have recognized a need for wellness training and interventions to assist CIT during graduate school and to prepare them for their careers. Photography is considered a tool in art therapy within the realm of expressive therapies that can be used for wellness purposes. We review wellness, CIT struggles with wellness, expressive therapies, and photography techniques to promote CIT professional development and wellness practices. We identify the history of photography tools, describe each tool more precisely, and provide examples of how they can aid CIT in addressing their health and wellness and increasing their knowledge and use of photography as a wellness tool with future clients. We discuss practice and research implications for CE and CIT