Antiracist Leadership in Higher Education and Counselor Education

Date and Time: Thursday, September 24th, 2:30pm-4:00pm ET

Click here to view this webinar. 

Description: This was a SACES Presidential sponsored panel presentation. SACES hosted a panel discussion with three prominent higher education and counselor education leaders, who are also all SACES members: Dr. Kent Butler, UCF’s Interim Chief Equity, Inclusion and Diversity Officer and President-Elect of ACA and Dean Andrew Daire, Dean of the VCU School of Education. The panel was moderated by Dr. Marlon Johnson, co-chair of the SACES Social Justice and Human Rights Interest Network.

Sponsor: This webinar will be sponsored by the Florida Atlantic University Counselor Education Program.

Learning objectives:

1. Participants will understand the current cultural issues, specifically with black males, that are occurring in counselor education.
2. Participants will understand trends in higher education that are directly impacting the training of professional counselors.
3. Participants will be provided strategies to enhance their leadership skills to improve counselor education.
4. Participants will be provided strategies to advocate for their black male clients, students and colleagues.

Presenter Bios:

Dr. S. Kent Butler, Jr., LPC, NCC, NCSC (he/him/his) S. Kent Butler, Jr. holds a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology, with a concentration in Counseling Psychology, from the University of Connecticut. He is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC), Nationally Certified Counselor (NCC), and Nationally Certified School Counselor (NCSC). In February of 2020, Dr. Butler was elected President-Elect of the American Counseling Association (ACA). His presidential year is 2021 – 2022. In July of 2019, Dr. Butler was appointed Interim Chief Equity, Inclusion and Diversity Officer at the University of Central Florida. In March of 2020, he was selected as a Fellow within the National Association of Chief Diversity Officer in Higher Education’s Chief Diversity Officer Fellows Program (NADOHE- CDOFP). He is a 2020 – 2021 cohort (C-7) member. The professional leadership program mentors new and early career Chief Diversity Officers. Dr. Butler was also recently promoted to Professor of Counselor Education at the University of Central Florida and has served as a Faculty Fellow for Inclusive Excellence within the Office of the Provost.

Dr. Butler presently serves as faculty advisor to CHI SIGMA IOTA International Honor Society (CSI), the Counselor Education Doctoral Student Organization (CEDSO), Project for Haiti Knights, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He served as the Principal Investigator, for The High-Risk Delinquent and Dependent Child Educational Research Project: Situational Environmental Circumstances Mentoring Program (SEC), which was a partnership between the University of Central Florida and several Florida universities. This grant opportunity has transitioned into the UCF Young Knights Mentoring Project a program that supports students at Hungerford Elementary School in Eatonville, FL.

Also on the national level, Dr. Butler has served the Association for Multicultural Counseling and Development (AMCD) as the 2011 – 2012 President and ACA Governing Council Representative (2015 – 2018). He is honored to be a member of AMCD’s Multicultural Counseling Competencies Revisions Committee (2014 – 2015) which produced the ACA- AMCD endorsed Multicultural Social Justice Counseling Competencies (MSJCC). In April of 2016, Dr. Butler was bestowed with the prestigious ACA Fellow Award. His research and academic interests lie in the areas of Multicultural and International Counseling, Social Justice, Mentoring, Counseling work as it relates specifically to African American males, Group Counseling, School Counseling, and Multicultural Supervision.

A driven and enthusiastic leader, Dr. Andrew P. Daire (he/him/his) joined the VCU School of Education as its new dean in June 2016. Daire came to VCU from the University of Houston, where he served as the College of Education’s associate dean for research for nearly two years. His resume also includes more than 25 years of experience in higher education. A prolific researcher and scholar, Daire has received over $16 million in external funding to support his research and remains scholarly active through professional publications and presentations. Daire is also engaged at the state and local level serving as Vice-Chair for the Advisory Board for Teacher Education and Licensure (ABTEL), member of the African-American History Education Commission, VDOE’s Return to School Equity Planning Committee and also served on the Governor’s Taskforce on Diversity Virginia’s Educator Pipeline. Combining an academic and clinical background in counseling and psychology with expertise in research, Daire's style of transformative leadership emphasizes personal and professional development, and motivating faculty, staff and students towards excellence, innovation and impact in their work every day. A big believer in the value of community engagement as well, Daire believes research and instruction are at their best (and most innovative) when focused on serving the public, particularly those most in need.

Dr. Marlon Johnson, LPC-MHSP, NCC (he/him/his) serves as an Assistant Professor of Counselor Education at Seminary of the Southwest in Austin, Texas. He grounds his work as a therapist and counselor educator through both a Narrative and a Critical Pedagogical framework respectively. Dr. Johnson’s clinical background includes community mental health counseling or families within the foster care system, Child-Centered play therapy, group interventions for adolescents experiencing resistance and trauma, and college and career readiness counseling within rural communities. Dr. Johnson is a recipient of the 2018 Doctoral Fellowship for the National Board of Certified Counselor’s Minority Fellowship program, allowing him to further the literature of recruitment for African American males into counseling programs. Dr. Johnson remains passionate about mental health access and equity, Black and Queer counselor identity development, and the intersections of faith, race, and sexuality within the counseling space.