Barbara Alane Kerr

When I was hired as a Distinguished Professor, the Chancellor gave me this charge: "Distinguished Professors achieve international recognition in their field of research and promote interdisciplinary, broad perspectives in their teaching." In addition to this charge, I have a personal mission, and that is to identify, support, and seek a comprehensive understanding of the needs of creative young people. Teaching I teach graduate level courses in counseling psychology, ranging from introductory counseling theory courses to advanced doctoral courses in counseling theory and history and systems of psychology. I typically advise 4 masters students and 9 doctoral students. The demands of an APA approved doctoral program require that I teach mainly core courses during the academic year. In the summer, I have enjoyed the opportunity to teach Study Abroad courses. In all of my courses, I attempt to infuse an interdisciplinary perspective, drawing upon anthropology, history, sociology, and neuroscience, and challenge students to read the scholarly literature in these fields and apply them to the work of the counseling psychologist. In addition, the scientist-practitioner model informs all my teaching, in that I encourage my students to have a healthy skepticism for both popular psychology and the assumptions of the White, male-dominated constructions of academic psychology. My students not only learn to use the traditional, positivistic scientific methods to explore human behavior; they also learn the methods of post-modern deconstruction to analyze the texts in our fields. Every year, I plan and attend the national Wakonse Conference on College Teaching to learn new teaching methods and use the CTE conferences and resources as often as possible. From these annual renewals, I learned how to create online and hybrid classes; how to "flip" the curriculum; how to use collaborative and experiential approaches; how to introduce new technology to students; and how to establish, with the students, mutual goals, objectives, and methods of evaluation. I use a variety of self-evaluation, including a "check" at the end of each class to evaluate student learning and my teaching; mid-term evaluations; and course revision based on evaluations. My greatest regret has been the lack of opportunity to teach at KU the courses in which I'm considered a leading expert: Psychology of Creativity and Psychology of Gender. I do enjoy the opportunity to teach these courses abroad as a Visiting Scholar to Monash University in Australia and in special seminars at research centers such as the Torrance Center for Creativity. I consider my greatest accomplishment, and greatest joy, the creation with Karen Multon of the on-site, integrated training, research, and service course, Advanced Counseling Skills. Here, for the first time, our students are able to see real clients (creative adolescents, college students and adults); receive live supervision and learn how to do quantitative and qualitative research based on their experiences and the data. My goal is to continue to improve this course and seek funding for new ones. We provided live supervision for each of eleven students and two volunteers, and supervision of supervision to all the supervisors. It is a massive undertaking, equivalent to setting up a pop-up clinic every Friday, but well worth the effort. Courses taught: EPSY 580:Positive Psychology EPSY 740:Counseling and Interviewing Skills EPSY 742: Counseling Theory EPSY 842:Counseling Practicum EPSY 896: Advanced Counseling Skills EPSY 875:Multi-Cultural Counseling EPSY 948:Advanced Practicum I EPSY 966: Supervision EPSY 998:Seminar In: _____