School of Professional Counseling Day Celebrates Students at 21 Community Campuses

Some of the LWC School of Professional Counseling students, faculty and staff who
attended SPC day gather on the Campus Quadrangle.

COLUMBIA, Ky. -- Although he has one degree from Lindsey Wilson College and plans to work on another, Chris Hipshire had never seen the college's A.P. White Campus in Columbia.

That changed on Saturday, June 26, when Hipshire joined more than 250 classmates for the inaugural Lindsey Wilson School of Professional Counseling Day. For Hipshire, that meant diving more than 250 miles from his home in Logan, W.Va., to the LWC A.P. White Campus.

"I don't get to travel much, and I've always wanted to see what the (A.P. White) Campus in Columbia looked like," Hipshire said. "I've seen pictures of it on the Internet, and it seemed like a nice place. I'm really glad I came."

Saturday brought together students from Lindsey Wilson's 21 community campuses, located in Kentucky, Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia. The students came to Columbia-Adair County to attend seminars conducted by LWC faculty, participate in games and activities, tour the A.P. White Campus, and hear from several LWC administrators.

"This is your college, and we want you to enjoy it," LWC President William T. Luckey Jr. said in an address to the students. "You are an important part of the Lindsey Wilson family." 

In 2009-10, Hipshire earned a bachelor of arts degree in counseling and human development from LWC while attending classes at Southern West Virginia Community and Technical College's Logan Campus. This fall, he plans to start on a master of education degree in counseling and human development at the same location.

Thanks to an innovative partnership with local community colleges in Kentucky, Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia, students can either complete a bachelor of arts degree or earn a master's degree from LWC. Classes meet year-round, almost exclusively on weekends, and are taught by LWC faculty.

"I like the weekend format -- it's easier on people like me that have to work," Hipshire said. "And the faculty are just awesome."

Luckey echoed those sentiments. In his remarks, Luckey told the students that a big reason for the program's success is the faculty.

"I don't know of another program in the country like this, where the faculty make this kind of commitment," he said.

Most of the program's graduates will work in the mental-health profession, either in private practice, with government agencies or for other organizations. Many of them will serve communities with acute shortages in mental-health workers.

"We are a very powerful force together," School of Professional Counseling Dean John Rigney told the students at a luncheon at the Roberta D. Cranmer Dining & Conference Center. "We have all taken different roads and paths to be here today, but we all have one thing in common: we want to change the world -- that's all. And we might not change it all, but we can at least change part of it."

Rigney reminded the students that when they become mental-health professionals, they will have a "moral obligation to reach back and give others a hand."

"We're going to make the world a better place," he said. "We're not going to solve all the problems, but we are going to try."

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Click here to see pictures from the inaugural SPC Day.