Students and professionals share this developmental pathway. As part of the Program curriculum, School Counseling students are encouraged to recognize their own developmental issues, increasing their emphathy for colleagues and clients. A perspective of life-long learning, espoused by the Department of Leadership, Foundations, and Counseling Psychology, well matches the School Counseling Program. The educator and the counselor rely on continuing research to identify promising developments and to evaluate programs. The Department of Leadership, Foundations, and Counseling Psychology, which houses School Counseling, espouses the scientist-practitioner model, encouraging its students to bridge clinical service and research.
Collaboration mutually nourishes practice and investigation.
The Program, while requiring course work in research, strongly encourages membership in the Departmental faculty-student research teams. These multidisciplinary teams address career development, developmental issues concerning parents and children, multicultural education, the mutual influence of family and school culture, substance abuse prevention, among others. The Program's students thus experience the links between service, research, and education first hand. Loyola's spiritual tradition has fostered an emphasis on values and ethics. The mission statements of the School of Education and of the Department of Leadership, Foundations, and Counseling Psychology require of its administrators, faculty, staff, and students adherence to ethical standards.