Counseling program tops national ranks

Brandon Zimmerman

Kent State’s College of Education, Health and Human Services is celebrating a top national ranking for its counselor education program. The college received its ranking from Academic Analytics’ new Faculty Scholarly Productive Index.

The index ranks a total of 7,294 programs and 177,816 faculty members at 354 institutions nationwide using grant data, honors, award information and journal citations.

Kent State was the only Ohio public institution to receive a top rank for one of its programs out of the 104 different fields that Academic Analytics studied.

“This most recent honor is richly deserved, brings great honor to the college and university, but is not a great surprise to us,” said David England, dean of the College of Education, Health and Human Services. “Our counselor education programs have long stood out as among the several outstanding programs in EHHS, and have been the recipients of previous national accolades.”

Provost Paul Gaston was not surprised by the ranking that Kent State’s counselor education program has earned.

“It’s about time that the rest of the country paid attention,” Gaston said. “Our colleagues in counselor education (programs) well deserve this recognition for one of many strong and distinctive Kent State programs that deserve wider attention.”

Among the other Ohio institutions to receive notable mention in the productivity index were: Ohio State, which took the second ranking for accounting and the 10th ranking for industrial engineering; and the University of Akron, which took the fifth ranking for counseling psychology.

“Universities are defined to a large extent by their faculty members, and scholarly endeavors provide an essential aspect of this definition,” said John West, the coordinator of Kent State’s Counseling and Human Development Services doctoral program. “Faculty members with whom I have had the privilege to work with have recognized opportunities to engage students in scholarly efforts that can nurture professional and personal growth.”

Donald Bubenzer, chair of the department of adult, counseling, health and vocational education, said he sees firsthand the award-winning work of his department.

“To be at the top of the list is humbling,” he said. “As department chair, I regularly have the opportunity and honor of reviewing the work of the faculty. I am always impressed by their commitments and accomplishments.”

Academic Analytics collects grant data from federal agencies or directly from information on their Web sites, including National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

“We are extremely pleased by this ranking but not entirely surprised as this is not the first national recognition of our strength in counselor education,” England said in a press release. “A long tradition of excellence in this program area has contributed much to the college’s overall reputation for excellence in action.”

Contact College of Education Health and Human Services reporter Brandon Zimmerman at [email protected].