June 03, 2008
St. John’s University’s
Doctoral Program (Psy.D.) in School Psychology has received a
five-year accreditation in its first application to the American Psychological Association
(APA). The APA distinguished St. John’s Psy.D. Program as
exceptional by meeting all of APA’s standards for
excellence.
APA is the body that authorizes and authenticates degree
programs in psychology. It accredits doctoral programs in clinical,
counseling, and school psychology and can either deny
accreditation, or grant a three-, five-, or seven-year
accreditation after which the program must reapply. St. John’s
five-year accreditation is retroactive to APA’s April 2007 site
visit.
Mark Terjesen, Ph.D., Associate Professor and Director of
Graduate Programs in School Psychology, comments that this
distinction demonstrates St. John’s commitment to supporting and
setting the highest levels of excellence in the field of
psychology, ensuring a first class training for students enrolled
in this program.
“Colleagues at other APA accredited institutions have told me
that achieving five years for a first application is an
accomplishment of which we should be proud. This is
reflective of the excellent training we offer here, our high
quality students, and our faculty among whom are some of the most
renowned and well respected in the field. I believe that we
are one of the stronger training programs in the area, if not in
the northeast. And if you look at the quality of students we
turn out and the quality of the faculty that we have, I don’t think
many programs can compare.”
Dr. Terjesen took care to point out that this achievement was the
result of a department-wide team effort. Building upon St.
John’s highly successful M.S. in School Psychology program, the
Psy.D. program was initially developed in the mid-to-late 1990s by
Raymond DiGiuseppe, Ph.D., ABPP, Professor and Chair in the
Department of Psychology, when he was Director of the
program. Dr. DiGiuseppe collaborated with Dawn Flanagan,
Ph.D., Professor in Psychology, and a cross-section of program and
department faculty to design the doctoral program and to begin the
initial application to the New York
State Department of Education.
The APA application process was a 15-month communal effort on
behalf of faculty, deans, doctoral fellows and program
secretaries. Faculty regularly met to discuss program goals
and the best ways to represent themselves and all they do to the
APA evaluators. Terjesen said Dean Jeffrey Fagen was
extremely supportive throughout the process, providing the
department with resources and editorial feedback on the
application.
“The process was very active,” he reports. “It’s the same model we
want our students to follow when working in the profession: a
collaborative process. It wasn’t one person doing all of
this. We want to demonstrate to our students the importance of
collaboration in the field of school psychology because they will
work with teachers, parents, and school administrators.”
And their goals and hopes for students have come to fruition.
Jeffrey Froh, Psy.D., an Assistant Professor at Hofstra University
in Hempstead, NY, says that he is honored to be a member of the
first class to graduate from St. John’sPsy.D. Program.
“I chose St. John’s University because of its international
reputation for both academic and scholarly excellence. The
professors are top-notch and the classes gave me the skills to
flourish as a practicing school psychologist and, now, as a school
psychology academician.”
At the Heart of the Vincentian Mission
Much of the Psy.D. program’s purpose and work echoes St. John’s
Vincentian mission. Graduates are able to provide services to
populations who were previously under-served.
Terjesen explains, “We live in Queens which is, in all likelihood,
the most diverse county in the nation. The fact that we are
training students to be more skilled at working with that diverse
population is a real strength.”
Indeed it was a strength that impressed APA evaluators,
prompting them to highlight the program’s attention and sensitivity
to cultural diversity, including the program’s bilingual aspect.
The APA commented, “The program’s focus on, and training in,
activities related to culturally appropriate school-based
psychological services are exemplary. The inclusion of a
vibrant track on bi-lingual assessment is particularly
noteworthy. The program has engaged successfully in
systematic efforts to recruit and retain diverse students and
faculty.”
Samuel Ortiz, Ph.D., Associate Professor in the Department of
Psychology who oversees cultural diversity elaborates on this
aspect of the program.
“We have a ‘bilingual track’ which leads to the Bilingual
Extension certification. Cultural competence, however, is
much more than getting this additional certification. Students in
our program learn not only how to be fair and comfortable in the
services they provide, but how to recognize when cultural issues
may be affecting their interactions with diverse children and
families and what to do about it. The training our students receive
and the cultural competence they attain is uncommon and not seen in
many other programs.”
Terjesen ascribes their exemplary attention to diversity to
their ability to attract and retain diverse faculty with diverse
interests who are experts in their area. He explains that the
department tries to anticipate trends in the field, to evaluate
their departmental needs, and then to hire people who meet those
needs. He adds, “We also try to hire people who are setting the
trends and establishing the direction that the field is going to
take.”
Service to diverse populations is cultivated through the
University’s Center for
Psychological Services, a 20-year-old community mental
health center where graduate students in both the School and
Clinical Psychology programs provide assessments and therapy, under
supervision from faculty, to adults, children, adolescents,
families and couples with psychological needs.
Richard Morrissey, Ph.D., AABT,Director of the Center for
Psychological Services, points out that “the Center utilizes the
vast experience of more than 20 experienced supervisors to assist
with the training of almost 100 students, who learn to administer
and interpret psychological tests and become skilled in methods of
treatment for individuals and families.”
He notes that the Center offers a number of specialized programs
as well, such as a School Affiliate Program, a group therapy
program, and the Military Services Initiative, which provides free
services to military personnel and their families. “In surveys,” he
says, “the Center is consistently cited as a key resource in
providing developing St. John’s psychologists with the skills they
need to become effective and compassionate care givers.”
The APA commends the Center and the invaluable training it
provides students. “The program espouses a
practitioner-scholar-scientist model and training is clearly
sequential, cumulative, and graded in complexity.”
The upshot is students who are trained in the most current,
appropriate methods towards psycho-diagnostic assessment and
psychological intervention. Terjesen says, “We receive feedback
from people in the field who think St. John’s graduates come out
better prepared than many other local programs. A few school
districts give preference to St. John’s graduates when it comes to
hiring. It’s a testament to our outstanding program.”