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VCU Professor Receives Funding For "Rehabilitation Counseling: Comprehensive System of Personnel Development through Distance Learning"
On 4-15-08 Dr. Christine Reid, Professor in the Department of Rehabilitation Counseling received notice from the U.S. Dept. of Education's competition that her project "Rehabilitation Counseling: Comprehensive System of Personnel Development through Distance Learning" was funded for $2 million ($400,000 per year for five years, starting July 1, 2008).
Historically, around 12 programs have been funded under the Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA) CSPD competition. This year, no more than two projects were scheduled to be funded and VCU’s project was one of the two.
The goal of the project, “Rehabilitation Counseling: Comprehensive System of Personnel Development through Distance Learning,” is to provide high quality, flexible, and cost-effective graduate education options to vocational rehabilitation counselors working in state agencies struggling to meet Comprehensive System of Personnel Development (CSPD) mandates. Three distance-learning degree options are available to meet varied individual and state agency needs: a CORE-accredited master’s degree in Rehabilitation Counseling, an Advanced Certificate in Professional Counseling, and a Ph.D. in Health Related Sciences (Rehabilitation Leadership emphasis). Each option satisfies a different educational eligibility category for the Certified Rehabilitation Counselor credential. The master’s degree and advanced certificate programs are available on a full-time or part time basis, and have rolling admissions so that students may enter the program in the Fall or Spring semester of any year. Employees of state vocational rehabilitation agencies with the greatest unmet CSPD needs will be given funding priority.
A combination of intensive in-person classroom experiences and flexible asynchronous online training is used to deliver the curriculum. This “high tech – high touch” program offers individualized attention and technical support to each trainee, including computer assistance and subsidy for purchasing appropriate equipment. Through this project, more than 80 trainees are expected to become qualified vocational rehabilitation counselors, to satisfy CSPD mandates. All Federal funds for this project (100%) are dedicated to student tuition and fees, stipends, and reimbursement of travel required to attend the on-campus sessions. All other project costs will be paid by Virginia Commonwealth University, a national leader in Rehabilitation Counseling distance education.
VCU Professor Receives
Award for Disability Discrimination Research
RICHMOND, Va. (May 21, 2008 ) – Brian T. McMahon,
Ph.D. ,
a professor in Virginia
Commonwealth University’s Department of Rehabilitation Counseling , and his colleagues
have received the Kevin Karr Innovative Rehabilitation System of the Year Award
for 2007.
The annual award, sponsored through the International Association of
Rehabilitation Professionals, IARP, is presented to an individual or group that
has made considerable strides in the advancement of rehabilitation systems
available to people with disabilities.
McMahon and his colleagues were selected for their contributions to the
National Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Americans with Disabilities
Act Research Project. This project, housed at VCU, was designed to address
disability discrimination in the workplace.
Since 2003, McMahon, the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission , and 50 rehabilitation researchers from 12 universities,
have worked to profile more than 369,000 allegations of workplace
discrimination under the Americans with
Disabilities Act .
Through rigorous database development and mining, researchers have been better
able to define, document and understand workplace disability discrimination.
“We put this virus (workplace discrimination) under a microscope in order to
understand it so that over time we can eliminate it entirely from the social
fabric of our society,” said McMahon. “This is social justice research at its
best.”
Researchers are nominated by IARP members, and then are selected by an Awards
Committee. The award was presented at the IARP Annual Conference on May 16, in
Los Angeles.
McMahon is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and past
president of the American Rehabilitation Counseling Association as well as
recipient of its Career Research Award. The concept for the project was
developed while he was a Distinguished Research Fellow at the National
Institute of Disability and Rehabilitation Research during a sabbatical from
VCU in 2004-2005.
The research was funded by the National Institute of Disability and
Rehabilitation Research through a grant to VCU and the National Network of ADA
Resource Centers.
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About VCU and the VCU Medical Center: Virginia Commonwealth University is
the largest university in Virginia and ranks among the top 100 universities in
the country in sponsored research. Located on two downtown campuses in
Richmond, VCU enrolls nearly 32,000 students in 205 certificate and degree
programs in the arts, sciences and humanities. Sixty-five of the programs are
unique in Virginia, many of them crossing the disciplines of VCU’s 15 schools
and one college. MCV Hospitals and the health sciences schools of Virginia
Commonwealth University compose the VCU Medical Center, one of the nation’s
leading academic medical centers. For more, see www.vcu.edu .
VCU Associate Professor Receives
NIDRR Field Initiated Grant to Study Substance Use Among College Students With Disabilities
Congratulations to Dr. Steven West for being awarded a NIDRR field initiated grant in the amount of $600,000 over three years
($200K per year) to study substance use among college students with disabilities.
NIDRR field initiated grant is extremely competitive. There are literally hundreds of applications and only a few receive
funding. Dr. West is to be commended for his accomplishment.
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