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Clinical Mental Health Counseling Student, Faculty Member Create 'Culture Collective' to Promote Cultural Awareness

Lock Haven, PA (06/22/2023) — In the Fall of 2022, Commonwealth University-Lock Haven clinical mental health counseling (CMHC) graduate student, Katie Burns, was a student in a multicultural counseling class. When the semester ended, Burns found herself so immersed in the course content, she needed a way to continue her new-found passion for the topic.

During the class, micro and macro levels of power, privilege and oppression were examined and affirming counseling considerations for diverse populations. "I want to keep learning and talking and growing in this," Burns said to her professor, Dr. Lis Tomlin at the end of the course.

"Our multicultural counseling class was a transformative experience for me," Burns said. "I was given a safe space to challenge my beliefs, examine my privilege and listen to the unique experiences of my peers. I learned so much about myself and could feel myself growing personally and professionally."

Burns and Tomlin came together during a conference early in the Spring 2023 semester to brainstorm ideas for ways to help students fuel their interests for multicultural counseling. Eager to make their ideas a reality, the Culture Collective was created and student advisory members and faculty advisors were chosen.

The Culture Collective is a supportive community of CMHC graduate students striving to promote cultural awareness, exercise advocacy skills and provide a safe and non-judgmental space for growth and conversation. It is a supportive community for students from diverse backgrounds to share their experiences, explore their identities and cultures, and gain the knowledge and skills needed to work effectively with diverse populations.

The Culture Collective serves a twofold purpose - to continue the conversations started in the multicultural counseling class in a non-judgmental setting, exercise advocacy skills and grow together through conversation and community and also to further their exposure to both domestic and global issues and education by welcoming guest speakers of various backgrounds and cultural communities.

The Culture Collective student-led advisory board hosts two events every month during the academic year. The first is a guest speaker and the second is a dinner and dialogue group, where students reflect on the speaker's content and other selected topics.

Four speaker events were held over Zoom during the Spring semester, which were open to CMHC staff, faculty, students and alumni. Speaker and discussion topics included LGBTQIA+ advocacy, Navajo culture and spirituality and racism and classicism.

"The Culture Collective was born out of my desire to create a community of individuals who were committed to their cultural exploration, desired a safe space to continue having open conversations and were interested in exercising their advocacy skills," Burns said. "This group has become a passion project for me and I am beyond excited to see the impact this group will have going forward."

The Culture Collective has been awarded a grant through the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Department to aid with the costs of their speaker series. They also plan to link their materials in a co-curricular way and aligned with monthly religious or social justice holidays.

The Student Advisory Group consists of: Katie Burns, director; Emily Branch, outreach coordinator; JoHannah Newman, marketing coordinator; Peyton Phillips, operations manager; Rivka Dattlo, discussion group manager and policy writer; and Rupinder Pal Singh, advisory board member. Faculty advisors are Drs. Lis Tomlin and Stephen Gitonga.

The Culture Collective also has its own D2L shell, an online learning platform, where multicultural resources are shared, students can connect through a discussion forum and guest speaker recordings and other resources are offered.