Advancing the Field of Rehabilitation Counseling

Professors Richard Knowles and Garry Walz were my advisors in counselor education in the Guidance and Counseling program in the School of Education. The time spent with Professor Knowles was shortened because he left Michigan to take a position in the psychology department at Duquesne University. I studied and worked as a graduate assistant under professor Walz, (a prominent scholar whose mentorship was collegial), in the Educational Resource Information Center. My responsibilities included analyzing and synthesizing current research and theoretical counseling literature, disseminating findings to professional counselors and researchers in a variety of settings, conducting seminars at professional association meetings, and writing grant proposals. I wrote a proposal to conduct dissertation research on a topic that dealt with manpower issues which was funded by the Department of Labor. I gratefully acknowledge the guidance and support of professor Gerald Gurin, a founder of the Institute for Social Research, who had conducted considerable manpower research. His invaluable input contributed to the successful proposal development and research implementation.

After my doctoral degree was awarded, I was appointed assistant professor in the program of Guidance and Counseling in 1972. I was promoted through the ranks to full professor in 1982. I engaged in teaching, research, and service in the program that prepared counselors for positions in schools, community colleges, four-year colleges and universities, and community agencies. I also served as chair of the Guidance and Counseling Program for a period of time. Although there was a specialty in counseling in community agencies, there was no program in rehabilitation counseling at U-M when I began my tenure.

I led in developing the rehabilitation counseling program in 1976, assisted by a successfully funded proposal for a grant (that included student stipends) from the federal Rehabilitation Service Administration. I visited with other university faculties at Buffalo, Florida, North Carolina, Southern Illinois, and Wisconsin-Madison reviewing the structure of their rehabilitation counseling programs. I chaired planning meetings of a university-wide faculty committee from relevant fields to obtain their contributions to develop the rehabilitation counseling curriculum. The curriculum was multidisciplinary, requiring selective coursework from education, business, economics, medicine, social work, public health, and psychology. I was appointed coordinator of the Rehabilitation Counseling program. Professor Ralph Crystal, who did his doctoral work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison under the tutelage of professors Al Butler and George Wright, was also appointed to the faculty. The graduate program prepared students at the master's and doctoral degree levels. Compared to other counseling specializations, rehabilitation counseling was a relatively young specialty. Only a few major universities had programs. Rehabilitation counselors assist persons with severe physical, mental, or emotional disabilities (that preclude a satisfactory vocational adjustment in industry and the world of work) achieve successful career outcomes. Other opportunities were also pursued in rehabilitation program evaluation.

Another successful proposal resulted in the award of a grant in 1977 from the Rehabilitation Services Administration to conduct program evaluation research in the State Vocational Rehabilitation Agencies. The scope of work from this grant required collecting and analyzing the fiscal year data, each year, on closed cases in each of the 50 State Vocational Rehabilitation Agencies and Territories to assess the agencies’ performance on the Vocational Rehabilitation Standards. In addition to my position as project director, other key staff were professor Ralph Crystal, research director, and Dr. Juliet Miller, program director. We conducted research with a program staff of approximately 15, primarily graduate student assistants who collected data. Data were analyzed and separate evaluation reports were prepared for each state agency yearly. Data from this operations research project also provided opportunities for doctoral students’ dissertation research. Over 100 publications and documents were the outcomes from this program evaluation research. During my years at U-M, 1967 to 1997, successfully funded grant proposals that I wrote totaled in the multi-million dollars.

Since attaining emeritus professor status in 1997, I have been an independent vocational consultant for the Social Security Administration's Office of Hearings Operations. I provide vocational testimony before administrative law judges throughout the U.S. about jobs existing in the national economy that persons applying for disability benefits may be able to perform based on their medically determined residual functional capacity.