Developing Practitioners Committed to Promoting Individual and Community Growth
As a student in the University of Dayton Department of Counselor Education and Human Services, you'll prepare for a career where you can impact the lives of individuals and support your community as a whole. You'll learn not only from your professors, but also from your classmates to become an outstanding professional in your chosen field.
We are committed to providing equal access to programs, facilities and employment without regard to race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, physical disability or mental disability (unless the disability is essential to the practice of counseling) or identification as a disabled veteran.
Join us Nov. 17 at 5 p.m. ET for an information session, where you'll learn about the program from current students and faculty. Register today!
Every Student Is Unique. So Are We.
Experiential Learning
Course content is accompanied by appropriate field experiences for students. Internships and practicum experiences are among the opportunities available for students to apply their learning throughout the program in a work setting. Each experience is coordinated with guidance from a faculty advisor and practice supervisor.
Dual License in Counseling
The demand for school-based mental health practitioners is growing, particularly in Ohio. Earning dual licensure in school counseling and clinical mental health counseling provides professionals with expanded expertise and career opportunities. This path equips counselors to support both the academic and emotional needs of K-12 students while also addressing broader mental health concerns in various clinical settings.
At the University of Dayton, students begin by enrolling in either the school counseling degree program or clinical mental health counseling degree program. After completing the core coursework and degree requirements for their primary program, they take an additional 20-24 credits to fulfill the requirements of the second licensure.
School Counseling Certificate: Qualifies students to sit for the Ohio Assessment for Educators (OAE) to become licensed as a school counselor.
This comprehensive training, which includes coursework, practicum experiences, and internships in both fields, prepares graduates to pursue dual licensure and broaden their professional impact.
Participants work with regional partners — including hospitals, schools, community mental health agencies, police divisions, juvenile courts, faith-based organizations, and public service agencies — to address systemic issues in the Dayton region through research and service learning.
Student Research
Students work alongside faculty to conduct and publish research in respected journals.
Students also participate in UD's annual Stander Symposium, a campus-wide event that allows students from all majors to showcase and celebrate their research, scholarship and artistic achievements.
Ecotherapy encompasses diverse ways of healing through the reciprocal relationship that we, as humans have with nature. It is also the application of ecopsychology. Ecopsycotherapists are mental health clinicians whose philosophies strongly endorse the role of nature, greenspaces and conservation in healing. They believe that reconnecting to nature can improve physical and mental health while encouraging people to uncover new solutions to long-standing problems. Nature provides unique opportunities to understand human challenges with creative perspectives on how to move forward in positive ways. Furthermore, there is tremendous research on the health benefits of nature exposure and its relationship to individual and community wellbeing.
About the Certificate
The ecotherapy certificate provides an opportunity for graduate students in the clinical mental health and school counseling programs to enhance their training with an evidence-based, experiential and socially progressive curriculum. Educational instruction and resources will include the University of Dayton graduate programs in counseling, dietetics and The Outdoor Leadership program at Ohio University.
Course of Study
The course of study includes an orientation to ecotherapy in the context of identity, systems, social justice and advocacy for all humans, non-human species and the environment. Additionally, students explore the historical influence and future trends in ecotherapy practice, along with experiential immersions in natural environments. Lastly, students learn how to build a therapeutic environment based on eco-principals and apply various eco skills and interventions in a counseling setting.
The certificate program consists of three professional seminars and related ecotherapy topics within various courses in the clinical mental health and school counseling programs. The ecotherapy certificate is therefore built into the University of Dayton's accredited counseling programs. As such, students have the opportunity to add a certificate to their degree program, yet will not have it separately noted on their official transcripts.
Learning outcomes related to ecotherapy and counseling:
Learn the history of ecotherapy and the importance of eco awareness from a global, national and local perspective.
Identify and develop a personal theoretical knowledge base that promotes an intentional counseling practice that integrates ecotherapy principles with other theoretical orientation such as ACT, CBT, mindfulness, etc.
Learn skills to assess, develop and apply interventions and techniques based on the culture, uniqueness and needs of each client from an ecotherapy orientation.
Develop an awareness and understanding of ethical implications in the counseling profession.
Certificate Requirements
The ecotherapy certificate consists of 3 professional seminars (3 semester hours total) along with additional readings and assignments within select core courses in the clinical mental health and school counseling programs, and as stand-alone readings/assignments.
Content is distributed as follows:
EDC 605 Introduction to Ecotherapy (1)
EDC 605 Holistic Wellness (1)
EDC 605 Adventure Counseling (1) Athens, Ohio
* EDC 535 Assessment in Counseling (2)
* EDC 599 Internship (2) with applied ecotherapy practice and capstone project
* Course is part of the standard clinical mental health counseling and school counseling curriculum and has ecotherapy topics included.
Graduate Assistantships are available with various departments. Depending on your area of study, you may also be placed in an off-campus assistantship. GAs are typically employed to work between 10 to for 20 hours per week. Tuition remission and a paid stipend are awarded for the nine-month academic year.
Columbus-Area Campus
For select programs, our department offers the flexibility of attending classes at the Main Campus and Daniel J. Curran Place in Dayton, plus some courses at Saint Francis DeSales High School in the Columbus metropolitan area. Note that UD students have a designated entrance to the high school building.
Come Fly With Us
Visit Campus
Interested in learning more about counselor education and human services? We'd love to meet with you.
The University of Dayton will expand its nationally approved school psychology graduate program to Columbus in fall 2026 to help address critical shortages of school psychologists in Ohio and the U.S.
Not every faculty member spends their sabbatical hiking for five months, but this University of Dayton professor did just that to put his research into practice.
