Ep. 106 - What is the Counseling & Social Change minor?

Join Matt and Olga as Dr. Justine D'Arrigo shares exciting information about the minor in Counseling and Social Change! With just 18 units—four core classes and two electives—this program empowers students to drive social transformation through meaningful relationships. From exploring the roots of psychology to building empathy and understanding systems of oppression, the minor offers something for everyone. Dr. D'Arrigo breaks down why this program is a game-changer for students in any field, and why starting with just one class could open doors to powerful connections, graduate-level insights, and real-world impact. 

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Transcript

Matt Markin  
Hey there and welcome back to another episode of the CSUSB advising podcast. This is Matt Markin, and as always, I'm joined by my friend and fellow advisor...

Olga Valdivia  
Olga Valdivia. Thank you so much, Matt. Appreciate it. And so today we have a wonderful guest who is going to be telling us a little bit more of a new minor in counseling and social change we have with us. Dr. D'Arrigo also goes by Professor J. Thank you so much for being here with us. It's been exciting as we've been hearing about this new minor come and students already actually getting to be in the classes. So thank you so much for being with us. So if you could just kind of tell us what led you into this profession, what was, what was your path to get here? 

Dr. Justine D'Arrigo  
Yeah, so I appreciate the question, and just getting to share a little bit about that. You know, I was thinking about this because I was thinking I've had a pretty traditional pathway in terms of getting to a professorship. And then I was also thinking, maybe it's not so traditional. I know we have the idea that it's traditional, but I think many people do this in a different way and so, but my pathway here was, I was a person that loved school. I loved being a student. I loved learning. There was safety in being in school for me, and so that was like a place that I really gravitated to. So I kind of went high school, college, master's degree, doctorate degree, and just followed that trajectory the whole way through. It was surprising to me where I ended up, though. I don't think I knew as I was taking each of those steps what I would eventually be doing as a profession, or what discipline I would be teaching in, and I kind of discovered that by happenstance when I was in my master's program so as an undergraduate student, I double majored in psychology and sociology. Thought that I might go into social work. Thought I might go into child welfare social work. That's an experience I have in my background. So I was thinking that that might be something that I would want to do and contribute back, but then decided I didn't want to be and social work. There's a lot of different things you do in social work, right? But decided I don't know if I want to be the figure in someone's life that removes them from their family, right? So I was like, maybe there's a different pathway for me. So when I was in my master's program, I went into a degree for clinical psychology, and then I stumbled across this thing called Marriage and Family Therapy, which I had never heard of before. And to me at the time, it was a perfect blend of both the individual sort of aspects of psychology, but also the larger social and cultural aspects of sociology. And I just instantly connected with it and gravitated towards that, and then pursued that as a doctoral degree at Loma Linda University, actually, so locally. And I'm from the IE. I was born in Brawley, but I was, I lived the majority of my life growing up in Idlewild, which is a small mountain town above Palm Springs, so the IE area is home to me. So it's, it's wonderful to be at CSUSB teaching, and that's a little bit of my pathway. What really compelled me into this field, specifically is that I think oftentimes psychology, counseling, therapy, it's really individually focused, and I was much more interested in kind of expanding or broadening that perspective to really understand, how do we do this work in ways that also attends to the larger social, political and cultural realities that we all live in and that shape our lives. So that's what my primary teaching focus is usually about. My clinical focus is usually about that, and also my research has always been really interested and focused in that intersection, right? 

Olga Valdivia  
Thank you so much for that. We're just so lucky to have you. You know, you're a bright light. I love it. You bring all this good energy. All right, Matty, take it over. 

Matt Markin  
Yeah, no. 100% agree. And it's like you're able to kind of give back to the community everything. Kind of full circle moment here. And I think that's a good segue into talking about a minor that we offer at CSUSB, and that's the minor in counseling and social change. So Olga and I were wondering if you can tell us a little bit more about that. How do you describe that minor? 

Dr. Justine D'Arrigo  
Yeah, so the minor in counseling and social change is such an exciting thing. I've been teaching at the graduate level for close to 14 years, and so getting to start teaching undergrads has been, like, just electrifying for me in my professional journey, right? It's been a place of so much excitement and engagement with the students. I love teaching at the graduate level too, don't get me wrong, but it's just qualitatively different having that undergraduate experience to compare to the graduate one. And I think what I would say about the counsel, the minor in counseling and social change is that the name may be a little bit of a misnomer, that it's not just about counseling, and it's not just specifically about the discipline and profession of counseling, but it's really about helping students learn the whole lay of the land of helping professions more broadly. Of course, counseling is an aspect of that, but what we what we found is that the social change part was maybe more what we were interested in offering to undergrad students and just helping them develop an imagination for how the disciplines, or, yeah, the many disciplines and the helping professions, how those can be sites of social change, not just sites of individual transformation for one to one relationships or clients or students, but our belief in the minor is that in order for social change to happen, relational transformation and relational connection has to happen. And so I think that's what the feedback we're getting from some of the students who have taken the minor is that some of them are telling us they think that the classes should be mandatory for all undergrads, which I'm like, Well, I don't know about that, but right? That might feel a little too generous, but I do think what it's inviting them into is to be thinking about not only social change in terms of how they can be involved in social change, but also how social change starts with themselves as well. And so I think the minor is about inviting students into a space of self reflexivity in ways that maybe they haven't been invited into before. And I have also heard from some students that them what the minor is offering is they learn a lot about the social conditions, right, of our world, of our country, and systems of power and systems of oppression, and the effects that that can have on people. And I think they don't get the next part though of then. So what, what do we do about this, right? How do we engage this in a way that pushes back or that remedies some of the systemic harms that are done? And so I think that they're learning in the minor that counseling and social change, the curriculum that we offer them is giving them a place to see where they actually have agency, where they can show up in their spaces and communities in ways that can help participate in creating change. Sometimes that starts small in their families, maybe with those relationships and friendships, but then they start to envision how they can pursue a profession, or like a pathway for a discipline, that they get to be active participants in creating, hopefully, a different kind of world, right? 

Olga Valdivia  
 So when it comes to the minor, tell us a little bit more in terms of how many units, how many courses, and what are we learning in these topics? I mean, you touched on it, right? 

Dr. Justine D'Arrigo  
Great. Yeah. So the what is required is the four core classes. So I'm really bad at math, but that's 12 units, right? Three, six times. So it's those four core classes and then two additional electives, right? So 18 units altogether. But what I hope, what I hope students know, because there is sometimes some confusion about this, is that I want to say, like 90% of the time, students really only need to complete the four core classes. They don't need to take an additional two classes, because they've very often already completed electives that are compatible, in theme or content with the minor that we just can approve as electives for them, it's a really rare case that students actually have to take additional electives, and so it's a nice opportunity for them to be able to complete the minor in just four classes, and now moving into this next academic Year, theoretically they could complete it in one semester. So we've been thinking about, like, really, how to make this accessible to students, to a broader array of students that might be interested and what they're learning in these classes. So we have an intro class, which is just an intro to the helping profession, which really goes over, like, the whole lay of the land of like, all the various helping profession pathways that are possibilities. And we're getting such good feedback from students about that class because they're coming from, like, maybe sociology, psychology, not having a really expanded view of what's possible net and so not really, necessarily always feeling like they have a good grounding and knowing what does this degree actually turn into in terms of a pathway for me. So a lot of students have have, like, let us know, like, we're we're actually, like, finding out that there's so much more options out there what we can do with this than we had originally thought. So they're learning about that. They're also learning about the history and background of psychology and counseling as a discipline and profession. We critique it a lot. We talk about some of the historical roots that are, like rooted in some really gnarly things like white supremacy and stuff like that, and how psychology as a profession hasn't always been the kindest to minoritized communities or women or LGBTQ communities, things like that. So we're unpacking a lot of those things, and in the class counseling and social change, and also counseling skills, the social construction of relationships, they're learning about, what do we do differently then, if we don't want to participate in the history of a profession that has had some some some difficult things, right? They're learning about how to engage thinking about counseling and psychology and therapy relationships in some ways that are hopefully a little bit more emancipatory and liberatory and more dignifying, I think, to humans, to people, not looking at people as problems, but looking at people who are under the influence of social conditions that create problems in their lives. So they're learning about how not to blame people right for struggling, whether that struggle is around, you know, battles with maybe like repetitive incarcerations or addiction or things like that, that they're learning that a lot of those realities and experiences for people are created from political and social injustices, and so they're also learning how to really develop and cultivate empathy, which I think can be a really taken for granted thing, right? Like we think. I think sometimes it can be just think everyone has empathy, and I think they do. I think they have access to it, but I think that there are some intentional ways that we can develop and grow it, and so they're learning a bit about that, and they're also learning how to be curious first, how to not necessarily come with like, feeling like they know already. Or I think education sometimes forces students to have to know the answer, and what we're teaching them is actually, it's better if you never have an answer but have another question. And so that's hopefully that answers your question. 

Olga Valdivia  
Absolutely, yeah, I'm like, I want to jump into this minor. I do have a follow up on that, and that's because we heard you speak at a previous meeting about this minor. And so you mentioned the way you're teaching the course. You're stacking the classes differently so that students can take advantage and take them back to back, like you mentioned earlier.

Dr. Justine D'Arrigo  
Yeah. And so that's maybe also a good thing for students to know is that the courses are labeled like in ascending order, 3101, to 3104, and I think sometimes they're thinking they should take them in that order. And I know we had a glitch in the in the catalog that said there was a prereq there's no prereqs, and they can take classes in any order that works for them. And so there's, like, a theoretical structure of how they maybe work best, but they also work.

Matt Markin  
Wonderful. And, yeah, I really like how intentional these classes are, the topics I already gone over. And kind of like how you said they're active participants in it as well. And you kind of touched upon this in terms of, like, you know, question, couple questions we get a lot from students would be like, well, what can I do with this minor if I were to do it? Or sometimes if a student? Because sometimes we'll have conversation with students, especially if they need a lot of general elective units, it's like, well, maybe you should think about doing a minor. And sometimes we'll also get the question of like, well, would this minor pair, well, better with a specific type of major or any major. So how do you help answer that for students?

Dr. Justine D'Arrigo  
Part of me wants to say, just because of my worldview, part of me wants to say it's compatible with any major, right? If you're pre med, if you're, you know, if you're, if you're going to be do the really needed work of being a teacher, or you're in the business, industry and profession, or anywhere where you're working with humans, right, even if you are going to be, even if you're going to do, like pre med, because you want to be a vet, right, you're going to have to be engaging with pet owners. And that might be really silly example, but I'm just thinking of all the places where relationship is at the core of the work that we do in any of these fields, right? So I want to say it's compatible with any major. I think that students would find something useful in it, no matter what ultimate direction or pathway they take. I do think it lends itself right. Like, I think the logical connections are to sociology, psychology, social work, counseling, some of those like more traditional paths that people are probably interested in because they're they want to go into a future career of doing counseling in some capacity. But I really think we've had students. I may have mentioned this before, but we had a student that went into nutrition science, and she's going to be like a nutrition counselor, right? And this wasn't something that was on her radar before, but as she took the classes, thought, this is like fantastic to be able to do this work, knowing some of these skills a couple of other students have gone, are going in the business route, right? So, but just seeing how this supports their ability to, like, really make those relational connections that are going to be facilitative of the work they do in the business realm. So I want, yeah, so I want to say it's like, really applicable to any pathway. But I think maybe one thing that's important to mention that I didn't mention yet is that a lot of folks that graduate at a bachelor's level education are going to be frontline workers in our in so many different ways, right? That they're going to be like to be a probation officer, you need, oftentimes, a bachelor's degree in a related discipline, sometimes, to be a substance entry level substance abuse counselor, to be a case worker, to be a healthcare technician. Like these are all really important and needed professions and roles for people to fill. And they also are positioning people with the least amount of formal education in some of the highest need positions, right? And so I think they're going to be on the front lines of being the first contact, or the first person that's navigating relational issues, mental health, crises, all those things. And so I think having a minor in counseling social change really positions you to be able to feel like you know what to do in those moments, right? You know how to be that first contact, that front line, that is sometimes the only connection that a consumer or a client may have. We know we live in a impacted system where, like, sometimes to meet a therapist or a counselor, you're on a waiting list for months at a time, right? So I also think it's applicable to folks and maybe some of those ways and supportive, a supportive of people in those industries that are going to be on the front lines doing some of the most important and heavy work. 

Olga Valdivia  
Thank you. So kind of just tying it right back to graduate school. So if we have students that are taking this minor and they're just loving everything they're learning, what would be some of those direct master programs that they could continue with and the same momentum going?

Dr. Justine D'Arrigo  
Sure, yeah, some direct masters programs would be like a clinical psychology masters that could end up being like a Marriage and Family Therapy Focus, or could be just more the clinical route, clinical social work, counseling, and again, in counseling, there's multiple pathways as well, right? So a master's degree in School Counseling, a master's degree in Licensed Clinical counseling, CSUSB has a counseling program that has both of those. So we have a dual program, which is pretty rare, and I think the only one in this region, but there's so I think those are some potential kind of like natural degree programs that come after that are that are at the master's level, and I think they're positioned well for those programs. I think you both mentioned how I spoke about how we facilitate these classes. They really are, since I've only taught at the graduate level, I really only know how to teach a grad like a class from that perspective. So they're very collaborative, very dialogical. It's not like a banking model, not that all undergraduate education is right, but it's not necessarily. We're not wanting students to come and sit and listen to our lecture and like hear our expert knowledge, right? It's like we want them to be connected to their own expert knowledge and have it really be conversational based, which I think prepares them well for a graduate program, because that is most of what graduate work focuses on is, is the dialog, the conversation, the collaboration between the experiences and knowledge people bring to the learning space.

Olga Valdivia  
Absolutely. So more of a seminar type course, right? I think we always get that question, like, okay, so I'm looking at the schedule, there's discussion, there's lab, there's seminar, and sometimes students don't understand the difference, but you just nailed it. We're having a conversation, right? And I think those classes, for me personally, are always the funnest, because it's so engaging I want to be there, right? Thank you for that. 

Matt Markin  
Wish they could all be like that. Let's say students are doing the minor in counseling and social change. Are there any additional resources or support that they would receive through your department? 

Dr. Justine D'Arrigo  
That's a good question. I was thinking about that question, there for sure will be a resource to them? Yeah, so I think for sure the faculty so the courses are taught by myself and Dr. Hedtke, who has also been a faculty member in the MS program for many, many, many years, and was the coordinator of the program for, I think, close to 14 years before that. But so they do have access to, I think, professors in different ways, right. There are also opportunities where they get to have some connection with the graduate students themselves. I'm thinking about this last semester, I took a group of the undergrad students and my graduate students to a local school board meeting where there were some important decisions being made about policies. And, you know, trying to educate students, both graduate and undergrad, about how important it is, typically, to show up that that the decisions being made in places like school boards or city councils are going to directly affect not only their jobs, but the people they're working with. And so showing up, having a voice, being presence, important, and so they got to make some connections with graduate students, right? That they now are like, oh, so and so and I are getting together, right? Or we would love to keep doing these things beyond the class. So I think there's a way that they get connected into community that is different, a larger community like the graduate community, but also we build a community in the minor as well. And I was just thinking about a student on Tuesday that said, like this is one of the first classes, or series of classes, where I've made friends right where I feel like this class, like these people, we've become like this little community together. And so I think there's that potential for students that maybe is new and different or like maybe that happens in other places. But for some students, it's not happening everywhere. There are also opportunities that they have to go to some of the professional development series that that the graduate program puts on so they do have access to kind of get connected with that world, if it's a if it's a pathway that they want to be pursuing. Yeah. 

Olga Valdivia  
Awesome. Thank you. So you almost answered my next question, right? Anything that students should consider when, when wanting to add the minor. Or if they're on the fence, you know, what would be your recommendation? I mean, you already won me over. I want to add it. But if we're, if we're talking with student who, you know, oh, they're getting closer to graduate, but you know, still considering it, what would you tell them? 

Dr. Justine D'Arrigo  
Yeah, I would say, do it, right. I think, I think in my mind, so if they have, if they have, like, if they have the ability to do it right, if they have the time and the space, I don't see it being a hindrance or a drawback at all, right. It could only be an addition. It could only be supportive of something. So I would say, if they're on the fence, they can also always just take one course and feel it out. You know, I would also recommend that. Great elective, right? And I know I would love for everyone to love the classes. And I know that like, right, not they might not be for everyone, but I think so if people want to check it out, we welcome them to just join us for a class one semester, and then they can see if it's their cup of tea or not, right, or if it fits for what they're thinking they want their professional trajectory to be. But yeah, so I would say if they're on the fence, step, step over the fence, just try it out. And there's a little door on the fence. They can always walk back the other way.

Olga Valdivia  
I love that. So if we have students that have any questions about this minor, who can they reach out to? 

Dr. Justine D'Arrigo  
Yeah, they can reach out to me. So they can email me, let me know. I'm hoping they like I think that a lot of the undergraduate academic advisors have also been super crucial in helping us get the word out, helping us educate the students. So I would also say, if a student's listening to this, like, contact your academic advisor as well. If reaching out to me, I don't know, is intimidating, or I'm not sure, maybe, like, reach out to the person you're comfortable with. But yeah, I am. My door is open. I am happy to answer any questions. I've already been since meeting with you all already, like talking with some students ahead of time, getting them thinking about, you know, electives, and looking at their transcripts and things. So whatever I can do to be facilitative and helpful for them, and kind of deciding whether or not this is a good pathway, I'm here. Yeah, they can. They can reach out to me directly. 

Olga Valdivia  
All right, y'all heard him reach out.

Matt Markin  
I think anyone listening to this will realize how personable you are and approachable and won't be scared to contact so yeah, right. But Olga and I really appreciate you being on the podcast to talk about this minor a very exciting again, you know, from us hearing you speak about it at one of our previous meetings, we just knew we had to have you on to let our students know more about it. So thank you so much. 

Dr. Justine D'Arrigo  
Yeah, thanks to both of you again for the time and the invitation. It's lovely, and you both were lovely to talk to so thank you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai