About the Graduate School

Links:

• Campus Directory
• Campus Map
• Mission and Vision

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Focused on Social Justice

The Lewis & Clark Graduate School of Education and Counseling offers graduate degree, licensure, certificate, and additional endorsement programs for prospective and for practicing teachers, Pre-K-12 education leaders, school counselors, school psychologists, student affairs professionals in higher education, addiction counselors, licensed professional counselors, and marriage, couple, and family therapists. Our students are diverse in age, culture, income, sexual orientation/gender identity, prior experience, and educational background. To meet our students’ needs, classes are offered days, evenings, and weekends and are located on campus, off campus, and at work sites.

Committed to Serving Students

The graduate school is committed to serving every student by providing a learning environment built around the values and practices associated with critical thinking, individual growth, and social justice. Our programs combine rigorous academic work with challenging field-based experiences; students spend nearly 200,000 hours working in schools and mental health agencies each year, beginning in their first semester of study. The curriculum reflects the theories, techniques, research, modes of application, and contemporary reform movements within each professional field. Our graduates are change agents who transform society through education and counseling. 

History of the Graduate School

While Lewis & Clark has educated teachers and counselors since its earliest days, issuing master’s degrees in education beginning in 1948, the Graduate School of Education and Counseling in its present form dates from 1984. That year, graduate programs were consolidated into a single administrative unit and faculty collaborated on a unified vision for educating students and joining together as a community of scholars and learners. Through this vision, the Graduate School of Education and Counseling has supported the mission of Lewis & Clark by educating thoughtful leaders, innovative decision makers, and agents of positive change in the fields of education and counseling—leaders who actively engage with the communities they serve.

The graduate school was originally housed in the Albany Quadrangle on the undergraduate campus. In 2000, the Graduate Campus (formerly South Campus) was created to bring faculty and students together in both a community and physical location dedicated to the professional fields represented in the school. The Graduate Campus consists of administrative, classroom, and event space in four buildings: Rogers Hall, the York Graduate Center, the historic Corbett House (currently closed in anticipation of renovation), and the South Chapel.

The 18-acre site of the graduate campus was acquired in 2000 from the Sisters of St. Francis, who used it from 1943 until its sale to Lewis & Clark. The Sisters purchased the property from the family of Hamilton and Harriet Corbett, one of Portland’s founding families, who built the Corbett estate in 1929. It was known as Our Lady of Angels Convent. Though Lewis & Clark is religiously unaffiliated, this history of ownership explains the stained glass and other religious details that observant visitors will notice across campus. The graduate school is proud to carry on the tradition of deep reflection and commitment to learning and the welfare of others that the Sisters originally brought to the site.

In 2012, the graduate school opened a community counseling clinic on Barbur Boulevard, near downtown Portland. A state-of-the-art training facility for graduate students, the Community Counseling Center also serves the greater Portland community by providing low-cost counseling to individuals, couples, and families. In its first year of operations, the clinic served nearly 500 clients.

Community Engagement

The Graduate School of Education and Counseling works in collaboration with community partners to address critical community needs in education and mental health through the Center for Community Engagement. Through these partnerships, we strive to enhance the effectiveness of education and mental health professionals as agents of change; support the self-organizing capacities of groups, organizations and communities working toward social justice; and help meet the educational and mental health needs of marginalized communities with a commitment to address issues of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, power, privilege, language, and ability. The center builds and supports alliance and networks, creates connections with social service organization and schools, and seeks out, explores, and reflects the diversity that exists within communities. Connecting theory and practice, we prepare a cadre of new education and mental health change agents by integrating outreach into graduate coursework and involving graduate students in outreach activities.