Retired professor is recipient—and namesake—of new lifetime award

Posted: Nov. 9, 2009

Robert Myrick, professor emeritus in counselor education at UF’s College of Education, is the first recipient of a new lifetime achievement honor awarded recently by the Florida School Counselor Association (FSCA) for his pioneering achievements in the field of school counseling—but that’s only half the story.

The rest of the story is that the statewide counselors’ group also has named the award after Myrick.

Myrick served on UF’s counselor education faculty for 36 years before retiring in 2003, helping the program emerge as one of the nation’s top-ranked programs in its specialty. A strong believer in peer education and youth helping youth, Myrick has been a leading advocate of teacher advisor programs in middle and high schools throughout his career, and helped to create and advance elementary school counseling. He was also among the first counselor educators to emphasize procedures in brief counseling, time-management, accountability and peer facilitators.

“He ran a stellar program,” said Dr. Harry Daniels, counselor education professor. “He was a high-energy guy with lots of enthusiasm.”

Myrick has left his mark in counseling education throughout the United States and Canada, serving as frequent keynote speaker, workshop leader and school district consultant. He has consulted in almost every Florida district and has also led workshops in Greece, Mexico and Egypt. He has written several books and was the editor of the Elementary School Guidance and Counseling Journal. He was previously president of the Florida Counselor Association and the Florida Association for Counselor Education and Supervision.

In 2007, a Chinese team of educators developed a teacher-guidance model based on Myrick’s work that won a national award.

“With his school counseling program, he was one of the top two or three leaders in the U.S. and the world,” said Daniels. “He spent his life contributing to the development of the profession.”

Among his previous honors, Myrick received the 1974-1975 Florida Personnel and Guidance Association’s Outstanding Member Award and the American School Counselor Association’s first Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004.

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CONTACTS

Writer: Jennifer Tormo, Writing Intern, UFCOE News & Communications, (352) 273-4140; jtormo@coe.ufl.edu