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Counselor ed student honored by regional organization

RachelHenesyRachel Henesy, a UF graduate student in counselor education, has received the Outstanding Student at the Master’s Level Award by the Southern Association for Counselor Education and Supervision. 

The group is a division of the Association for Counselor Education and Supervision. The award honors master’s students who exceed the demands of their graduate program and show exceptional promise for a productive career in counseling. 

Henesy is pursuing her master’s and specialist degrees in mental health counseling at UF’s College of Education, where her focus is primarily on community counseling, adolescent development, counseling research, and social justice. She is currently an intern at the PACE Center for Girls, a Gainesville alternative school for adolescent girls. She also serves as co-president for the UF student chapter of Counselors for Social Justice and co-chair for the advocacy committee of UF’s chapter of Chi Sigma Iota, the international honor society for students, professionals and educators in counseling. 

Rachel is a member of two faculty-led research teams and has worked as a student assistant on three grant-funded research projects. She has presented and co-presented at conferences held by the American Counseling Association, the Association for Assessment in Counseling and Education, and the Florida Counseling Association.

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Counseling group honors grad student for research, practice

MelanieVarneyMelanie Varney, pursuing her master’s and specialist degrees in mental health counseling at UF’s College of Education, has received the Association for Assessment and Research in Counseling’s (AARC) 2013 Master’s Exemplary Research and Practice Award. The award recognizes the contributions a master’s student has made in scholarship and service that align with the group’s mission. 

Varney’s research focuses on multicultural issues in counseling, especially cultural identity development. She has been involved in the Pediatric Counseling Research Team at the College of Education and has studied educational issues affecting historically underperforming minority students. 

She has made two research presentations at the AARC conference and the American Counseling Association conference. Varney was the lead presenter at the ACA’s conference last year, a rare distinction for a master’s student. Varney has been invited to return to the ACA conference again as a co-presenter for an educational session discussing the trends in African American counseling literature that have been published in the past 20 years.

Varney has also excelled in her clinical experiences. She is currently completing her internship at the UF Counseling and Wellness Center. Previously, she was a counseling practicum counselor at the PACE Center for Girls, a local non-residential delinquency prevention program for young females. Varney is also currently employed as a crisis intervention consultant for UF’s Department of Housing and Resident Education.

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