Student qualifications

The student’s advisor will determine student readiness for the portfolio review based on the following criteria:  The student has completed all required coursework; the student has completed all portfolio requirements.  (See the Counseling Psychology Portfolio for an outline of those requirements.)

(If a student is concurrently enrolled in one required course, and that course is the only remaining requirement, the advisor may approve this exception to the qualifications and forward that approval to the faculty as an information item at the next convened faculty meeting. However, all students must complete 7P:465 before beginning their portfolio defense.)

Portfolio Review Committee

The student’s advisor is responsible for approving the composition of the portfolio review committee, which must be constituted as follows:  Chair or co-chair, Counseling Psychology faculty advisor; two other counseling psychology faculty members; two other faculty members.  All five voting faculty members must be tenure-track or clinical-track faculty members of the University of Iowa.  Additional nonvoting faculty may be added according to Graduate College regulations.

Portfolio Review Process

Normally the student will submit the portfolio to his or her advisor. The advisor will then request that the committee review the portfolio.  This review process will normally be completed in three weeks. 

Portfolio Defense

The function of the Portfolio Defense is to allow the student’s portfolio review committee to determine his or her competence across a variety of areas and to ascertain his or her satisfactory completion of the elements of the portfolio.  At the beginning of the portfolio defense, the student will make the formal case presentation (required by the portfolio). There will then be specific questions posed related to ethics and professional issues.

Evaluation of Portfolio

This evaluation will be conducted according to the rules and regulations of the Graduate College as follows:

The portfolio review will be evaluated at a convened meeting of the committee and reported as satisfactory, satisfactory with reservations, or unsatisfactory to the Graduate College within 14 days after the completion of the defense. Two “unsatisfactory” votes will make the committee report unsatisfactory.

In the event of a report with two or more votes of “satisfactory with reservations,” the exact stipulations of the committee will be recorded with the report form.  If the stipulations involve additional work on the portfolio, the statement will be specific in defining the tasks and time involved in satisfying the reservations.

In the event of a report of unsatisfactory, the committee may grant the candidate permission to present him or herself for another defense not sooner than 4 months after the first.  The defense may be repeated only once, at the option of the department.

Maintenance of records

The Counseling Psychology program will retain the student’s complete portfolio.  The student should also retain a copy of the portfolio.