Continuity and Change
This issue of the Journal of College Counseling is one of transition and, hopefully, continuity. Joshua C. Watson, who served this journal as editor for a decade, and did so confidently and with great skill, is resigning his post, and with him his two excellent associate editors—Laura M. Gonzalez and Michael K. Schmit. Their contribution to this journal, and to our professional knowledge and scholarship, has been significant and immense. A new editorial team, with Oren M. Shefet as editor and Melissa J. Fickling, Andrea M. Flynn, and Edith Gonzalez as associate editors, will replace them. This issue is published as a combined effort of both teams.
As I enter my role as editor, I am struck by the breadth and depth of the work done by practitioners and researchers of college counseling, as well as by the forces and pressures currently affecting their professional world. Research has confirmed our common impressions of the rise of demand for counseling services, as well as of the increase in risk and complexity of the work involved. The diversity of our student bodies, whether in age, race, ethnicity, sex and gender identity, sexual orientation, and ability status, is higher than it ever was before, leading us to seek innovative means of reaching and serving an ever‐broadening population. Trends and developments in the world outside our higher education institutions, such as technological developments, increased political polarization, rising economic inequalities, and looming ecological threats, routinely affect our students and our work. Finally, the COVID‐19 pandemic, which has changed many of our ways of working overnight, forced us to adapt to unprecedented circumstances.
In its 24 years of existence, the Journal of College Counseling has stood at the forefront of professional development. It has addressed, accompanied, and led the alterations in practice and knowledge, policy, and study. It has provided a place for researchers, practitioners, and policy makers to come together and share findings and ideas. Although the challenges before us are great, I trust in our common professional community to come through and find opportunities and innovative means of understanding and addressing them. It is my hope that this journal will continue to serve as the platform that will give our professional society its voice.
A tiny measure of the enormity of the work we are doing can be exemplified by the articles of this issue. In the first research article, Amanda L. Giordano and her colleagues examine the effects that vicarious racism—the viewing of racist incidents over media—may have on the well‐being of students of color. This is a work of significant importance, especially given recent events, including the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and the Black Lives Matter protests held in all major U.S. cities. In the second article, Can Sabaner and Karen D. Arnold turn their trained attention to the realities and experiences of students of low‐income families who are entering college and look for the factors that allowed them to succeed, as well as the barriers they faced. The third article, written by Melissa A. Noble and her colleagues, looks at the attitudes toward help seeking among student service members and veterans, a population of nearly 1 million students who arrive on our campuses with unique skills, experiences, and needs. The latter two research articles help to elaborate on the needs and ways of serving distinct college constituencies. Students who are pursuing their higher education degrees while struggling with disabilities are a growing and important constituency on campuses. The fourth article, by Stacey L. Hamilton and her colleagues, looks at students with attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder and the way resilience may mediate the effect those symptoms may have on their perceived stress. The last of our research articles, by Dogukan Ulupinar and So Rin Kim, examines a program addressing alcohol consumption and its differential effect across races and genders. For our Professional Issues and Innovative Practice article, Aviry L. Reich and his colleagues frame student athletes' attitudes toward mental health help seeking from a social‐ecological framework and elaborate on our triple roles as educators, advocates, and therapists in influencing those attitudes.