Chicago | Assistant Professor, Clinical Mental Health Counseling
Department of Counseling and Integrated Programs
Dr. Wilkerson’s teaching and supervision approach is collaborative, multi-disciplinary, and creative. Her main motivation as a counselor educator and clinical supervisor is to assist counselors-in-training in fostering and growing in their professional identity, professional competencies, and self-efficacy.
She teaches from a transformative learning theoretical approach which emphasizes adult learning through self-examination and action-oriented experiences in and outside the classroom. Transformative learning is a form of adult instruction that prioritizes change in the students’ perspectives, challenges assumptions, and provides opportunities to gain new knowledge and skills through critical discourse and experiential activities.
Dr. Wilkerson’s goals for her students surround development of a strong clinical identity. Students will leave her classes feeling more aware of themselves, knowable about the counseling practice and confidant in their art form in practice counseling with client. In addition, her goals are to improve self- efficacy in her students in that her students feel skilled and believe in their ability to do the work as a professional counselor. Finally, Dr. Wilkerson’s goals are for her students to have fun and to enjoy the healing work that comes from being a change agent in the lives of those we are privilege to support in therapeutic spaces. Many of her students will say that Dr. Wilkerson is fun but firm, she will make sure you do what is necessary to become a counselor but, also enjoy the work that is being a counselor because it is a great profession.
Dr. Wilkerson’s research passion and dissertation topic focus on exploring the relationship between multicultural competency, multicultural counseling self-efficacy, and transformative learning methods in master level courses. She also has research experience in women’s health, relational tread in couple and marital counseling, racial microaggression effects on wellness, mentorship for women of color in graduate school programs, multicultural competency development, creative interventions in clinical counseling supervision, and gender influences within the counseling supervision alliance and satisfaction. Her experience with research includes practicing both qualitative and quantitative models of research method.