After spending five years as a student at UNC Greensboro earning first her master’s in community counseling (2009) and then a Ph.D. in Counseling and Counselor Education (2012), Dr. Amanda Giordano continues to feel a deep connection to the school and especially the Department of Counseling and Educational Development (CED) and its Vacc Counseling and Consulting Clinic.
Giordano is currently an associate professor at the University of Georgia (UGA) where she works primarily with doctoral students and focuses her research efforts in the field of addictions counseling. She has published more than 60 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters and wrote a book on treating behavioral addictions.
Looking back, Giordano credits her time at UNCG with developing the skills she has needed to be successful in the field. She said, “All of my clinical skills started from my practicum and internship in my master’s program at the Vacc Clinic. And all of my supervision skills stem from my Ph.D. experiences, and I was first exposed to research on Scott Young and Craig Cashwell’s research team. Even now, teaching my own students about counseling, research, and supervision – it all stems back to what I learned at UNCG.”
Faculty Influence & Student Experience
After completing her bachelor’s degree at UGA, Giordano learned of the program at UNCG after her father brought home a copy of U.S. News & World Report’s rankings issue. Seeing the program highly ranked, she began to do more research and decided to apply. After being admitted, Giordano travelled to campus where she met with Dr. DiAnne Borders.
Giordano said, “That meeting was the turning point of my whole career. DiAnne told me about all the things that you could do with not only a master’s degree in community counseling, but also a PhD in Counselor Education. I was so impressed with her. I remember walking in saying, ‘This might be a good place to get a master’s,’ but I walked out of that meeting saying, ‘I am going to get a master’s and a Ph.D.’”
Her experiences as a Spartan still carry with her today and often come up in her classes. Giordano, who said she was a “sponge” during her time at UNCG, will often quote her UNCG mentors like Dr. Kelly Wester and Dr. Keith Mobley to her students. She uses Borders’ book in her doctoral supervision class and tries to emulate her dissertation chair when working with her own doctoral students.
When it comes to her time working in the Vacc Clinic, Giordano now realizes how rare and impactful having such a clinic on campus is for future counselors and counselor educators. Having the Vacc Clinic as a training space allows students to be exposed to a variety of clients and clinical issues.
Giordano said, “That year of internship was unbelievably transformative for me because I was exposed to such diverse client concerns. It was my first time counseling someone with an addiction, someone who was struggling with suicidal ideation. I counseled my first couple there and facilitated my first group counseling session. That was really where I developed my counselor identity.”
The Vacc Clinic is a resource for the community, providing services for not only UNCG students, faculty, and staff, but for the greater Greensboro, and now, North Carolina communities. The clinic provides its sessions that are charged on a sliding scale to make the services available to a wider range of clients. Giordano noted that the clinic often had a waitlist during her time as a student and that was reflective of the need that the clinic was meeting.
Becoming a Leader
As a master’s student, Giordano received supervision and feedback not only from faculty members, but also from doctoral students. She was able to then build on that experience during her time pursuing her Ph.D. by serving in a supervisory role herself. That confirmed her desire to move into training future counselors.
She said, “I thought for sure that I wanted to be a clinician. But I remember a faculty member telling me that through supervision, you can indirectly reach more clients than you could ever reach one-on-one as a counselor. I found that to be very powerful, and the supervisor role to be a privileged space with a lot of responsibility. After my dissertation, I also wanted to continue doing research to inform the field and serve as a means of advocacy for those with addiction.”
That led her to where she is today at UGA – serving as a mentor and being a respected researcher.
After performing several clinical appointments as a doctoral student and becoming a licensed professional counselor, Giordano left UNCG and accepted her first assistant professor appointment at the University of North Texas. There, she was able to serve as a counselor educator with a specialization in addictions. While at North Texas, Giordano developed a behavioral addictions class and developed an Addictions Counseling Research Team with a colleague. After six years, she returned to UGA and continues her work advancing the addictions counseling field.
A CED Community
Alumni of UNCG’s CED programs often talk about the community feel of the program and the life-long connections they make while immersed in their training. Former students will find each other at conferences and reconnect. Cohorts of CED students bond throughout their educational journey, learning from each other through shared experiences.
Giordano said, “The cohort model is very powerful. You get close to your cohort, but also the cohort above and below you. You immediately have this bond of, ‘I know what you’re experiencing.’ and you want to support each other.”
Those same faculty mentors that guided Giordano through her classes, internships, and practicums at UNCG over 13 years ago, are now on the receiving end of regular emails and Christmas cards. They are still available to bounce ideas off of and to talk through career opportunities and research projects.
To students considering entering UNCG’s program and working in the Vacc Clinic, Giordano says, “I hope you are full of joy and excitement. This is a chapter in your life that you will never forget. These experiences at UNCG are once-in-a-lifetime. Enjoy the journey, learn as much as you can, and cultivate relationships with your cohort members and the faculty. You are not just a student; you are part of the UNCG family.”
Learn More About the Programs in the Department of Counseling and Educational Development
