Nicholas Ruiz, Ph.D.

 

Dr. Ruiz has been in the counseling field for almost 40 years as an instructor/professor, clinician, and supervisor. His doctoral degree is in Counseling Psychology from the University of Minnesota. He is Professor Emeritus of Counselor Education at Winona State University (WSU) and an adjunct professor in Counseling and Psychological Services at St. Mary’s University of Minnesota (SMUMN). He is now retired and has retired (in good standing) his licenses as Licensed Psychologist (LP) and Licensed Professional Counselor in the state of Minnesota (LPC).

He has developed and taught courses in supervision at both WSU and SMUMN, this includes both in-person and online classes. He has supervised internships at WSU for graduate students preparing for licensure. He has also supervised graduates of WSU and SMUMN fulfilling the state’s required post-degree clinical practice for licensure in Minnesota as a LP or LPC.

He was a counselor and supervisor at the Walk-In Counseling Clinic in Minneapolis, MN. This clinic provides free counseling services to culturally diverse communities in Minnesota, primarily in Minneapolis but also St. Paul and also draws from the greater Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area.

Dr. Ruiz has served as a professional member on the Minnesota Board of Psychology, which licenses psychologists in Minnesota, and on the Board of Behavioral Health and Therapy, which licenses professional counselors in Minnesota (both LPCs and LPCCs). He has also served as a board member of Casa de Esperanza (now Esperanza United), which serves as a resource for Latinas and their families in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area, as well as statewide and nationally.

 

 

Karen Cathey, Ph.D.

Dr. Cathey has more than 15 years of experience in the counseling field as a practitioner, instructor, and clinical supervisor. She earned her master’s in community counseling from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, a Master of Divinity degree, focusing on pastoral counseling, from Emory University’s Candler School of Theology, and a Ph.D. in counselor education from the University of Mississippi. Her specialization is multicultural competency development, practice, and education. Dr. Cathey recently joined Winona State, so is currently a Mississippi licensed professional counselor and board qualified supervisor (LPC-S) as well as a national approved clinical supervisor (ACS).

Her specialization area is multicultural issues and development. Her dissertation, for which she was awarded a SACES (Southern Association for Counselor Education and Supervision) research grant and won her doctoral program’s Outstanding Dissertation award, was a qualitative study that culminated in a dissertation entitled Faculty Perceptions of Multicultural Competence and Its Development.

Dr. Cathey has served as a clinical training coordinator, exit exam coordinator, NBCC liaison for her campus’ counseling programs, and a guidance counseling program coordinator during her tenure in higher education. In her role as clinical training coordinator, she developed several programmatic handbooks for her past institution’s counseling department, including the program’s Clinical Training Handbook for students, and the Site Supervisor Handbook for site supervisors for three counseling program’s specialization areas. She also revised their clinical training standards for students and fieldwork training assessments for students and both faculty and site supervisors and led the onboarding process of the counseling program’s first use of a field training cloud-based platform. As a counselor educator, Dr. Cathey has been a faculty supervisor for fieldwork students, and, in private practice, she has worked as a post-graduate supervisor for master’s-level counselors seeking licensure. At her current institution in Minnesota, she newly serves as the counselor education department’s field coordinator.