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 Meet student counseling, disability services staff By Jamie Scholten The Center for Student Counseling and Disability Services offers confidential individual and group counseling for students at the Savannah College of Art and Design. The center also offers disability services for students with a documented disability and interpreters for students with hearing impairments. In addition, the center sponsors a wide variety of quarterly programs to support student personal and academic success. Staff members are highly qualified professionals with extensive experience in their fields. The director of the center is Tamara Knapp-Grosz, Ph.D. Knapp-Grosz earned a master’s in psychology from Long Island University and a Ph.D. in counseling psychology, specializing in marriage and family counseling, from Seton Hall University. She holds undergraduate degrees in psychology and nursing, and she completed her doctoral internship in clinical psychology at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Knapp-Grosz is a nationally board-certified psychiatric clinical nurse specialist with more than 20 years in the healthcare field. She also has national board certifications as a clinical hypnotherapist and as a gerontological nurse. She is licensed as a psychologist in Georgia and North Carolina. In addition, she has developed and implemented more than 50 different mental health programs throughout the United States. Her clinical interests include post-traumatic stress and other anxiety disorders, marital/family therapy and mind/body healing. She is active in numerous professional and service organizations and serves on the advisory board for the Women’s Healthcare Network. Lita Clary is the coordinator of disability services. Clary earned a Master of Science degree in psychology and art from Radford University, Virginia. Clary has more than 29 years of experience in counseling and disability services and has worked with people of all ages. Her work history includes developing and managing numerous state-of-the-art psychiatric programs throughout the country. She also developed a year-round private school and annual summer camp and served as school principal for neurologically impaired, communication disordered and behavior disordered children and adolescents. In addition, Clary’s experience as an art therapist is an asset to her work with the center. Clary serves as regional representative for the Southeastern Georgia Association of Higher Education and Disability Services. Cris Dykeman earned a Bachelor of Arts in psychology from Graceland University in Iowa and a Master of Arts in psychology with a professional counseling specialty from Argosy University. Dykeman has an extensive history of working with mentally disabled adults as well. Pat Mooney is a licensed clinical social worker. He has a Bachelor of Science in education and an M.S. in social work from the University of Tennessee. He has more than 30 years of experience in a variety of educational and mental health settings in Tennessee, Louisiana, North Carolina and Georgia. He has found that capitalizing on strengths and building on assets is a very important part of his holistic approach to helping students find solutions to issues they face. He is also a freelance writer specializing in health and mental health topics. Don Musick has an M.A. in psychology and a minor in biofeedback from Truman State University. He is a certified addiction counselor in Georgia and has worked in the counseling field for 18 years, primarily in substance abuse treatment. He previously worked for the Tidelands Community Service Board as the director of admissions and the director of outpatient mental health and substance abuse services. Musick trained young adults in the areas of unmet human needs, public safety, historical preservation and environmental restoration for Americorps Inc. He was also the coordinator of the dual diagnosis programs at the Substance Abuse Commission in Charleston, S.C. He is a member of the Biofeedback Certification Institute of America, the National Coalition Building Institute (past director of the Charleston chapter) and MENSA. Sophie Viola has a B.S. in psychology from East Stroudsburg University, Pa., and an M.A. in psychology (with a professional counseling specialty) from Argosy University. She has extensive background working with military families and college students. Chene Walz earned a Master of Education in human development counseling from Vanderbilt University and a B.A. in psychology from the University of Georgia. Walz is a licensed professional counselor and nationally certified counselor. Her areas of clinical interest include women’s issues, anxiety, and gay and lesbian identity issues. She is also the Savannah Regional Representative for the Georgia College Counseling Association. Beverly Williams is the deaf services coordinator. She began her sign language education at the University of Tulsa-Oklahoma, while pursuing a communications degree at Oral Roberts University. Since becoming nationally certified by the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf, she has worked as a freelance interpreter and has advanced to lead interpreter for the state of Georgia. She has also taught sign language at Kent State University, Akron University and Savannah Speech and Hearing Center. In addition, throughout her career, she has focused on legal interpreting, developing pre-trial conference guidelines and legal vocabulary training tapes for interpreters working in the criminal justice system. Willams has also devoted time to serving as a court appointed special advocate, part of a volunteer organization providing support and representation for abused and neglected children. In addition, she has received awards from the Savannah Club of the Deaf, the U.S. Army Medical Department and the national RID. She has also traveled as an interpreter to Italy, France, England, Switzerland, Israel, Jordan and Canada. In 1997, she started the deaf services department at SCAD. She has developed training materials for staff interpreters in ceramics, computer art, fashion, graphic design, painting and photography. John Rourke Jarvis III (Rou), staff interpreter, earned an Associate in Science degree in respiratory therapy and a B.S. in health science from Armstrong Atlantic State University. He completed his undergraduate practicum at the University of Northumbria at Newcastle with a concentration in sexual health. Jarvis obtained his Georgia quality assurance in transliterating in 1999 and passed the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf generalist written test in June 2002. He has been involved with the deaf community since 1991 and has worked with deaf people in Nigeria. Jarvis, who has been with SCAD since 1996, is pursuing his national certification. Darlene West, staff interpreter, earned her degree in speech communications from the University of Hawaii. Since graduation, she has acquired a broad base of educational interpreting, ranging from elementary through post-secondary. During her tenure in the educational systems, she has provided mentoring and facilitated interpreter preparation and education. She has also presented an array of workshops, in-services and classes to coworkers and community interpreters. She has freelanced in a variety of settings, including with Sign Language Associates in Washington, D.C. Since 2000, she has worked at SCAD, where she interprets in both the undergraduate and graduate programs. In addition, she has eight years of experience teaching sign language classes to a range of age groups and is nationally certified. The support staff for the center are Jamie Scholten and Cathy Turbiville. Scholten completed three years at Purdue University and is a graduate of McCracken’s Business College of Indianapolis. Turbiville is a native of Orlando, Fla., and earned her B.A. in English from Presbyterian College. She is pursuing an M.A. in art history at SCAD. Scholten is a support staff member of the Center for Student Counseling and Disability Services. |
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