Friends and alumni of our program make a difference in the lives of our students and faculty in many ways. They offer internships, travel to Manhattan to talk with students, hire graduates, help guide the program and donate financial support.
To explore ways to give to the MFT Excellence Fund, contact Suzanne Dell-St. Clair, development director for the College of Human Ecology, at suzanned@found.ksu.edu or 800-432-1578.
Learn more about the Marriage and Family Therapy Program at enewsletters.k-state.edu/mft or on our website at he.k-state.edu/fshs/programs. Stay connected with us by email at ksumft@k-state.edu.
Ruben Parra-Cardona, associate professor in the program of couple and family therapy at Michigan State University and associate director of the MSU Research Consortium on Gender-based Violence, will present the second Jurich Lecture on Social Justice at 3 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 17.
Ruben Parra-Cardona
He will present “Building Bridges of Social Justice: Embracing prevention research to support Latino/a communities in the U.S. and Mexico.”
The afternoon lecture and reception will be at the K-State Student Union. On Friday, Sept. 18, marriage and family therapy alumni and friends are invited to breakfast at the Family Center and then join a program and center tour.
Parra-Cardona’s research, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), compares and contrasts the differential treatment efficacy and cultural relevance of two culturally adapted versions of an evidence-based parenting intervention.
His violence research focuses on the evaluation of cultural relevance of services for Latino survivors as well as Latino men who batter and abuse.
He serves as consultant for the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence, particularly as it focuses on developing theoretical frameworks for the reduction and elimination of violent behaviors in intimate relationships.
The professor’s clinical experience has included the provision of services to street children engaged in drug trafficking and prostitution, child and adult victims of sexual abuse and violence, as well as federal adult probationers convicted for drug trafficking.
The Tony Jurich Lecture on Social Justice honors Jurich, a professor who taught in the School of Family Studies and Human Services for more than 39 years before his death in 2010.
Jurich earned national recognition for his work as a leader in the field of family therapy. He believed in social justice and challenged his students and colleagues to value diversity, promote equality and endorse fairness, said Sandra Stith, University distinguished professor and head of the marriage and family therapy program.
In 2014, Jurich’s wife, Olivia Collins, and his brother, Steve Jurich, established the Tony Jurich Community Commitment and Leadership Student Awards, which recognize graduating students who demonstrate a commitment to the professor’s core leadership tenets.
The tenets — strive for resonance; assume value and be respectful; be compassionate; do what is right; seek out, affirm and utilize diversity; and lead by example — provide a road map for sustainable community change, said Marcie Lechtenberg, marriage and family therapist, instructor and therapist supervisor in the School of Family Studies and Human Services. She received a Jurich graduate student award in 2014.
“Tony was loved and respected as a dedicated therapist, an enthusiastic teacher and researcher, and a wise supervisor and mentor,” Lechtenberg said.
Dorthy Stucky Halley became the first Tony Jurich Lecture on Social Justice when she addressed a crowd of students, faculty and community members on domestic violence and human trafficking on March 12 in the K-State Union.
Dorthy Stucky Halley
Halley, who helped develop and was the first coordinator of the Human Trafficking Advisory Board for the Kansas attorney general, warned against stereotyping domestic violence offenders who vary greatly in the type of violence they perpetrate and motives behind their aggression. She listed major motives as entitlement, survival and sadistic.
She also dispelled stereotypes about human traffic victims.
In Kansas, people are often trafficked by a family member, she said. More than 350 victims of human trafficking in Kansas were reported to the state attorney general’s office during fiscal 2014. In at least a third of the cases, the trafficker was the spouse or partner, Halley said.
She is director of victim services for the Kansas attorney general and a licensed master social worker.
Her lecture was presented by the marriage and family therapy program, which is offered by the School of Family Studies and Human Services in Kansas State University’s College of Human Ecology.
Sandra Stith, an internationally known expert on understanding and treating intimate partner violence, has been named a university distinguished professor, a lifetime title and the highest honor the university bestows on its faculty members.
Stith, Virginia Mowrey McAninch professor of family studies and human services, directs the marriage and family therapy program in the College of Human Ecology. She is a board member, and Fellow, of the National Council on Family Relations and vice president of the American Family Therapy Academy.
This year she presented workshops on Couples Treatment for Domestic Violence in Vancouver, BC, Canada, University of Ulster, Northern Ireland, Oslo, Norway, and Helsinki, Finland.
Currently, Stith leads a large meta-analysis project examining risk factors for partner violence. She continues to study dating violence and couples treatment for domestic violence
Since coming to the university in 2007, Stith has garnered nearly $8 million in grants. She is the author of one book and has edited four books on intimate partner violence and authored more than 90 articles and book chapters on the subject. Stith has received National Institute of Mental Health funding to develop and test a couple’s treatment program for intimate partner violence. She has worked with the U.S. Air Force Family Advocacy Program since 1998 as a manager of a variety of family violence-related research projects.
Her other honors include the American Family Therapy Association’s Distinguished Contribution to Family Systems Research Award in 2007 and the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy’s Outstanding Contribution to Marriage and Family Therapy Award in 2004. In 2012 she became a fellow of the National Council on Family Relations.
Stith grew up in Oklahoma. She received her bachelor’s degree in education from Oklahoma State University. She earned her master’s degree in life span human development and her doctorate in marriage and family therapy from Kansas State University.
After I graduated with a master’s degree in May 2006, I moved to Phoenix to work at the Youth Development Institute, a residential treatment center for at-risk children where my therapeutic specialty was working with clients with problem sexual behaviors. These behaviors range from sexually reactive behaviors due to trauma to people that have committed sexual crimes.
My amazing major professor, the late Tony Jurich, introduced me to this field. I chose K-State y specifically to work with him. My passion has always been working with adolescents and their families. Through my work with Tony and an internship through Riley County Community Corrections I was able to begin working with adolescents with sexualized behaviors.
Not only was he my major professor, but he was a friend, a father figure and my mentor. He reminded me to take the things I was passionate for and to make them a reality for myself. He taught me it is okay to laugh and smile with your clients. He taught me that the most important thing that my clients will take from me is the relationship and the way I treated them. I laughed with Tony, I cried with Tony and strive each day to make him proud of me. I know he is watching over me and I hope I am doing right by him.
I count my three years at Kansas State as the best in my life. The relationships I created at KSU have lasted well beyond graduation. I found happiness and joy in doing what I loved to do each day.
Candy Russell challenged me consistently. She encouraged me to step out of my comfort zone and gain new experiences. The experiences she challenged me to seek out made me understand my clients much more. She taught me that although I will not always directly understand what a client may be going through, if I allow myself to be open their stories and their struggles I may learn and grow with them.
Mark White challenged my brain in ways that I would sometimes like to forget. Learning the DSM is definitely challenging, but Mark did his best to make it fun for us. Nancy O’Connor was beyond amazing; she told us over and over, “process over content.” When I catch myself listening to stories and the same information over and over in a session, I hear Nancy’s voice in my head and I am able to pull myself away from the content and focus on the process of what is happening.
I worked with more than 100 children in my six and a half years at YDI. There I developed relationships with court officials, probation officers and others that specialize in this field. It was a difficult decision to leave but I was offered a job at The Resolution Group where I now an outpatient therapist doing what I love on my own terms.
I have more fulfillment with my clients and I have learned the healthy balance of work and personal time. I am encouraged to create new programs and to try new techniques. I am currently creating a program for children with autism and developmental delays with sexualized behaviors and a training program for therapeutic foster parents who work with this population. I also teach Psychology of Human Sexuality at Paradise Valley Community College as an adjunct professor.
After graduating from the MFT program at K-State in May 2012, I accepted an assistant professor position in family ecology at the University of Alberta where I have enjoyed success in both research and teaching. My area of scholarship is focused on intimate relationship formation, development and maintenance from the transition to adulthood into midlife, and understanding the key processes that contribute to personal health.
I began collaborating with professors in psychology and sociology, exploring how prior life experiences influence later intimate relationships. We received a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) to explore midlife relationship functioning with data gathered from a sample of Canadians surveyed over 25 years. I have used these data to understand how changes in mental health (self-esteem, expressions of anger and depression) during early adulthood are linked with relationship outcomes during midlife. The results are exciting, highlighting the potential for early mental health intervention to enhance well-being in the future.
I have maintained the fruitful professional relationship with my major professor from K-State, Jared Anderson. We have collaborated on projects ranging from couple relations’ impact on health outcomes to intimacy among Chinese young adults. I recently received another grant from SSHRC to fund exploration of data from the German Panel Analysis of Intimate Relations and Family Relationships, a long-term study documenting couple relations in three age cohorts.
In addition to teaching an introductory survey course about intimate relationships and graduate-level research methods courses, I teach an undergraduate course focused on families. I love teaching this course, as it provides an avenue to apply my family therapy knowledge and experience. Students are exposed to basic family assessment tools and skills to engage the entire family in intervention efforts.
My experience in the MFT program was crucial in preparing me to be successful as a faculty member in a research-intensive university setting. I developed a scholarly writing style that helped me secure two federal grants and publications in top family journals. The excellent mentoring I received as a student provided me a great example to follow with my own students. The opportunity to develop and teach my own course as a doctoral student gave me an advantage in the classroom. In all, the high-quality education I received gave me a solid foundation on which I’ve been able to enjoy early career success that I intend to continue into the future.
