Connections Essentials

Dr Paul gore: Paul’s efforts to promote college and career readiness, high school and college student persistence, and academic success are informed by more than twenty years of research, program development, implementation, evaluation, consulting, and teaching. Paul currently serves as the dean of the College of Professional Sciences at Xavier University in Ohio. Paul earned his Ph.D. in counseling psychology, with an emphasis in student career development, academic success, and transition, from Loyola University–Chicago Dr Wade Leuwerke: Wade is an associate professor of counseling at Drake University. He earned his Ph.D. in counseling psychology from Southern Illinois University–Carbondale. Wade has authored over fifty journal articles and book chapters, as well as national and international conference presentations. One of his areas of research is the assessment and development of student and employee noncognitive skills. He cocreated the Student Strengths Inventory, a measure of noncognitive skills used with secondary and postsecondary students to identify students’ skills and drive interventions for students at risk of academic failure or dropout Dr A.J. Metz: A.J. is an associate professor in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Utah and serves as director of the master’s program in school counseling.  She earned a M.Ed. in rehabilitation counseling in 1997 and a Ph.D. in urban education (with a specialization in counseling psychology) in 2005 from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. Her research examining factors related to academic success and career development in underrepresented and underserved student populations has led to numerous journal articles, book chapters, conference presentations, workshops, grant proposals, and faculty in-service training sessions