Educational Psychology & Counseling

Experiencing Confidence and Enjoyment of Learning

Mark Stevens“Students like to interact with their professors and we know that certain faculty members have more of an air of approachability than others do,” said Mark Stevens, faculty in Educational Counseling and Psychology. “Now, other faculty may be very much approachable but sometimes the students don’t know that.”

With student success as a campus-wide priority, conversation and discussion often revolves around the many ways we work together to empower our students. The ExCEL program, established at University Counseling Services, was introduced to the CSUN community in 2006 with the goal of helping students succeed. ExCEL provides resources to make students aware of some of the psychological-social challenges that may be interfering with their academic success. The goal is to help students address and hopefully overcome these challenges.

One aspect of the program is the project, “Selfies of Your Professors,” which encourages students to get to know the stories behind their professors’ success. “Our project, ‘Selfies of Your Professors’ is to show our students that many faculty come from backgrounds like you. And they’re willing and they want to interact with you. They want to know your story as you get to know their story,” Mark said.

“We know that student success has a lot to do with students’ willingness to ask faculty for help and ask for clarification,” he added, “and who better to go to if you need help fulfilling your academic dreams?”

Mark Stevens & Natalie MkrtchyanExcerpt from “Selfies of Your Professors” by Mark Stevens:
There are many explanations why students do not succeed in college. Most of those reasons have very little to do with their intelligence and more to do with their ability to manage and overcome a variety of environmental challenges such as: poor college preparation, financial demands, family pressures, and health concerns of self and others, as well as psychological- social challenges such as: low academic confidence and self-efficacy, poor help seeking behaviors and restrictive attitudes about learning.

ExCEL is a piece of the solution puzzle which aims to increase retention and graduation rates for those who come to CSUN with the dream and desire to graduate. We invite you to review some of the materials related to this dynamic course:

Originally published by the College of Health and Human Development in their Wednesday, October 28, 2015 newsletter