Fall 2011: A Message from the Department Chair
Dear Friends,
2011 has been a significant year in the history of our program. Early in the year we lost Helen, our founder, our teacher, our mentor. Our grief has been extensive. We mourn and honor her as we move forward to forge the clinical excellence, community engagement and scholarly contributions she had always envisioned. Our work is her legacy. Just after Helen’s death, we celebrated our 30th anniversary at LMU. Like most experiences in life, this bitter sweet convergence of sadness and celebration characterized our year; as therapists we have learned how to hold contradictory experiences and feelings.
This year has also had many changes in personnel; we have added Anthony Bodlovic to our full time faculty, have expanded Kathleen Fogel-Richmond’s half time practicum coordinator position to full time, celebrated part-time faculty member Rita Coufal’s retirement, supported Einat Metzl’s temporary maternity leave (to care for twin daughters), and are anticipating a new Dean when Barbara Busse steps down this summer. That’s a significant amount of change and we have learned to be flexible, collaborative and creative as a team to make sure that the program remains cohesive. 
In addition to personnel changes we have augmented and enhanced our physical space, adding two new faculty offices, a conference room and a lovely reception area. Our expanded suite is beautiful and we invite you to stop by to visit. The picture below shows our welcoming reception area where the students enjoy gathering. Please review the opportunities to get involved that we list in this newsletter and find a way to come to campus, visit our new suite and connect with the program.
Despite all our changes the program is thriving; this year we had sixty-four applicants for twenty first year spots, graduated twenty-four art therapists (fifteen of whom have found full time art therapy work), and took eighteen students to Mexico. We have placements in over thirty mental health agencies in L.A. County and currently have 622 alumni. You are a part of this extended community and we invite your involvement.
With much affection, Debra
(Picture: Second year students working in our expanded suite.)