Working as a counselor fulfilled Kassandra Kavanaugh.
She became interested in the field during high school, when she started to explore career options, and then cemented that decision while taking a psychology course at the community college in her hometown of Brainerd, Minnesota.
Enrolling at St. Cloud State University to continue in that major, she heard about the school’s Counseling Psychology program and quickly switched.
“I really enjoyed the psychology classes, but counseling always felt like ‘home’ to me,” says Kavanaugh, a Ph.D. student in Counselor Education and Supervision at NIU. “In 2015, I graduated with my Master of Science degree in Rehabilitation Counseling from St. Cloud State and directly went to work at an agency, working in homes with adults and children. I also started working in adult day treatment.”
After three years, however, she recognized another ambition.
“There was always a part of me that had wanted to be back in school so I could become an instructor. That was really kind of my lifelong goal, and that’s when I made the decision to start applying for doctoral programs,” she says. “NIU’s program is incredible, and I love sitting in these spaces and being challenged to think more critically about the research, the literature, the leadership and the advocacy that we have as counselor-educators.”
Coming to NIU also allowed her to start teaching COUN 211: Career Planning – and to affirm the wisdom of her career track.
Kavanaugh is a 2024 recipient of the NIU Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning’s Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant Award.
“I’m thrilled, honored and privileged to have received an award, especially for teaching, because it really doesn’t feel like work to me,” she says. “This feels like my calling, and it’s simple for me to just sit down and get into grading, talking to students, supporting my students, making lesson plans. It feels like – finally – that moment when you realize, ‘I’m being awarded for the thing that’s the most natural thing I’ve ever felt in any type of role.’ ”
Melissa Fickling, associate professor in the Department of Counseling and Higher Education, sees that as well.
“Observing Kassi take leadership of students, curriculum, course improvements and instructor support was truly like seeing someone come into her calling,” Fickling says.
“Kassi has remarked to me that teaching and supporting other graduate teaching assistants ‘doesn’t feel like work’ because she enjoys it so thoroughly. Of course, it is quite a lot of work, and it is the work of a university,” she adds. “I have complete confidence in Kassi’s ability as a teacher and the teaching philosophy she espouses in her mentorship of other GTAs. She has a rare energy for teaching counseling, and it is noticed by everyone lucky enough to work with her as a colleague or student.”
Her résumé now reports teaching every course in the counseling minor, and she’s also delivered COUN 211 and COUN 400 in multiple formats, both online and face-to-face.
Beyond teaching, Kavanaugh completed the Blackboard Ultra Transition Academy and serves as a Blackboard expert for other instructors.
She also has led program improvements that include ensuring accessibility of all undergraduate COUN course syllabi; creating a Microsoft Teams resource library for COUN graduate teaching assistants; transitioning all undergraduate COUN courses to Blackboard Ultra; and co-creating, refining and presenting nationally on a cross-department alumni engagement project for students in COUN 211.
Yet her heart lies in classroom interactions with undergraduates.
“No. 1 is always the students. They’re just so wonderful and lovely to work with. They’re constantly challenging you to be creative and unique in the way you teach,” Kavanaugh says.
“I taught through COVID, so I had to adapt and learn how to manage well,” she adds. “First was the technology, but also that very distant disconnection the students were feeling, so I worked a lot on finding ways to make that community connection again for all of the peers and for myself.”
Her own preparation surfaced.
“I’ve taught both in person and online, and I love both. I always miss being in person, because I really thrive and enjoy being part of the group, but there’s something special about these online communities, too,” she adds. “You start out with these strangers, and by the end of the semester, I know so much about my students, and I really enjoy the fact that they open up so much to me.”
Meanwhile, she says, counseling instructors “are trained as counselors, first and foremost.”
“We have this tendency to recognize what’s going on in our students’ lives and to make sure to support them or find resources for them in whatever way we can,” she says.
“Our students are going through a lot. Our students are working full time. They have families. They have housing needs. They have other crises they’re dealing with and, on top of it all, they’re trying to receive these degrees.”
Kavanaugh admits that her natural disposition might also have something to do with her success.
“My students attach to that energetic, bubbly personality that I have,” she says. “It’s something that I’ve been complimented on though my entire life, and sometimes there’s a time and place where your bubbly, exuberant personality doesn’t jibe well, but I think the energy I bring into a space – a teaching space – is accepted by students, and they appreciate it.”
As she progresses toward becoming a faculty member somewhere, and grows more in tune with her counselor-educator identity, Kavanaugh knows that her future jobs will focus on teaching master’s and doctoral students.
However, she hopes to continue working with younger learners.
“I’ve loved getting in there and starting to show this pathway to counseling at the undergraduate level,” she says, “and I’d love if I could get in even earlier with high school students. It would be great to show them that this is a pathway, and that it’s a really rewarding career, because we just need more counseling professionals. The best way to do that is to reach these communities at a younger age to encourage a more diverse representation of professionals to help folks who may need mental health care.”
