Dr. Damara Goff Paris joined the Counselor Education program in 2014 and is a full professor. She also serves as the department’s Director of CACREP programs and the ESU RSA grant director. Dr. Paris is a Certified Rehabilitation Counselor (CRC), a National Board of Certified Counselor (NCC) a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC), and a Master Reviewer of Quality Matters.  She has over thirty years of administrative and teaching experience in mental health, telecommunication assistance, rehabilitation counseling and advocacy. Paris has received multiple awards during her tenure at Emporia State University. In 2020, she received the Excellence in Scholarly Activity Award from The Teachers College. In 2022, Dr. Paris won The Teachers College’s Excellence in Service Award and the Ruth Schillinger Award through the Ethics and Gender Studies Program. She was also awarded Emporia State's 2023 Graduate Mentor Award and was the recipient of the 2023-24 ESU King Endowed Professorship Award.

Dr. Carrie Boettcher has taught in the Department of Counselor Education since 2016 and joined the faculty full-time in 2018. She is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) and Certified Rehabilitation Counselor (CRC) and integrates over twenty-five years of work experience in community corrections, benefits counseling, vocational rehabilitation counseling, independent living, and management of rehabilitation programs with the academic experience in the classroom. Dr. Boettcher has taught undergraduate and graduate courses, on-campus classes, online synchronous, online asynchronous, and hybrid classes, and has taught online since 2016. She has completed the JumpStart Delivery course provided by ESU, the Teaching Online Certificate through Quality Matters, and is currently completing courses to become a QM Master Reviewer.