136 The Professional Counselor | Volume 14, Issue 2 the counseling session (Turner, 2018). Counselor educators have been encouraged to reflect on how Eurocentric curricula and pedagogy may marginalize students and seek liberatory teaching practices that promote critical consciousness (Sharma & Hipolito-Delgado, 2021). Students’ Perceptions of Their Growth, Learning Process, and Critiques of Their Training Studies of mostly White graduate students show gains in expanding awareness of their own biases and privilege, knowledge about other cultures and experiences of oppression, as well as the importance of empowering and advocating for clients (Beer et al., 2012; Collins et al., 2015; Sanabria & DeLorenzi, 2019; Singh et al., 2010). Others indicated the benefits of integrating feminist principles in treatment (Hoover & Morrow, 2016; Singh et al., 2010). Consciousness-raising and self-reflection were key parts of multicultural and social justice learning (Collins et al., 2015; Hoover & Morrow, 2016), and could be emotionally challenging. Indeed, Goodman et al. (2018) identified a theme of internal grappling reflecting students’ experiences of intellectual and emotional struggle; others noted students’ experiences of overwhelm and isolation (Singh et al., 2010), as well as resistance, such as withdrawing or dismissing information that challenged their existing belief system (Seward, 2019). Researchers have also documented student complaints about their social justice training; for example, that social justice is not well integrated or that there was inadequate coverage of skills and action (Collins et al., 2015). Kozan and Blustein (2018) found that even among programs that espouse social justice, there was a lack of training in macro level advocacy skills. Barriers to engaging in advocacy included: lack of time (Field et al., 2019; Singh et al., 2010), emotional exhaustion stemming from observations of the harms caused by systemic inequities (Sanabria & DeLorenzi, 2019), and ill-informed supervisors (Sanabria & DeLorenzi, 2019). The studies reviewed thus relied on samples of mainly White, cisgender, heterosexual women. Some noted that education on social justice is often centered on helping White students expand their awareness (Haskins & Singh, 2015). In one study focused on challenges faced by students of color, participants expressed frustration with the lack of diversity among their professors, classmates, and curriculum (Seward, 2019). Participants also experienced marginalization and disconnection when professors and students made offensive or culturally uninformed comments and when course content focused on teaching students with privileged identities. Students from marginalized communities also face isolation in academic settings and sometimes question the multicultural competence of their professors (Haskins & Singh, 2015), which in turn contributes to the underrepresentation of students of color in counseling and psychology (Arney et al., 2019). The Present Study Counselor educators must critically examine their curriculum, course materials, and overall learning climate for students (Haskins & Singh, 2015). Listening to students’ experiences and perceptions of their training offers faculty an opportunity to model cultural humility, gain useful feedback, and make necessary changes. Given the increased recognition of racial trauma and societal inequities, it is critical that counseling programs engage with students of diverse backgrounds as they seek to shift their pedagogy. Historically, academic institutions have responded to student demands with performative action rather than meaningful change (Zetzer, 2021). This mixed methods study is part of a larger process of counseling faculty working to invite student feedback and question internalized assumptions and biases in order to implement real change. The goal of program evaluation is to investigate strengths and weaknesses in order to improve the program (Royse et al., 2010). According to the 2024 Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP) standards, program evaluation is essential to assess and improve the program (CACREP, 2023). Thus, the purpose of this program evaluation study was to understand students’ self-assessment and experiences with the
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