Counseling Graduate Student Earns International Honor

UNC Charlotte alumna Krystal Turner was recently named Outstanding Entry-Level Student by the Chi Sigma Iota Counseling Academic & Professional Honor Society International (CSI).

CSI promotes scholarship, research, professionalism, leadership, advocacy and excellence in counseling.

Turner’s selection for the award is based on “scholarship, extracurricular involvement, service to the chapter, and evidence of excellence and commitment to the profession,” according to Rachel M. Saunders, past president of UNC Charlotte’s Mu Tau Beta chapter of CSI. Among her accomplishments is the creation of the Minorities in Counseling student group that offered professional development workshops and community engagement on campus. She also served as senator for Mu Tau Beta and has presented her research on play therapy at several national conferences, including the 4th Annual Black Mental Health Symposium last year.

Turner was selected Outstanding Master’s Student last year by Mu Tau Beta. She also received the Graduate Dean’s Meritorious Student Award in 2018.

After receiving her bachelor’s in psychology and Africana studies from UNC Charlotte, Turner continued to receive her master’s in counseling in 2019. From the beginning, her educational focus has been child psychology, black families and at-risk youth.

“My principles and values on counseling very closely align with UNC Charlotte’s counseling program,” she said.

She plans to begin her doctoral work at the University of North Texas at Denton in the fall where she said she will focus on strengthening her clinical counseling skills to better serve diverse populations, particularly using play therapy skills to work with minority children with a background of trauma.