2025 Dissertation Excellence Awards
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The Professional Counselor (TPC) confers the annual Dissertation Excellence Awards to recognize original research that significantly contributes to the counseling profession. In 2022, TPC expanded the award to include two winners, one each in qualitative or quantitative research. Beginning in 2024,TPC will offer a third award in mixed methods research; this category will be offered every other year and will depend upon volume of submissions*. The awards committee evaluates entries based on the presentation and clarity of ideas, sound methodology and interpretation of findings, innovative quality, and contribution to the counseling profession.
Applicants must be current graduate counseling students in good standing or recent graduates of a university or college accredited by the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP). Applicants must also hold the certification of National Certified Counselor (NCC). Both of these requirements must be met and will not be waived. Dissertations eligible for the 2025 Dissertation Excellence Award must have been successfully completed between April 2023 and January 2025 and not have been published or submitted for potential publication. (Note: Inclusion in the ProQuest database is not a publication and does not disqualify a dissertation from competition for this award.)
Applications will be opened on Jan. 2, 2025, and are due by March 3, 2025. All submissions will be evaluated for scholarly writing (clarity, conciseness, grammar etc.) and adherence to APA 7th edition publication guidelines.
All eligible applications will be evaluated by the Awards Committee and finalists will be chosen in both the quantitative and qualitative categories. Finalists will then be asked to prepare some additional materials for the Award Committee's evaluation. The winner of the award will have an opportunity to publish an article based on their dissertation in TPC, will receive an honorarium, and will be announced in NBCC Visions, the official newsletter of NBCC, as well as on NBCC’s social media. In addition, winners may be invited to take part in one or more future NBCC events.
*Please note that at the discretion of the awards committee, the mixed methods research category may be postponed to the next year if there is not a sufficient pool of applicants for fair judging. In the event that the mixed methods award is not to be given, submissions will be judged according to the alternate category (either quantitative or qualitative) selected by the submitter on the submission form.