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Marriage and Family Therapy

Program Outcomes (POs)

Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs)

The Lee University Writing Center offers free tutorial help to both native and non-native English speakers by appointment. During business hours through the week, Information Services provides both walk-in and phone support to all students and faculty. Several computer labs are placed around campus for student use, including three public non-classroom areas in our primary building (Humanities). The Academic Support Program provides services to students with documented educational challenges. This program offers alternative testing sites, extended test times, readers or scribes for examinations, advising, note-taking facilitation, and mediation between students and faculty. The Financial Aid Office offers financial counseling for graduate students. The library has full-time reference librarians that are available to help students with finding resources. Finally, the Lee University Counseling Center offers free and unlimited therapy services to all of marriage and family therapy students who pay the optional student health fee.

The Marriage and Family Therapy Graduate Committee (MFTGC) is responsible for developing all policies for the marriage and family therapy program. This committee is also responsible for admissions, assessment, hiring recommendations, and responses to student appeals and complaints. The program director is chair of this committee, which includes all core marriage and family therapy faculty members. Major program and policy changes that are approved by the MFTGC are then brought to the Lee University Graduate Council for approval. The program director is responsible for leading the MFTGC and carrying out the policies in the program and the clinic set by the MFTGC. Dr. Williams has the responsibility to maintain oversight of the curriculum, clinical training, clinic and teaching facilities, services offered by the program, and the maintenance and enhancement of the quality of the program. Core faculty exercise governance of the program through their voting membership on the MFTGC. All of these faculty share a commitment for our program mission and philosophy and implement this commitment through development of our educational outcomes.

Student Roles in Governance of the Marriage and Family Therapy Program:

• Once a year, all MFT students elect a second-year MFT student to serve on the MFTGC as a full voting member.
• Minutes of the MFTGC Meeting are sent to all current students.
• All MFT students are encouraged in the program handbook to express concerns to the representative and to the program director.
• Any MFT student may request to address to the MFTGC on any issue.
• MFT students may submit complaints following the process outlined in the program handbook.
• MFT students are also encouraged to meet in the monthly student concerns meeting held by the program director during the fall and spring semesters.
• Current MFT students annually assess the program, the program director, the faculty, and the supervisors in the program.

Full-Time (2 years)

Fall – Year One

Spring – Year One

Summer – Year One

Fall – Year Two

Spring – Year Two

Degree requirements must be completed within six years after formal admission into the program. Course work completed more than 10 years prior to admission is generally not accepted toward meeting degree requirements.

View Tuition and Fees from Student Financial Services
Other required expenses for marriage and family therapy students include annual AAMFT Student Membership ($58 per year), attendance at a conference by a relationally-focused organization, preferably AAMFT ($500 to $1500), iPad (minimum 32 gig), and book fees. The comprehensive examination is $100 for up to three attempts within a single semester. During practicum and internship, there is an annual liability insurance fee of $20.

Lee University is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges to award baccalaureate, masters, education specialist, and doctoral degrees. Contact the Commission on Colleges at 1866 Southern Lane, Decatur, Georgia 30033-4097 or call 404-679-4500 for questions about the accreditation of Lee University. The Marriage and Family Therapy Masters Program is also accredited by the Commission on Accreditation for Marriage and Family Therapy Education (COAMFTE).

Lee University’s Marriage and Family Program welcomes all students regardless of race, age, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, relationship status, gender identity, socioeconomic status, disability, health status, religion and spiritual beliefs and/or affiliation, and/or national origin. Requirements for admission include a bachelor’s degree from a regionally accredited institution (or foreign equivalent). Admission preferences will be made for students with degrees in the social sciences. Although marriage and family therapists can and do often work with individuals, students applying into this program should specifically be interested in working with couples and families and becoming licensed as a marriage and family therapist.

The Lee University Marriage and Family Therapy Program prohibits the discrimination of students on the basis of race, age, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, relationship status, gender identity, socioeconomic status, disability, health status, religion and spiritual beliefs and/or affiliation, and/or national origin with regard to the recruitment, admission, codes of conduct, hiring, retention, or dismissal of students. The marriage and family therapy program will not remove a student solely on the basis of identifying with a group, class, or category in the above mentioned groups provided he or she is otherwise in compliance with Lee’s Lifestyle Expectations for Graduate Students.

Faculty and supervisors will also not be discriminated against on the basis of the above mentioned groups, with the exception that all faculty and supervisors of the program are required to be Christian, to teach from a Christian worldview, and to not teach or publish anything contrary to the established doctrines and the Declaration of Faith of the Church of God.

Graduate students will be expected to adhere to all of the rules and policies of Lee University while on campus. Lee University is a smoke-free, alcohol-free, drug-free campus. Graduate students are expected to respect campus norms. Sexual harassment, unwelcome sexual advances, extra- or pre-marital sexual conduct, requests for sexual favors and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature will not be tolerated on campus. Students who are subjected to harassment should promptly contact the Vice President for Student Development.

If a student, staff or faculty have a complaint against a student, this complaint is made to the program director. If the complaint cannot be resolved by discussion with the parties involved, the complaint is then taken to the Marriage and Family Therapy Graduate Committee. The student may provide a written defense or may appear before the committee. The committee may require in some circumstances for the student to appear before the committee.

If a student has a complaint or grievance regarding the program, faculty, or fellow students, the student should submit a written complaint to the program director, unless the complaint is against the director, in which case the complaint should be given to the Behavioral and Social Sciences Department Chair. The complaint will be reviewed by the appropriate committee, usually the Marriage and Family Therapy Graduate Committee, depending on the nature of the complaint. The student may appear before the committee when the complaint is reviewed.

After submitting the application, fee, essays, transcripts, recommendations and GRE score (if required), potential students will be scheduled for an interview. While in-person interviews are preferred, full consideration will be given to applicants needing phone interviews due to distance from Cleveland, Tennessee. Role-plays will be conducted during the in-person interviews. After completion of the interview, the Marriage and Family Therapy Graduate Committee will meet to determine whether an offer of admissions will be made.

Satisfactory progress toward the degree is required. A student may be disqualified from further graduate work if a 3.0 grade-point average is not maintained. In the event that the grade-point average drops below the minimum level, the student may be given one enrollment period to raise it to the satisfactory level. A cumulative GPA of 3.0 is required for graduation. Special advising will be offered to students in this situation to help raise their GPA. If problems occur regarding competency in the practicum and internship, the supervision team will meet with the student to develop a remediation plan for improvement. If that improvement does not occur within the specified length of time allotted, students may be terminated from the program. Certain serious ethical violations (academic or clinical) can result in immediate termination from the program.

Lee University will allow up to six semester credit hours of a graduate program to be comprised of transfer credit from a regionally accredited graduate program when the grade received is a “B” or better. The individual program committee must approve application of transfer credits. Exceptions to this policy may be determined by the respective graduate program committees.

In the first week of the final semester when all coursework will be completed, MFT students should submit an application for graduation through Portico. All client hours must be completed prior to graduation with a copy of the client log turned into the faculty supervisor. The graduate students must defend their final project and pass the comprehensive examination 10 days prior to graduation. Students must also have attended a relationally-focused conference prior to graduation.

This program prepares you for licensure as a marriage and family therapist in the United States. No guarantees are offered regarding this degree for any other type of professional license or for any other country. Although the degree requirements are built around national models and Tennessee licensure requirements, other states may have additional requirements that are not offered in this program. It is the responsibility of the student to determine and achieve the requirements for MFT licensure in the states in which they wish to practice in.

As of 2023, the five core faculty of our program are all white/non-Hispanic, two who are female. We have two additional faculty in the program who are both white/non-Hispanic (one female and one male). Five of the core faculty serve as supervisors (two females, three males, all white/non-Hispanic). Of our 32 current students, 24 are female, two are Latino and one is African-American.

The Lee University graduate programs use the following system of grading and quality points for all graduate-level courses. These letter grades are assigned grade point values as follows:

A grade of “I” indicates the student’s work is incomplete. The grade becomes “F” if the work is not completed by the end of the following semester unless a written extension has been approved by the Vice President for Academic Affairs. A grade of “I” is given only to students who encounter some personal difficulty such as a severe illness or an extreme family emergency near the end of the semester. The “I” grade is not given in order to allow students additional time to complete assignments.

A grade of a "W" (withdrawal) is assigned to a student who, for any reason, officially withdraws or is withdrawn by the official semester date. This "W" is assigned without quality point penalty to the student.

MFT Handbook

MFT Ph.D. Program’s Demographic Composition:

As of 2022, the five core faculty of our program are all white/non-Hispanic, two who are female. We have two additional faculty in the program who are both white/non-Hispanic (one female and one male). Five of the core faculty serve as supervisors (two females, three males, all white/non-Hispanic). Of our 29 current students, 21 are female, 8 are male, 1 is Latino, 4 are African-American, and 1 is international.

MFT Ph.D. Program Handbook