Each Tuesday during spring semester, students make their way to the second floor of the Turner Lynch Campus Center to learn the skills necessary to enter most careers that require listening and helping others including business leadership, counseling, teaching, healthcare and building effective teams.

In the course, students try out the skills in role playing demonstrations and engage with their professor, Dr. Nick Ladany, Oglethorpe president.

Senior Yemariam Workneh, an international relations major from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia,  speaks with President Ladany.

“It’s been a very rewarding semester,” said Ladany, a counseling psychologist by training who is internationally known in the field of higher education leadership and counselor training. “It’s refreshing to be back in the classroom again, teaching and seeing our students’ enthusiasm for the material.”

The course is officially listed in the bulletin as INT 290-001 “Special Topics in Interdisciplinary Studies: Helping Skills Section.” The course’s purpose is to provide students with experience in the effective use of empirically based helping skills used by counselors and therapists. Those skills include restatement, reflection of feelings, immediacy, interpretation, disclosure and challenge.

“I have learned that communication is much more than verbal feedback,” said Zennon Wright, a junior psychology major from Tokyo, Japan. “Posture, eye contact, body language, semantics/choice of words, and so much more play into how another may perceive our message. These factors especially play a role in helping, as it establishes a foundation of safety, trust, and respect to allow more profound expression of our thoughts. By understanding these mechanics, I feel I have a better road map to follow in helping conversations.”

Course objectives for students include developing proficiency in beginning helping skills; learning how these skills may be used to facilitate exploration, insight, and action; and understanding how these skills are applicable for careers students may pursue.

“I’m glad to be at Oglethorpe where I can spend time with students who I believe teach me more than I teach them,” Ladany said. “This is the kind of course that makes Oglethorpe special, and I have enjoyed getting to know and work with these incredible students.”

Students work together to practice ‘helping skills’ taught in the Special Topics course.