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Greetings from Dr. Gibson

Welcome to the Department of Counselor Education at The College of New Jersey.  I am a Professor with TCNJ where I teach courses related to addictions and research.  I am originally from Baltimore (Go Ravens!) and received my masters and doctoral degrees from the University of Maryland.  My clinical experience involved working in a community-based substance abuse treatment program, and much of my research continues to focus on serving this population.

I spent seven years serving as a Study Director at a research institute where I wrote and directed federal research grants related to substance abuse prevention and treatment.  I continue to enjoy research in my role here at TCNJ and frequently include students in my research projects, publications and conference presentations.  My primary scholarly interests include forensic and substance abuse counseling, although the program evaluation experiences I offer students vary based on their personal areas of interest.

Every summer I travel to Lisbon, Portugal where we offer a sequence of two substance abuse courses to our graduate students.  Each course is three-credits and lasts for 8 days (weekends off!), each day ending at 1:30pm.  During this time we visit Portuguese government agencies which implement the national decriminalization of drugs policy. I’m a big fan of experiential learning.  I incorporate real world experiences into all of my classes, as I find that this link often serves as the anchor to a deeper understanding of course content. In my US-based addiction course we spend a full day volunteering at a harm reduction center in Philadelphia, while my research course interviews new subjects in my violence reduction project that is working to engage known violent offenders in the legitimate economy.

Please feel free to contact me if you wish to discuss our program further.  I wish you the best with your future in counseling.

Sandy

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