The Whitlowe R. Green College of Education is pleased to welcome Dr. Sylvester Kent Butler as the new Department Head of Educational Leadership and Counseling. Dr. Butler holds a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology with a concentration in Counseling Psychology from the University of Connecticut. Dr. Butler is an Approved Clinical Supervisor (ACS), Nationally Certified Counselor (NCC) and a Nationally Certified School Counselor (NCSC). He previously served as a Professor of Counselor Education at the University of Central Florida (UCF).
Dr. Butler has co-edited three influential textbooks: “Introduction to 21st Century Counseling: A Multicultural and Social Justice Approach,” which received the 2022 Most Promising New Textbook Award from the Textbook & Academic Authors Association, and the newly published “Intersectional Counseling Skills: The Journey to Becoming a Culturally Inclusive Counselor” and “Mental Health and the Black Man: A Mixtape Experience of Hardship and Harmony”. These works are seminal in guiding counselors to adopt multicultural and social justice perspectives in their practice.
Dr. Butler is a Past President of the American Counseling Association (2021-2022), an ACA Fellow, and hosted an ACA’s weekly vodcast, “The Voice of Counseling”. He formerly served UCF as the Chief Equity, Inclusion and Diversity Officer and has also served as a Faculty Fellow for Inclusive Excellence within the Office of the Provost at the UCF. He also served as faculty advisor to Chi Sigma Iota International Honor Society, the Counselor Education Doctoral Student Organization, Project for Haiti Knights, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. He is a member of the Association for Multicultural Counseling and Development’s Revisions Committee which produced the Multicultural and Social Justice Counseling Competencies (MSJCC). Dr. Butler’s research interests lie in Multicultural and International Counseling, Social Justice, Mentoring, Counseling African American Males, Group Counseling, School Counseling, and Multicultural Supervision.