At the May 2022 meeting of the Seminary of the Southwest Board of Trustees, the Board voted unanimously to approve the promotion of Dr. Awa Jangha, who now holds the title of the Loise Henderson Wessendorff Associate Professor of Spiritual Integration in Counseling. Dr. Jangha was granted tenure as part of this promotion.
“We are fortunate to have in Awa a teacher, scholar, and colleague who does all that she does with excellence,” said Dr. Scott Bader-Saye, Academic Dean. “She is a well-published scholar as well as a creative and effective teacher. Her joyful spirit uplifts our faculty life together. It is a pleasure to celebrate her well deserved promotion and tenure.”
“Dr. Jangha joined Southwest’s faculty in 2016 during a period of significant growth in Southwest’s Clinical Mental Health Counseling (MHC) program,” said Dr. Gena St. David. “She steered the creation of the Spiritual Integration in Counseling scholars program at Southwest, and led a multi-year process to infuse the professional counseling curriculum with anti-racism and spiritual competencies. Dr. Jangha is a thought-leader equipping the larger counseling field to attend to spirituality as an essential component of mental wellness.”
Dr. Jangha earned a PhD from Loyola University Maryland in Pastoral Counseling. Her research focuses on experiences of power in the pastoral counseling identity development of African-American female pastoral counselors in training and utilizes art as the means of exploration. She is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) and a Board Certified Art Therapist (ATR-BC). Her training in pastoral counseling reflects her passion for spiritual integration in counseling and in counselor education. As a member of both the Association for Spiritual, Ethical, and Religious Values in Counseling (ASERVIC) and the American Art Therapy Association (AATA), she infuses creativity into her teaching of spiritually integrated practices within the classes she has taught (such as Clinical Practicum, Professional Orientation and Counselor Identity, Addictions Counseling, Assessment and Testing).
