Negotiating the Practitioner-Faculty Dialectic: How Counselor Educators Responded to Hurricane Katrina

As Hurricane Katrina forced thousands of Gulf Coast residents to evacuate, U.S. communities established shelters for emergency intake. Faculty members across the country, especially those trained in counseling, volunteered immediately for crisis work. This study examined the experiences of a faculty response team from one counselor education program, focusing on academic and counselor role expectations and perceived professional implications. We conducted interviews with all eight faculty members in one program and analyzed data using constant comparative and discourse analyses. The dialectic of chaos/order, central to all narratives, was expressed as trying/doing, insider/outsider, visibility/invisibility, and leaving/staying. In the discussion we explore implications for faculty members as crisis responders.