Statement on Nature, Extent, and Appropriateness of Service
A common thread throughout Kirsten’s service commitments is a desire to engage in social justice work while centering the needs of marginalized community members, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color (BIPOC) and racial and ethnic minorities. As a counseling psychologist, her service to her department, university, and discipline has focused on centering the experiences of marginalized community members, and she works to promote social justice and reduce inequalities for oppressed people. Since arriving at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK) in 2017, Kirsten’s commitment to service and promoting social justice work has been well established. As a Woman of Color, her service is characterized by leadership roles (including departmental, university, and professional leadership), and high levels of formal and informal mentoring and service. Additionally, her service has exponentially increased with the dual pandemics of COVID-19 and the upsurge of violence and anti-Black racism in our country.
University Service
The majority of Kirsten’s university service utilizes her training in social justice advocacy as a counseling psychologist to center the needs of marginalized community members while cultivating an affirming and inclusive space that enhances their wellness and improves the overall UTK climate. Her university service includes service to the Department of Psychology, the Interdisciplinary programs in Women, Gender, and Sexuality and Latin American and Caribbean Studies, and other university units.
Department of Psychology
Kirsten began serving on the UTK Department of Psychology’s Diversity Council in 2018 where she served on the recruitment and retention sub-committee. As a member of the recruitment and retention sub-committee, Kirsten helped create and finalize a resource designed to provide information about UTK and support new faculty, staff, and students joining the department. Her second year on the Diversity Council, Kirsten served as the chair of the recruitment and retention sub-committee. In fall of 2019, Kirsten helped to organize a visiting day where undergraduate students from Tennessee State University (TSU) (a Historically Black College and University) traveled to UTK to build relationships with faculty and students from the psychology department in hopes of growing a research partnership between TSU and UTK. With members of my sub-committee, Kirsten also created a departmental brochure designed to recruit more diverse students to the UTK graduate psychology programs. During the summer of 2020, Kirsten transitioned to the role of Diversity Council Co-Chair. In this position, she regularly meet with students in the department to discuss diversity related concerns. As a result of the upsurge of violence and anti-Black racism in the United States, in the Fall of 2020, Kirsten designed and disseminated a survey to explore anti-Blackness in the UTK psychology department. She presented these findings to the department during the 2020-2021 academic year and made recommendations for ways that the department can more effectively combat anti-Blackness and support BIPOC students, staff, and faculty. As Diversity Council Co-Chair, Kirsten plans to continue to advocate for marginalized students, faculty, and staff while improving the climate, ultimately supporting the wellness of all students generally, and BIPOC specifically.
Women, Gender, and Sexuality and Latin American and Caribbean Studies
Kirsten currently serves as a core faculty member for two interdisciplinary programs at UTK. In January of 2018, Kirsten was recruited to serve on the steering committee as a core faculty member of the interdisciplinary Women, Gender, and Sexuality program. As a member of the core faculty, she helps to recruit majors to the program and grad students to the graduate certificate, assists in developing programming, and supervises the social media ambassador in charge of managing the WGS social media accounts. In fall of 2017, Kirsten was recruited to serve on the steering committee of the interdisciplinary Latin American and Caribbean studies program. As a member of the steering committee, she serves as the chair of the service learning sub-committee where she works with other steering committee members to expand service learning opportunities for the LACS majors and minors. As a steering committee member, Kirsten helps recruit LACS majors and minors and assist in organizing programming for LACS events.
Other University Service
Kirsten is currently a member of the Commission for LGBT People at UTK where she serves on the Transgender and Nonbinary Subcommittee. As a subcommittee member, during the 2020-2021 academic year, Kirsten worked with others to draft a proposal for a living and learning community (LLC) specifically for LGBTQ students on UTK’s campus. This work will hopefully establish a safer, more inclusive housing space where LGBTQ students can find community and stable housing. Finally, Kirsten is a member of a group of Latinx students, faculty, and staff who are working to establish a Commission for Latinx People at UTK. Her own scholarship suggests that Latinx students often struggle to experience belonging at predominately White institutions (PWIs). As a result, Kirsten hopes that establishing a Commission for Latinx People at UTK will help to better meet the needs of Latinx students, faculty, and staff.
National Service
Kirsten’s national services allows her to use her expertise in social justice advocacy to engage in: 1) service to the discipline of psychology, 2) editorial work, and 3) service to the Society of Counseling Psychology and the National Latinx Psychological Association.
Discipline of Psychology
Kirsten’s counseling psychologist scientist-practitioner-advocate identity informs her service work to the larger discipline of psychology. Given the current sociopolitical climate rife with anti-Black racism, this summer Kirsten served as a member of the initiative team for the Academics for Black Survival and Wellness training week. Designed by two Black women including one of her research collaborators, Dr. Della Mosley and her doctoral student Pearis Bellamy, Academics for Black Survival and Wellness is a personal and professional development week for non-Black academics to grow their advocacy skills and learn concrete steps to challenge anti-Black racism while working toward Black liberation and promoting the wellness of Black people inside and outside of the academy. As part of the training week, Kirsten was a panelist with other non-Black allies to talk about her own journey as an ally and advocate in her work to challenging anti-Blackness in academic spaces. Kirsten also served as a member of the response team where she was in charge of answering e-mails, messages, and requests from current and interested participants. Kirsten’s work for this cause is rooted in her own identity as a social justice advocate and her scholarship on allyship, and she will continue to share her expertise in social justice ally development as part of her service to the discipline of psychology.
Editorial Work
While maintaining a productive research program, Kirsten serves on three editorial boards for the Journal of Counseling Psychology, Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity, and Journal of Bisexuality. She is also a widely sought out reviewer and have reviewed for The Counseling Psychologist, Journal of GLBT Family Studies, Journal of Latinx Psychology, International Journal of Transgender Health, Sexuality Research and Social Policy, Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, Psychology and Sexuality, and Teaching of Psychology. Since 2017, she has completed a total of 100 journal reviews.
Kirsten’s editing experience extends beyond manuscript reviews. She was co-editor on two special issues in 2019 and 2020. In 2019, she served as co-editor for a special issue on bisexual/bi+/plurisexual/queer People of Color and Indigenous People for the Journal of Bisexuality to raise awareness of the unique needs and experiences of bisexual POCI communities. In 2020, she served as co-editor for a special issue on Redefining Collectivism: Exploring the Experiences of Sexual and Gender Diverse People of Color and Indigenous People and Family and Community Relations for the Journal of GLBT Family Studies. This special issue aimed to provide a more nuanced understanding of how LGBTQ People of Color negotiate affirming their sexual and gender identity within their racial and ethnic minority communities. Using her expertise in LGBTQ issues, she is also currently serving as a co-editor on an APA book titled, Affirming LGBTQ+ Students in Higher Education. This book aims to provide university faculty, staff, and administrators with important knowledge and information to better support LGBTQ students on college and university campuses.
Professional Associations
Kirsten’s service to the Society of Counseling Psychology includes serving on the special task force focused on making room at the table for trans and nonbinary people in Counseling Psychology (2019-2020). As a member of the task force, Kirsten mentored graduate students and early career psychologists while we worked on a qualitative research project exploring the experiences of trans and nonbinary students in counseling psychology graduate programs. We hope to use our findings from this study to provide concrete directions and suggestions to counseling psychology graduate programs for recruiting and retaining trans and nonbinary counseling psychology graduate students. Her service to the Society of Counseling Psychology also includes her role as Special Interest Group (SIG) Coordinator (2018 – present). As SIG Coordinator, Kirsten works with the SIGs to problem solve issues, recruit new members, and provide support.
Finally, over the past two years, Kirsten has become more involved with service to the Latinx community through her involvement in the National Latinx Psychological Association (NLPA). Kirsten served as the 2019 Programming Committee Co-Chair for NLPA’s conference. As part of her role, Kirsten organized conference programming including distributing the call for abstracts, recruited reviewers to review abstracts, assigned abstracts for reviewers to review and made final decisions about the conference programming. In her role as Programming Committee Co-Chair, she ensured that the conference team used an intersectional framework in considering conference programming, paying special attention to including presentations that considered sexual orientation, gender identity, social class, ethnic and racial identity, and immigration status. Kirsten was recruited to continue her leadership in NLPA where she served on the 2020 conference planning committee as the Continuing Education Committee Co-Chair.
Community Service/Engagement
Broadly, Kirsten’s service to the Knoxville LGBTQ community is seen through her research work with LGBTQ individuals who are most stigmatized, including bisexual, pansexual, queer, transgender, and nonbinary individuals. In conducting focus groups with bisexual, pansexual, queer, transgender, and nonbinary people living in Knoxville and the state of Tennessee from 2018-2019, Kirsten found that these participants felt isolated, alone, and lacked community. Through facilitating focus groups, she helped bisexual, pansexual, queer, transgender, and nonbinary individuals connect with others who held similar identities which facilitated enhanced connection and a stronger sense of belonging. Kirsten hopes that findings from this research will help inform interventions to cultivate stronger relationships and enhanced well-being for bisexual, pansexual, queer, transgender, and nonbinary people.