African American counseling psychology doctoral students: Experiences with academic and non-academic support

Theoretical literature suggests that there are several support factors which African American students need in order to be successful in higher education; however, there is little research that examines the actual use of these support resources and their helpfulness to African American students. For a variety of reasons, such as lack of financial support or insufficient mentoring often leads African American graduate students to seek support outside of the university environment. Given the exploratory nature of this investigation, a qualitative research methodology was used to examine this phenomenon. This study discusses the experiences of African American doctoral counseling psychology students in their use of academic (i.e., resources related to their university, department, or program) and non-academic (i.e., resources outside of or unrelated to the academic environment) supports, and the role of race of the participants in use of resources