Jill Nelson
Senior Associate Dean and Professor
Phone: (701) 231-7415
e-mail: Jill.R.Nelson@ndsu.edu

 

Professional Profile

Dr. Nelson began her career as a mental health counselor at the South Dakota Human Services Center working in the adolescent psychiatric program (1998-2000).  She then worked with adults with severe and persistent mental illnesses at Hope Haven in Rock Valley, IA for a year before beginning her doctoral studies.  While she was a doctoral she worked as an outpatient therapist for Child Guidance Centers and Family Solutions in Cuyahoga Falls, OH (2003 – 2005).  While there she counseled children, adolescents, and adults.  She has been a National Certified Counselor (NCC) since 1998.  She has been a licensed counselor in both South Dakota and Ohio.

Dr. Nelson’s academic career began as an Assistant Professor in the counseling program at NDSU in 2005.  While at NDSU, she moved through the academic ranks and has been a tenured Professor since 2018.  Dr. Nelson has held several leadership roles in the counseling program, including community counseling master’s program coordinator, the overall counseling program coordinator, the clinical mental health counseling program coordinator, and counselor education and supervision doctoral program coordinator. 

In July 2013. Dr. Nelson was appointed the Associate Dean for Leadership and Professional Development in the College of Human Sciences and Education. In addition to her academic appointment, Dr. Nelson served in this role until January 2020, when she began serving as Interim Dean of the college with her colleague Jim Deal until June 2022.  She currently serves as the Senior Associate Dean for Academic Administration. 

Scholarly Activities

Dr. Nelson’s scholarly work is primarily in the Scholarship of Integration and the Scholarship of Application (Boyer, 1990).  She primarily uses qualitative methods in her research pursuits.  Her primary focus areas are in counselor training and clinical supervision, resilience and well-being, and leadership development. 

Professional and Leadership Development

Faculty development and success has been a part of Dr. Nelson’s scholarly activity beginning with her doctoral dissertation, a study on what helped early career counselor education faculty be successful.  She has continued to do work in faculty development as a professor and in leadership positions, particularly as the Associate Dean.  She has presented her work on faculty mentoring initiatives at national conferences (Nelson & Weber, 2015 and Weber & Nelson, 2015).  She has provided Daring Leadership training to faculty, staff, and administrators across campus.  She is an in-demand speaker who has provided training to leaders in banking, manufacturing, K-12 education, mental health, extension and other fields.  Groups she has worked with include Doosan Bobcat LEAD, Gate City Bank EPIC checking, Eide Bailly BOLD women’s leadership group, NDSU Extension support staff, and several K-12 and higher education teams.

Well-being and Resilience

Dr. Nelson’s work has focused on resilience and well-being over several years and with many different populations.  In 2008, she and former student Sarah Kjos published a book called: Helping teens handle tough experiences: Strategies to foster resilience.  Both women had extensive experience working with troubled youth, and this book had its beginnings in those professional experiences.  Dr. Nelson’s recent work focuses on mental well-being in the workplace.  In a collaboration with the ReThink Mental Health Initiative of Cass and Clay Counties, she created the content for “The People Project: Health through Happiness,” a worksite wellness initiative (http://thepeopleproject.org/). Several companies have participated in The People Project, including Microsoft – Fargo campus, Boys and Girls Club of the Red River Valley, West Fargo Public Schools, Essentia Health, Blue Cross Blue Shield of ND, and Discovery Benefits.  Dr. Nelson has been the keynote speaker on the topic of well-being, self-care and resilience for many groups, including NDSU faculty, higher education groups, K12 teachers and administrators, community groups, and women’s groups. 

Counselor Training and Clinical Supervision

One area of her studies was focused on understanding and assisting counselor education doctoral students as they transitioned from being a student into their role as clinical supervisor [Rapisarda, C. A., Desmond, K. J., & Nelson, J. R, (2011) and Desmond, K. J., Rapisarda, C. A., Nelson, J. R. (2011)].  Early in her career, she also authored an article with her NDSU colleagues about keeping humanistic and relational principles in distance education [Hall, B., Nielsen, R., Nelson, J. & Buchholz, C. (2010)]. More recently, she published an article with a colleague and doctoral students about integrating self-compassion practices into counselor training [Nelson, J. R., Hall, B. S., Anderson, J., Birtles, C., Hemming, L. (2017)]. She also co-directed a dissertation about female partner family formation and an article about how to enhance counselor competency in working with female partners was published in 2022 Danielson, Nelson & Tangen). 

Education

Ph.D., Counselor Education and Supervision, Kent State University, 2005

M.A., Counseling and Psychology in Education, University of South Dakota, 1998

B.A., Psychology and German, University of South Dakota, 1994

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