About Rebecca L Toporek

Welcome to my faculty web page. 

My main emphases are career and college counseling, multicultural competence, and social justice and advocacy. These are the arenas in which I live and breathe. I am challenged to continually develop myself both personally and professionally in these areas and hope that I can share that challenge with my students.

Teaching
I am a Professor in the Department of Counseling at San Francisco State University. I have taught introductory and advanced career counseling, social and cultural foundations, life span development, legal and ethical issues, advanced internship. 

Community
I am also involved in a number of San Francisco community organizations and initiatives, most predominantly Employment Services of Project Homeless Connect and engage students in this through the advanced career counseling course as well as throughout the year. There are a number of other community organizations I am committed to supporting on a personal basis including Save West Berkeley Shellmounds (Indians Organizing for Change) and Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ). I have, and continue to, work with professional associations to connect more closely with communities experiencing oppression.

Research
My research interests include social justice and multicultural training, attitudes toward race and poverty, the role of systemic interventions in addressing discrimination, and career and college counseling. I was fortunate to participate in the founding of Counselors for Social Justice of the American Counseling Association and was a co-editor of the 2009 Journal of Counseling and Development: Special Section on ACA Advocacy Competencies, ACA Advocacy Competencies: A social justice framework for counselors, the Handbook for Social Justice in Counseling and Psychology and the Handbook of Multicultural Competencies. Other publications include numerous chapters and articles in the areas of advocacy, multicultural counseling, supervision, training, and cultural equivalence in career assessment. I was founding co-editor of the Journal for Social Action in Counseling and Psychology and served as a co-editor for the first decade of the journal. I am currently working on a number of book projects aimed at facilitating people to take action on social issues that they care about. In addition, I am working on several other projects related to community college counseling, community engaged empowerment, and advocacy in counseling.

My Training and Experience
I received my doctorate degree in Counseling Psychology from the University of Maryland, College Park, and a Masters degree in Community Counseling from the University of Oregon. I worked at the University of California, Berkeley, in Counseling and Psychological Services as a predoctoral intern and postdoctoral fellow.<!--break-->

Prior to receiving my doctoral degree, I was blessed to work as a counselor and administrator at Mission College for two years and DeAnza College for 6 years. Community college counseling is very close to my heart. The best mentors and the people who challenged me to start a lifetime journey of multicultural awareness came from DeAnza College especially Jacqueline Reza and Shirley Kawazoe. Other wonderful mentors have continued to challenge and support me and for that I am so thankful. Thanks to Janet Helms, Don Pope-Davis, Derald Wing Sue, Patricia Arredondo, Allen Ivey, Thomas Parham, Judy Daniels, Michael D'Andrea, Judy Lewis, Will Liu, and many, many, many others.