Overview of CSU’s MFT Program
The Marriage and Family Therapy program at Colorado State University was initiated in 1976. Since that time, the program has offered a Master of Science degree in Human Development and Family Studies with a specialization in Marriage and Family Therapy. Students attend the program full‐time completing it in twenty‐four months. Student training includes (a) completion of coursework on MFT theories and practice, family and developmental theories, and research methods and statistics; (b) completion of a required thesis project*; and (c) applied clinical training in our on-campus Centers for Counseling, Mentoring, and Assessment (C-CAM) operated by the MFT Program. Students complete three clinical rotations on campus as part of degree completion.
*Capstone Requirement
There are two thesis options that MFT students may choose from.
Thesis A is the traditional thesis, and Thesis B is a capstone project. Students who wish to pursue future education or research or who wish to work towards a publishable work should pursue the Thesis A option. Students who do not wish to pursue these interests should consider the Thesis B option.
In the Capstone course (HDFS693), students will complete their Thesis B capstone project (in pairs). Those who are completing the Thesis A option are invited to complete this course as well and are then required to add thesis credits for the spring of their second year (HDFS699). Those who complete the Thesis B Capstone option have met the requirements with the completion of HDFS693 in the Fall of their second year.
This course is pass/fail. Evaluation of pass/fail will be based on contract grading. At the beginning of the semester, you will work with the professor of HDFS693 and either your capstone partner or your thesis adviser to create a contract defining your scope of work for the semester. Whether you are fulfilling your contract will be evaluated throughout the semester by yourself and the professor or adviser.
In general, there are three groups of students who will take this course. For ease, ‘capstoners’ refers to students doing a capstone project; ‘proposers’ refers to students who plan to work on their thesis proposal as the major project of the semester; ‘defenders’ refers to students who plan to defend their thesis proposal as the major project of the semester.
Five times this semester, you will upload what you’ve been working on to Canvas so the professor can provide feedback. It is expected that you’ll decide at the outset what you’ll submit at each submission deadline, and then stick to that. Everyone is required to give a final presentation in the last class session. For capstoners, this will be your capstone defense on the last day of class. For proposers/defenders, this will be a practice for what you’ll give to your committee for your thesis proposal or defense meeting. If you have this meeting with your committee before the class sessions devoted to presentation you are still required to give that same presentation in class, but only once. Then, on the last day of class, you will instead be asked to briefly present to the group what your lessons learned were from the presentation/meeting, what you’ll do differently moving forward, and/or what steps your are taking are moving forward (e.g,. what changes you’ll make to your study based on committee feedback). This information will be REALLY helpful for classmates who haven’t gotten to that stage yet.
Everyone is required to submit their GS6 as part of this class; some students will also be required to submit the GS24. You can see here for more info about grad school forms and you can access them through RamWeb.
GS6: The GS6 is your program of study, and is required to be approved by October of the third semester in your program (i.e., this semester) or a registration hold will be put on your account. It requires two key pieces of information:
· Your plan of study (exactly what courses you’ll take to fulfill course requirements). See the Grad Student Resources Teams channel for the relevant checklist to help you fill this out.
· Make up of your thesis/capstone committee. For proposers/defenders, your adviser will help you to identify committee members. For capstoners, your thesis committee will be me (as adviser), Dr. Samantha Brown (as internal committee member), and Dr. Jamie Yoder (Social Work, as external committee member).
GS24: Within 2 business days of your thesis/capstone defense (not proposal), you need to submit a GS24 that is signed by all 3 members of your committee
Marriage and Family Therapy Specialization Curriculum
Master of Science in Human Development and Family Studies, Marriage and Family Therapy Specialization, Plan A
Master of Science in Human Development and Family Studies, Marriage and Family Therapy Specialization, Plan B
Accreditation and Portability of Degree
On-Campus Marriage & Family Therapy Clinical Programs
An important and highly unique aspect of the HDFS department is our on-campus MFT Clinical Programs. Students acquire 400 client contact hours and over 100 supervision hours in practicum and internship in the CFCT. Additionally, students will have a clinical rotation in CTRAC and Campus Connections. All of these programs and centers serve the community in important ways while giving you the opportunity to do meaningful therapy work in a variety of settings all on campus.