West Windsor, N.J. – As the current president of the New Jersey Community College Counselors Association (NJ3C), Mercer County Community College (MCCC) Senior Counselor Dorothy Gasparro, EdS, LPC, NCC, has special duties that go beyond her critical role as a senior counselor at Mercer.

Gasparro is also seeing to it that community college counselors around the state have an opportunity to share their challenges and report their successes in a collaborative setting several times each year. Her term as the organization's leader began in June 2014 and continues through June 2016.

According to Gasparro, the purpose of the organization is to provide professional development, as well as networking opportunities, for counselors from all of the state’s 19 community colleges and related educational institutions.

This year NJ3C held three conferences.  In October, the group met at Middlesex County College and discussed “Executive Functioning and College Success” and “Judicial Affairs and Counseling.”  In December, at their annual conference, held at Brookdale Community College, participants discussed “Mindfulness: Interventions for College Students and Counselor Self-Care.” In April, at Raritan Valley College, the group tackled another important topic: “Legal Pitfalls of Counselor Documentation.”