Hande Briddick

Assistant Professor of Counseling and Human Resource Development

Education: Ph.D. at Kent State; B.S at Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey

Awards: Mavis Booze Mentoring Award; Service-Learning Faculty Fellow, SDSU; nominated as consultant for career-education project in Turkish schools sponsored by World Bank; Clark Hanson Faculty Service Award, SDSU

While  attending university in central Turkey (in Ankara, the country’s capital), Hande Briddick scored very highly on a national exam, awarding her full scholarship to any school she was accepted.

She chose Kent State, where she met her husband Chris Briddick (who was also working on his Ph.D. at Kent). Motivated partially due to their Ph.D. advisor—a South Dakotan—Hande and her husband joined the faculty at SDSU, where Hande coordinates the school counselor specialization, preparing grad students for the school counseling profession.

“Students intentionally choose SDSU’s program,” she says. “Our graduates feel well-prepared to work in the counseling field; they have opportunities to attend national conferences and to write grants and articles for professional magazines before they even graduate.”

While Professor Briddick builds future counselors, she also conducts outreach of her own. For example, she has conducted several service-learning projects with area schools, published articles, and prepared a short segment for South Dakota Public TV on children and divorce.

Professor Briddick was also involved in a grant program that sent several K-12 teachers to Turkey, and she is currently working on a new cross-cultural study on Islam and counseling.