Northcentral University

2 NCU HAPPENINGS | FEBRUARY 2021 | STRENGTH IN COMMUNITY EDITION 2 REMEMBERING CHUCK WEST By Dean James Billings, PhD Dr. Charles K. West, PhD, LMFT (1953 – 2020), known by all as "Chuck," was one of the founding members of the NCU Marriage and Family Therapy program. He joined the department in 2011 as the fourth full-time administrative faculty member. The goal of the early department was to pioneer innovation by establishing the first professionally respected, programmatically accredited online marriage and family therapy training program in the world. Dr. West brought his knowledge of MFT education and expertise in MFT licensing and regulatory issues to the early team, resulting in the first programmatically accredited online MFT program. During his time at NCU, he served as the MFT director of curriculum and the MFT director of clinical training. He served on many committees and taskforces at the program, department, and school levels. He was a guest lecturer for many department and program-level trainings, developed micro-skill videos for students, created and revised all MFT state licensure requirements for NCU's MFT programs, and was NCU's in-house expert for any state licensure questions. While at NCU he freely gave of his time to supervise many MFT faculty pursuing their national MFT supervision credential. He also gave of his time as the founding co-chair for the Narrative Family Therapy group at NCU. Chuck continued to share his knowledge, passion, and love for educating graduate students and mentoring faculty as a full-time professor until his passing in December. In addition to the incredible work Chuck accomplished at NCU, few knew of his many achievements outside of the university. Prior to coming to NCU, Chuck was chair of the Department of Child and Family Studies at the University of Southern Mississippi. While living in Mississippi, the Mississippi Association for Marriage and Family Therapy honored Chuck with the "Outstanding Contribution to Marriage and Family Therapy" award in 2010. He was chair of the

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