About Susan Rardon Rose
Counselor Educator • Author • Curator • Advocate
A career devoted to removing obstacles, creating opportunities, and helping people move forward.
I have spent my career helping people grow—first as an educator and school counselor, and now as a counselor educator, professor, author, and creator of professional resources.
Along the way, my work has taken me from classrooms and school counseling offices to university leadership, counselor preparation, research, writing, and professional learning. Through it all, one belief has remained constant: when we remove obstacles and create meaningful opportunities, people can flourish.
Today, that work lives in two places—Counseling Today, where I support the professionals who serve students, and Profoundly Changed, where professional understanding meets the deeply personal experience of grief, hope, and moving forward.
My Professional Journey
My career began in education and school counseling, where I saw firsthand the difference that knowledgeable, empowered school counselors can make in the lives of students. That experience ultimately led me into counselor education, university leadership, research, and professional learning.
As a professor and counselor educator, I have had the privilege of preparing future counselors while continuing to advocate for comprehensive, whole-child approaches to student success. Counseling Today, founded in 2001, grew from that same commitment: translating research and professional knowledge into resources educators can actually use everyday.
Credentials at a Glance
- Ph.D.
Counselor Education & Supervision, University of Louisville - Professor & Counselor Educator
University of the Cumberlands - Former Dean & Academic Leader
School of Education
- Former School Counselor
Elementary & Middle School - Nationally Certified
NCC & NCSC - Founder & Curator
Counseling Today
Two Paths. One Purpose.
Different expressions of the same commitment—to help people find knowledge, support, and a way forward.
The Story That Changed Mine
I am also a mother, grandmother, and wife—and I will always be his.
My husband, Bob, and I grew up together through 37 years of marriage, raising our family and building a life we expected to continue growing old in together. When Bob died in October 2020, my life profoundly changed.
Writing became one of the ways I learned to carry both the grief and the love forward. Eventually, my professional understanding as a counselor and my personal experience of loss came together in Profoundly Changed—a place created to offer hope, encouragement, and companionship to others learning to live forward after loss.
Bob will always be part of my story. Profoundly Changed is one way his influence continues to reach beyond it.
What Guides My Work
People matter more than programs.
Programs and frameworks are valuable only when they improve people's lives.
Research should lead to practice.
Good ideas become meaningful when professionals can actually use them.
The whole person matters.
Academic, social, emotional, professional, personal, and spiritual dimensions of life don't exist in isolation.
Moving forward does not mean leaving the past behind.
We carry what has shaped us into what comes next.
Beyond the Professional Bio
Behind the degrees, titles, and professional work, I am simply Susan—a woman whose life has been shaped by faith, family, love, loss, learning, and a deep belief that our lives are meant to make a difference in the lives of others.
My Christian faith is the foundation beneath it all. It has shaped how I understand purpose, how I have tried to serve others, and how I have walked through seasons I never would have chosen. I don't pretend to have all the answers. But I believe deeply in a God who meets us in both joy and sorrow, who holds our hand when the road becomes difficult, and who can bring purpose even from the places that profoundly change us.
Family has always been at the heart of my life. I am a mother and grandmother—“Gogo” to the people who have given that name such meaning—and I was blessed to share 37 years of marriage with my husband, Bob. Loving him, losing him, and learning to carry that love forward have forever changed the way I understand grief, resilience, hope, and what truly matters.
I am also happiest in the ordinary spaces of life: gathered with family, writing something that matters to me, reading and learning, working on a project around my home or garden, or imagining the next resource that might make someone's work—or someone's journey—a little easier.
Professional titles tell you something about what I have done. They don't tell you everything about who I am.
At the center of both is a simple hope: to use what I have learned, what I have experienced, and what I have been given to help someone else find knowledge, encouragement, hope, or a way forward.
Susan R. Rose, Ph.D.
Counselor Educator • Author • Curator • Advocate