UNM Counseling Center Doubles Room Capacity

The Manzanita Counseling Center at the University of New Mexico will double its counseling capacity. The center, located in Albuquerque, plans to expand from three counseling rooms to six. This change will allow more graduate students to complete their clinical training and accommodate a higher volume of clients seeking free services.

The expansion is funded by the Dorothy Gram Counselor Education Scholarship Fund. Dorothy Wooldridge Gram, a UNM Counselor Education alumna who died in 2024, established the fund to support the program. The new space will include a more private interior waiting area. Each new counseling room will feature observation and recording technology to help supervisors guide students during sessions.

Ashley Martin-Cuellar, the clinic director, manages the center's daily operations. The clinic provides no-cost short-term counseling to individuals, couples, and families. Clients often arrive without insurance or face financial hardship. Martin-Cuellar noted that referrals come from hospitals, community agencies, and other providers. “Our clients are the community,” Martin-Cuellar said. The clinic handles concerns ranging from anxiety and grief to traumatic experiences.

The center serves a dual purpose. It offers care to the public and provides supervised clinical experience for students in UNM's Counselor Education program. Students work directly with clients under the supervision of faculty and licensed counselors. Dean Kristopher M. Goodrich stated that these authentic clinical experiences are often what stay with students throughout their careers. “Working directly with clients, receiving intentional supervision and seeing the difference counseling can make reinforces why they chose this profession in the first place,” Goodrich said.

The building has a history of adaptation. Sarah Valles, the academic operations officer for the College of Education & Human Sciences, joined the university in 1999. At that time, the building housed an early childhood education program. When that program moved, the interior was completely redesigned to create dedicated counseling rooms. Valles recalled that workers removed the interior down to the beams and outer walls to build the current space.

Gram earned her bachelor's degree from the University of Southern California in 1963. She moved to New Mexico to pursue a master's degree in counseling at UNM. She worked as a counselor consultant for Albuquerque Public Schools before returning to California. Her career included work as an educational psychologist and marriage and family therapist. Goodrich remembered Gram as outgoing, funny, and outspoken. “Dorothy had this wonderful energy about her. She was outgoing, funny and outspoken, and she genuinely loved being around people,” Goodrich said.

The expansion addresses practical scheduling challenges. When practicum classes are full, limited rooms can cause coordination difficulties for students and clients. The additional space creates room for the next generation of counselors to learn while the clinic serves more residents.