Rick Balkin is a Professor, Department Chair of Leadership and Counselor Education, and Coordinator of Educational Research and Design in the School of Education at the University of Mississippi. He is the author of Practicing Forgiveness: A Path Toward Healing. He currently serves as Editor-in-Chief for the International Journal for the Advancement of Counselling. Rick is a Fellow of the American Counseling Association. Rick began practicing counseling in 1993 with a focus on adolescents in crisis-care and has been working in universities since 2003. He has published in the areas of religious diversity, forgiveness, counseling youth, and research methods.