Cricket: Despite my unconventional background, the faculty provided me with the nurturance, guidance, and academic foundation that prepared me well for my practica and internship. I was a second-year practicum student at Woodside Juvenile Rehabilitation Center in Vermont, where I worked with violent and aggressive youth, and a third-year practicum student at the University of Vermont’s Counseling and Psychiatry Services, where I recently began my pre-doctoral internship.I worked as a teacher, naturalist (I earned my MS in Environmental Studies from AUNE in 1994), and mother before AUNE. Although I had worked in residential mental health facilities during college, my experiences working with children and families, both as a teacher and mother, are what prompted me to apply to AUNE’s PsyD program.
Although my time at Antioch came to an end, my relationships and knowledge gained here are indelible and will continue to inform and inspire my future professional development.
Lorraine Mangione and Martha Straus, professors of clinical psychology:
“She’s a leader, and her willingness to really show up, ready to engage, is remarkable.”
Cricket Braun is an inspiration to many of us who have had the pleasure and honor of teaching and learning from her. She’s a leader, and her willingness to really show up, ready to engage, is remarkable. She is entirely reliable, week in and out, to offer provocative, reflective questions, or perspectives in class.
Cricket is able to engage as an authentic adult; the quality of conversation with her reflects such depth and whole-self involvement. This ‘reflective practice’ describes Cricket in the classroom, in the hallway, or in a faculty office. She remains vital, integrated, and present in her many roles: developing clinician, environmental studies student, teacher, mother of four (including twins!), and communitarian. In addition, her motivation and work ethic are prodigious.
Cricket is also a lot of fun; her seriousness of purpose doesn’t preclude her ability to play with ideas and others. We can see her in many roles in her future clinician, teacher, supervisor, administrator, and consultant, all grounded by the same process of joyful reflection and engagement.
