Dr. Rebecca Pender Bio

Dr. Rebecca Pender Baum is an associate professor in Counselor Education  at Murray State University. She earned her Master’s in Community and Marriage and Family Counseling at Southern Illinois University and her Ph.D. in Counselor Education and Supervision from Idaho State University. She is currently a member of the American Counseling Association, Association for Counselor Educators and Supervisors, International Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, and the Association of Humanistic Counseling. She has served on various state and local committees and is currently serving as Vice President of the Kentucky Counseling Association. Dr. Pender Baum is a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor Supervisor (LPCC-S, KY) and a Nationally Certified Counselor through the National Board for Certified Counselors.

Dr. Pender Baum became interested in social change and advocacy during her master’s program. She served as the president of the Delta Chapter of Chi Sigma Iota and through that organization completed at least one service project each year and is the current faculty advisor for the Mu Sigma Chi Chapter of Chi Sigma Iota. This interest continued in her doctoral program and now in her professional career.

Over the last several years, Dr. Pender Baum has helped to collect shoes and medical supplies that have been taken to Tanzania. For the past three years she also assisted in advocating and fundraising efforts to fund a kindergarten program at Sambarai in Tanzania. In December of 2015, she traveled with SALTWorld to Tanzania and participated in social changes projects at Mawenzi Hospital, Keni Dispensary, Sambarai Kindergarten Program, Upendo Orphanage and St. Francis School for the Disabled. The experiences in Tanzania were life changing. Dr. Pender Baum learned a lot about the culture in Tanzania and found it heartwarming that even though many of the people we worked with had very little, they were some of the friendliest, most welcoming people ever met.