Dr. Dottie Durband’s Financial Counseling Book Hits the Shelves

Discovering the Financial Planning Career Path, One Page at a Time

As the Associate Dean for Academics and Faculty Development and as a Professor in the Personal Financial Planning (PFP) department, Dorothy "Dottie" Durband, Ph.D., AFC®, saw a great need for a new financial counseling book that addressed the country's current financial landscape. Drawing on the trends of increasing student loan debt, personal savings rates, and the aging U.S. population, Financial Counseling seeks to enhance learning in the modern era of financial counseling.

After many requests for a book like Financial Counseling, Dr. Durband sought the help of a few trusted colleagues, Ryan Law and Angela Mazzolini. As alumni of the program, both Ryan and Angela were familiar with the application that the book could have in academia. The help of PFP alumni didn't stop there, with many chapter authors being Texas Tech faculty or graduates of the Personal Financial Planning program.

"Collaborating with my two co-editors was such a rewarding experience," Dr. Durband said. "We each had a vision for what this volume could be and worked together to create it."

Dr. Durband stressed that the book does not necessarily need to be read chapter by chapter, with varying topics from the history of financial counseling practice to managing difficult client conversations.

"The goal of the book was to bring together the collective voices of financial counselors around the country to create a book that would be helpful to professors, students, and practitioners," Ryan said. "There are so many great takeaways from the book."

Angela described the book as one that makes concepts easy to understand, regardless of how deeply immersed in the field one may be. Due to the book being a resource based on both research and practice, the aim is for it to be seen as a go-to for teaching the foundations of financial counseling.

"We made sure to cover all of the core competencies for the Accredited Financial Counselor® designation in hope that it could be used as a textbook for the exam," Angela said.

Both Angela and Ryan reflect on the co-editing process in a positive light, each pointing to their respect for Dr. Durband.

"I can't think of two people I would have rather worked on this project with than Dottie and Ryan," Angela said.

Thanks to expert authors, Financial Counseling readers can expect to gain a thoughtful perspective on current financial planning practice, research, and theoretical foundations. "We anticipate that this new volume will enhance teaching and learning about financial counseling in undergraduate and graduate programs in higher education," Dr. Durband said. "We expect that it will provide a starting point for the creation of future courses and for training programs in financial counseling."

Moving forward in its publication, the team is hopeful that the book will provide increased awareness of Texas Tech's Personal Financial Planning program and enhance the understanding of financial counseling as a promising profession.