Supporting Students, Faculty, Staff, and Administrators

Working or studying in higher education can be deeply meaningful, intellectually rewarding, and purpose driven. It can also be mentally, emotionally, and professionally demanding.

Students, faculty, staff, and administrators often navigate complex systems, competing priorities, heavy workloads, emotional labor, leadership responsibilities, and institutional pressures that are rarely acknowledged or fully understood by those outside academia.

At I AM MOORE, LLC, we provide therapy for individuals across higher education who are navigating the emotional, relational, and professional realities of academic life. Our work is informed by direct experience within higher education and a systems-oriented understanding of how colleges and universities influence well-being. We recognize that stress in higher education is often not a personal failing, but a response to layered systems, roles, expectations, and organizational culture.

Whether you are pursuing a degree, teaching students, supporting institutional operations, or leading an academic organization, we provide therapy that recognizes the evolving realities of higher education and the ways those realities shape personal well-being, relationships, and family life.

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Our Experience Includes Work Within a Variety of higher education settings, including:

• 🏛 Research Universities                                             
  
• 🎓 Liberal Arts Colleges
  
• 🏫 Community & Technical Colleges                     
  
• 🌍 Minority-Serving Institutions
  
• 💻 Distanced-Based Education                              
  
• 🏢 Public & Private Universities
  
• 📖 Graduate & Professional Education
  

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This breadth of experience allows us to appreciate the similarities and differences that exist across institutions, while recognizing that every campus/branch has its own culture, mission, and unique set of opportunities and challenges.

We work with:

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🎓 Students                                👩‍🏫 Faculty                                             💼 Staff                              🏛 Administrators

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🎓 Students

College and graduate school can be exciting, transformative, and deeply rewarding experiences. They can also bring significant pressure, uncertainty, and emotional challenges.

Students often balance academics, employment, finances, family responsibilities, relationships, identity development, and uncertainty about the future while attempting to meet increasingly demanding expectations.

Whether you are pursuing your first degree, returning to school later in life, completing graduate education, or working toward your dissertation, therapy can provide support throughout your academic journey.

Students commonly seek support for:

• Academic stress and burnout
• Anxiety and depression
• Identity development
• Graduate school and dissertation stress
• Time management and work-life balance
• Relationship concerns
• Career uncertainty
• Self-confidence and imposter syndrome
• Life transitions
• Perfectionism

👩‍🏫 Faculty

Faculty members often balance teaching and research, along with mentoring, advising, working on curriculum development, accreditation, committee service, and leadership responsibilities… while remaining deeply committed to student success.

These competing demands can contribute to burnout, compassion fatigue, difficult student interactions, professional isolation, and challenges maintaining healthy boundaries between work and personal life.

Therapy provides a confidential space to process these experiences while developing sustainable strategies for maintaining effectiveness, purpose, and personal well-being.

Faculty commonly seek support for:

• Burnout
• Work-life balance
• Difficult student interactions
• Promotion and tenure stress
• Research and publication pressures
• Leadership and Administrative Responsibilities
• Departmental conflict
• Committee and Service Overload
• Compassion fatigue
• Career transitions
• Professional identity
• Grant funding and research expectations
  

💼 Staff

Professional staff play a vital role in supporting students, faculty, and institutional success. Across higher education, they serve in student affairs, advising, enrollment, financial aid, disability services, career services, counseling, human resources, and administrative operations. They often provide tremendous support to others while managing significant responsibilities of their own.
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Many staff members experience increasing workloads, organizational change, competing priorities, and emotional fatigue while remaining deeply committed to serving their institutions and the students they support.

Staff commonly seek support for:

• Workplace stress & Burnout
• Organizational change
• Career advancement
• Supporting students in distress
• Compassion fatigue
• Workplace relationships
• Communication challenges
• Leadership and supervisory stress 
• Work-life balance

🏛 Administrators

Higher education leaders carry responsibilities that extend far beyond managing daily operations. Administrators often make decisions that affect students, faculty, staff, academic programs, budgets, accreditation, institutional strategy, and organizational culture, while balancing competing expectations from numerous stakeholders.

These roles can be deeply rewarding while also creating executive stress, leadership isolation, decision fatigue, and limited opportunities for confidential support.

Therapy offers a space where leaders can think clearly, process difficult decisions, strengthen resilience, and continue leading effectively without neglecting their own well-being.

Administrators commonly seek support for:

• Personal mental health
• Work-life balance
• Leadership stress & burnout
• Organizational change
• Crisis management
• Public Relations
• Career transitions
• Professional identity
• Isolation
• Managing from the middle
• Managing from the top
• Fiduciary Pressures: Student Aid, Philanthropy, Grants
• Recruitment & Retention
• Navigating President-Board friction
• Faculty Governance

Our Approach

Higher education is more than a workplace or a place to earn a degree. It is a community shaped by learning, scholarship, mentorship, leadership, research, service, and personal growth.

The expectations placed upon students, faculty, staff, and leaders often extend well beyond their formal roles. Success is measured not only by performance, but also by service, leadership, scholarship, collaboration, mentorship, and the ability to support others while navigating competing demands and changing institutional priorities.

Our work with higher education professionals and students considers the broader systems in which they live and work, including:

• Institutional culture and organizational dynamics
• Leadership, hierarchy, and decision-making
• Power, visibility, and vulnerability
• Role strain and boundary challenges
• Emotional labor and burnout
• Faculty, staff, and student relationships
• Racial, cultural, and gender-related experiences
• Leadership stress and decision fatigue
• Identity, purpose, and long-term sustainability
• Financial and emotional costs associated with academic careers

​Rather than reducing these experiences to individual coping alone, therapy provides an opportunity to understand how systems influence stress while developing healthier, more sustainable ways of responding personally, professionally, and relationally.

Meet the Therapists Who Work with Higher Education Professionals & Students

Working in higher education requires understanding more than job titles. It requires understanding the culture, expectations, relationships, and systems that shape life within colleges and universities. While both of our therapists work with individuals connected to higher education, each brings unique experiences and perspectives that may make them a particularly good fit depending on your role and goals.

Darren D. Moore, PhD, MPH, MAEd, LMFT

Dr. Moore has devoted much of his professional career to higher education as an educator, administrator, clinician, and leader. His experience includes serving as a faculty member, program director, and Associate Dean across multiple colleges and universities. In addition to rising through the ranks himself, he has worked closely with individuals in higher education, while navigating accreditation, curriculum development, faculty mentoring, student success initiatives, strategic planning, and organizational leadership. He has served on promotion and tenure committees, search committees, and consulted directly with senior leadership, including members of the University Cabinet. His unique combination of clinical skills and higher education leadership experience allows him to understand the personal and professional challenges that arise throughout academic careers.

Dr. Moore may be a good fit if you are seeking support for:

• Higher education leadership
• Faculty and administrator stress
• Academic burnout
• Work-life balance
• Promotion, Tenure, & career advancement
• Dissertation and doctoral education
• Professional identity
• Leadership development
• Organizational and workplace challenges
• Career transitions
• Succession Planning
• Couple/Family relationships
• Student issues
  
• Remote faculty and Students
  
  

Licensed to provide telehealth services in:

• Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, Illinois, New York, and Florida

View Dr. Moore's Profile

Katie Ross, LAMFT, PMH-C, Doctoral Student

Katie works with college and university students as well as faculty, staff, and higher education professionals navigating the emotional, relational, and personal challenges that often accompany academic and professional life. Her warm, collaborative approach creates a supportive environment for clients balancing academic expectations, workplace responsibilities, relationships, and major life transitions. Katie has experience teaching students and working collaboratively with staff, faculty, and administration. As a doctoral student, Katie also has firsthand appreciation for the dedication, persistence, and demands associated with advanced graduate education.

Katie may be a good fit if you are seeking support for:

• College and graduate student mental health
• Faculty and staff stress
• Anxiety and depression
• Academic burnout
• Work-life balance
• Relationship concerns
• Life transitions
• Personal wellness
• Professional growth
• Stress management

 
Licensed to provide telehealth services in:

• Georgia

View Katie Ross's Profile

Ready to Take the Next Step ?

At I AM MOORE, LLC, we are committed to providing thoughtful, compassionate care that reflects
the unique experiences of those who live, work, and lead within higher education. When you are ready,
​ we invite you to reach out below

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