Dean Ronald A. Feldman

During Ronald A. Feldman's tenure as dean of the School of Social Work, the School made progress on many fronts, including creating 10 endowed professorships, establishing a working relationship with the United Nations, increasing its endowment from $8 million to $57 million and raising the amount of financial aid available to its students to more than $2 million annually.

In recent years, the school has ranked first in four studies of faculty productivity and scholarship published in leading social work journals. Feldman, who came to Columbia in 1985 and was named dean in 1986, said this record has not come at the expense of classroom instruction. In fact, during the past three years, he noted, student ratings of the quality of faculty instruction have been at all-time highs.

Feldman, who will step down from the deanship at the end of the current academic year after a 15-year tenure, will return, after a one-year sabbatical, as the Ruth Harris Ottman Centennial Professor for the Advancement of Social Work Education and as the director of the Center for the Study of Social Work Practice. The center is a joint enterprise of the School of Social Work and the Jewish Board of Family and Children's Services.

"During Ron Feldman's tenure as dean, the School of Social Work has taken remarkable strides forward in research, in curricular revision, and in resources committed to financial aid, all of which have added to the school's stature in the field," said President George Rupp. "The University is grateful for Ron's contributions to the School and is pleased that he will continue to be a part of the campus community."

Said Provost Jonathan Cole, "Under Ron Feldman's leadership, the School of Social Work has established a reputation as one of the finest of its kind. With its recent success in recruiting excellent faculty and students and enhancements in its research and practice programs, the future prospects for the School are bright."

A search committee, headed by Cole, is at work and is expected to name a new dean by September.

"Ronald Feldman has been a remarkably successful dean, both in advancing a scholarly social work agenda and in providing the essential infrastructure for faculty to carry out their work," said Social Work Professor Sheila Kamerman. "He provided the school with exceptional leadership in all aspects of social work practice, policy and research, thus assuring the school its pre-eminence in the field."

Reflecting on the field of social work during his tenure, Feldman said, "Social work is one of the most rapidly growing professions in the country. It's now more grounded in research and evidence-based analysis, and it's more interdisciplinary than when I first arrived at Columbia. The University has been at the forefront of promoting and facilitating these trends."

He has also noticed a change in the demographics of students entering social work during his time as dean.

"They are definitely more diverse in terms of race, ethnicity, age and background," said Feldman, noting that 35 percent of the school's students are of color, up from 20 percent a decade ago. "Today's students are exceptionally bright and well-versed in the difficulties that afflict the world, including those drawn from their own experiences. They are far from cynical. They want to serve the people who need help."

Feldman said the school's 1,000 students contribute approximately 300,000 hours of community service each year and that the school and its students are affiliated with more than 400 social service agencies in the New York metropolitan area. Feldman added that the growth in student financial aid has helped to attract top-notch students. The school now provides more than $2 million per year in student financial aid.

In 1997, the school established a formal working relationship with the United Nations, the only American school of social work to do so. Under this arrangement, the United Nations and the School of Social Work engage in mutually beneficial programs of training and research. In 2002, the school will begin construction of a $64 million, 115,000 square ft. facility, which will be located on Amsterdam Ave. between W. 121st and 122nd streets. Scheduled for completion in fall 2004, the facility will be the first building in the school's history designed expressly for professional social work education. It will include electronic classrooms, seminar rooms, a multi-media center, a social work library and computer labs. Since its inception in 1898, the school has had five locations, including the Carnegie Mansion, located on Fifth Ave. at E. 91st St.

In addition to his more than 80 publications in professional journals and texts, Feldman is the senior author of three books in the field: Contemporary Approaches to Group Treatment (Jossey-Bass), The St. Louis Conundrum: The Effective Treatment of Antisocial Youths (Prentice-Hall) and Children at Risk: In the Web of Parental Mental Illness (Rutgers University Press) and is the co-editor of six books. Feldman has also served as the chairman of the Commission on Educational Policy of the Council on Social Work Education and the vice-chairman of the National Institute of Mental Health Task Force on Social Work Research.