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 Letter from the Alumni President
Welcome!
Your alumni association is well on its way to achieving its goals for this term. We are looking forward to new events to connect with fellow alumni and supporting the School of Social Work by focusing on three priorities recently outlined by Dean Jeanette Takamura. They are: 1. Development, including fundraising for scholarships to support our MSW and Ph.D. students, 2. Community building and, 3. Strengthening interdisciplinary collaborations and international programs. As an association, we play a prominent role in fulfilling these goals by helping to recruit and retain outstanding student applicants -- our alumni colleagues in the future. As your Board President, I am working closely with the Association's dedicated officers, committee chairs and co-chairs to build and strengthen our community.
In recent months, the alumni association has participated in several events. An Alumni Association Board Retreat was held by Dean Takamura and I in September 2005 to present the School's and Association's strategic goals. Past Presidents of the Alumni Association and special guest speakers were invited, including Dr. Marnelle Alexis, Executive Director of Admissions & Marketing and Dr. Cheryl Franks, Executive Director for Diversity, Human Rights and Social Justice. They addressed the importance of recruitment and how the involvement of alumni is instrumental in helping to recruit highly talented, diverse, and international students.
In October 2005, Dean Takamura, MaryEllen Bigham '95, Immediate Past President, Jennifer March, Associate Director and I attended the Columbia Alumni Association (CAA) Assembly Leadership Conference. Among the speakers was Donna Rosenthal '67, who is a member of the CAA Board of Directors. The conference was attended by Alumni Presidents from all the schools and several Presidents of Alumni Clubs. A draft Constitution of the newly reorganized CAA and a draft Resolution authored by The Advisory Committee of the CAA was presented.
This year we have been delighted to have guest speakers at our Alumni Association Executive Board meetings including Dr. Kathyrn Conroy, Assistant Dean & Director Field Education Department, and Ann McCann Oakley, Assistant Dean & Director of Computing and Instructional Technology. We have also instituted a listserve to support ongoing board members and officer communication; implemented telephone conferencing by board members located out of the metro area; established a "board room" on the Alumni Association website, which is regularly updated with committee meeting minutes, ballot, bylaws and other information, and; reactivated the Alumni-Student Relations Committee that is sponsoring networking events in 2006.
I would like to extend a special acknowledgement to Jennifer March, Associate Director of Alumni Relations, and her staff. None of the Alumni Association's activities could succeed without her guidance and support. We look forward to hearing from you in 2006 and seeing you at the school's events.
Sincerely,
Donna L. Buehler, '84
President, CUSSW Alumni Association
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Events
February 28
National Social Work Month Kick-Off
The Alumni Association’s Professional Development Committee is pleased to announce a celebration to kick off National Social Work Month. Join us for a wine and cheese reception celebrating the profession of social work, featuring special keynote speaker The Honorable C. Virginia Fields. This event will be held at 6:30pm in the Carol H. Meyer Room (311/312) at CUSSW. To RSVP, call 212-851-2375 or email [email protected].
March 13
Theatre Fundraiser
A fundraiser will be held at Florence Gould Hall at 7:30pm to benefit CUSSW scholarship funds. The renowned Actors Company Theatre will perform a theatrical reading of the play “Both Your Houses” by Maxwell Anderson. A dinner will also be held at Bistro 60 restaurant at 6:30pm. Please call 212-851-2375 for more information.
March 27
Annual Community Day
March 29
Distinguished Visiting Scholar Series: Ambassador Shirin Tahir-Kheli
Ambassador Shirin Tahir-Kheli, Senior Advisor to the Secretary of State on United Nations Reform, will present “United States Priorities for United Nations Reform.” For more information, click here.
April 3
Wine, Cheese, and Networking
Meet future colleagues, connect with alumni, and learn the art of networking.
Co-sponsored by the CUSSW Alumni Association’s Alumni/Student Relations Committee and the Office of Career and Leadership Development. To RSVP, call 212-851-2375 or email [email protected]. This event will be held at 6:30pm in the Carol H. Meyer Room (311/312) at CUSSW.
April 21
Master’s Level Social Work Job Fair
MSW job fair will be held from 11:00am-2:30pm at the Roone Arledge Auditorium at West 115th Street and Broadway. Meet representatives from over 100 non-for-profit and governmental agencies. For more information, click here.
April 26
Distinguished Visiting Alumni Series: Gail Auslander, ‘85DSW
Gail Auslander, ‘85DSW, of the Paul Baerwald School of Social Work and Social Welfare at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, will present “Family Caregivers in the Acute Care Hospital Setting: Back to the Future?” For more information, click here.
April 28 & 29
Annual Alumni Conference
“Social Work in Turbulent Times: Old Issues, New Perspectives, Social Work in 2006.” The Gold (1956) and Silver (1981) Anniversary class reunions will be on April 28th. Hall of Fame and Pioneer Award recipients will be honored. Join us for lunch and other special presentations, panels and roundtable discussions. To RSVP, call 212-851-2375 or email [email protected].
October 17
Bateaux Dinner and Boat Cruise Fundraiser
More information to come.
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Class Notes
'40s
Dr. Judith Wallerstein '47 is continuing to study long term effects of divorce in childhood. Last article in Clinical Social Work, Winter 2005, Vol33, No 4, Growing Up in the Divorced Family, pages 401-418.
Dr. Susan T. Pettiss '49 has written After the Shooting Stopped with Lynne Taylor by Trafford Publishing about her experiences in World War II Germany as a member of the UNRRA as a Welfare Officer.
'50s
Dr. Arthur M. Pierson '58 has written Wasting Each Other: Contemporary America by PublishAmerica, describing intimidation used to achieve superiority, contributing to child violence.
'60s
Joe Giordano '60 has co-authored along with Monica McGoldrick and Nydia Garcia-Preto the Third Edition of Ethnicity and Family Therapy published by Guilford Press. This fully revised and expanded edition provides the latest knowledge on culturally sensitive practice with families and individuals from over 40 different ethnic groups.
Tony Tripodi '63DSW will be the visiting Zellerbach Professor of Social Welfare, University of California, Berkeley, from February 2006 to June 2006, and the Visiting Moses Professor of Social Work, Hunter College, 2006-2007.
James M. O'Kane '64PhD has written Wicked Deeds: Murder in America published by Transaction Publishers.
Dr. Paul Kurzman '64 is Acting Dean at Hunter School of Social Work and Chair of the New York Chapter of NASW. He co-authored Work and the Workplace: A Resource for Innovative Policy and Practice with Shelley Akabas, Professor at CUSSW (Columbia University Press).
Ruth Ormsby '66 retired in June 2004 after 38 years in the field. For the last 16 years she has been the Program Chief of Children's Mental Health Services in Contra Costa County, California. She was awarded the 2004 Lifetime Achievement in Advocacy Award by the California Mental Health Advocates for Children and Youth. She plans to work as a children's mental health program consultant.
Donna M. Rosenthal '67 spoke on December 6, 2005 at a National Conversation on Women, Faith and Philanthropy in San Francisco sponsored by the Women's Funding Network. She focused on the importance of women working together across religions and transcending other perceived barriers to address critical needs of women and children in America and around the world.
'70s
Joan Laird '71 is Professor Emerita from the Smith College School for Social Work, where she was Chair of the Human Behavior and Social Environment sequence and editor of the Smith College Studies in Social Work, recently was given an award by the Massachusetts Association for Marriage and Family Therapy for "Exceptional Contribution to the Field of Marriage and Family Therapy."
Ann Hartman '72DSW is Dean and Professor Emerita from the Smith College School of Social Work. She received the 2004 Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Family Therapy Academy at their annual conference in San Francisco.
Lois Carey '74 is in a private practice with children and families specializing in sand-play and play therapy. She is the past-president of the NY branch of the Association for Play Therapy where she received an award in 2004 for outstanding leadership. She is a lecturer and will be publishing her fourth book entitled Expressive and Creative Arts Methods for Trauma Survivors in April.
Maryann Schacht '76 has written A Caregiver's Challenge: Living Loving Letting Go published by Feterson Press.
Mary-Ellen Siegel '76 has written on many health and mental health topics and is on the faculty at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Her most recent publication is Chemotherapy Today: New Drugs, New Approaches, and New Strategies, A guide for cancer patients and those who care about them. It is published by the Chemotherapy Foundation.
Terrie Williams '77 has published A Plentiful Harvest: Creating Balance and Harmony through the Seven Living Virtues through Warner Books. Her next book on depression in the African American community will be out in 2007.
Dr. Janet Andron Hoffman '77 is the social worker at the Heschel School working with grades N through 2. She has a book in press at Teachers College entitled Beyond Behavior: Developmental Discipline in the Classroom. Dr. Hoffman is also an adjunct assistant professor at Teachers College in Curriculum and Teaching.
William Meezan '78DSW has been named Dean of the College of Social Work at Ohio State University. He and his partner of 27 years, Mike Brittenback, a concert organist and church musician, will be leaving Ann Arbor, where Bill has been the Marion Elizabeth Blue Professor of Children and Families at the University of Michigan School of Social Work.
Cassaundra Williams-Anderson '78 was awarded a $650,000 NYCWorks grant sponsored by United Way to develop new initiatives designed to strength workforce development, training, education, placement and retention in East New York, Brooklyn. Ten million dollars was originally allocated by the City Council for city-wide programs in response to the findings of a Community Service society study titled, A Crisis of Black Male Unemployment. Ms. Williams was responsible for program design, implementation and project oversight with a collaboration of community base agencies in East New York.
Murali Nair '78DSW is Professor of Social Work and Director of the India Experience Program at Cleveland State University invites alumni and students to a study tour in Kerala, India. This place is known for perfect literacy, strong matriarchal family system and herbal medicine. The study group departs on June 7th for a four week program.
'80s
Mimi Abramovitz '81DSW was appointed by the Board of Directors of the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) as a member of the National Commission on Diversity and Social Justice for a three-year term.
Jennifer Crumpley '81 was elected First Vice President of NASW-NYC Chapter.
Katherine Garrahan '82 is an attorney with Bowditch & Dewey in Framingham and Worcester, MA. Her practice includes real estate acquisitions and rehabilitations for homeless shelters, and environmental law.
Dr. June P. Murray '82, the Director of the Urban Gerontology Program, Morgan State University Dept. of Social Work, is currently carrying out qualitative research on "Senior Citizen Emergency Preparedness." Results will be presented at the Maryland State Governor's Conference on Aging, May, 2006. In May, 2005 convened a Gerontology Conference entitled: "What's Happening with Black Baby Boomers?" that featured world-renown historian Dr. John Hope Franklin as Keynote Speaker, and was a Pre-White House Conference on Aging event.
April Naturale '84 recently joined the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline after running the 9/11/ Disaster Mental Health Project (Project Liberty). She presented with Dr. Fran Norris of the National Center for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder to Louisiana State University School of Social Work on "Secondary Traumatic Stress Responses in Disaster Mental Health Response Staffs" in December 2005.
Nadiyah Khalifah '84 has opened a private practice that includes counseling for families and children with an emphasis on recreation.
Joy Leftow '85 has written Spot of Bleach & Other Poems and Prose published by Big Foot Press.
Shulamith Lala A. Straussner '86DSW is the Director of the new Post-Master Certificate Program in the Clinical Approaches to Addictions at NYU's School of Social Work. Her 14th book, the second revised edition of the widely used Clinical Work with Substance Abusing Clients (Guilford Press) has just come out in paperback. This edited book has a co-authored chapter by CUSSW Professor Nabila el Bassel.
Gail Foorman '86 is working as a counselor/case manager in the Aging Services Division of Jewish Family and Career Services in Atlanta, GA.
Susan D. Einbinder '88, '95PhD has accepted position of Research Director at Beyond Shelter, a nonprofit social service agency working to prevent homelessness. She also accepted a part-time position as Assistant Professor at the College of Health and Human Services at California State University, Dominguez Hills.
Katherine S. Pike '88 works for Massachusetts General Hospital, Psychiatry Department, Continuing Education Division and has recently trained as a Birth Doula.
Donna Fish '88 has written Take the Fight Out of Food: How to Prevent and Solve Your Child's Eating Problems published by Atria Books. She is a consultant with Head Start, Administration of Children's Services and guest lecturer Wellesley College, Georgetown University, and many schools in and around NYC.
'90s
Gary Holden '90DSW is currently a professor of social work at NYU, recently co-edited a special issue of Social Work in Health Care on the use of bibliometrics in social work to which he and his co-authors contributed four articles.
Becky Garrison '92 contributed a chapter to the book On the Ground After September 11: Mental Health Responses and Practical Knowledge Gained.
Penny Cohen '93 has written Personal Kabbalah: 32 Paths to Inner Peace and Life Purpose published by Sterling Publishing.
Dr. Mary Ann Forgey '94PhD is an associate professor at Fordham University's Graduate School of Social Service, was selected for a Fulbright Scholar Award to Ireland for the fall 2005 semester. While at the University College Dublin she taught courses in social work practice and intimate partner violence.
James G. Spellman '95 is appointed Staff Associate in Medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at Cornell University.
Cherie Golant '96 and Ron Gutierrez '96 welcomed daughter Rose Golant Gutierrez to the world May 19, 2004. Ron is Clinical Director at Legal Services for Children, and Cherie is a part-time Clinician with Jewish Family & Children's Services, both in San Francisco.
Benjamin Friedman '97 married Aparecida C. Teixeira in November, 2004 and they are expecting their first child.
Lena Melendez '99 presented a diversity lecture for a CASAC training students at Nepenthe School.
Michelle L. Smith '99 accepted the position of Clinical Coordinator for Community Residences Inc. in a new program initiative at Stratford, CT.
'00s
Sherry Saturno '00 will present her article, "How To Save Your Own Life: Overcoming Failure and Loss with Cognitive-Behavioral Psychotherapy" at the National Association of Social Workers New York State Chapter 2006 Power of Social Work Conference in Albany on March 24, 2006.
Ernst O. VanBergeijk '00PhD has been appointed Executive Director and Associate Dean of New York Institute of Technology's Vocational Independence Programs (VIP) at its Central Islip campus.
Cheryl L. Franks '82, '01PhD was appointed Executive Director of Diversity, Human Rights and Social Justice for CUSSW. In this position she provides leadership in the School as the primary resource on the body of scholarship, most effective pedagogical methods, and the organizational and professional values and processes related to diversity, human rights, and social justice.
Eric Leventhal '02 completed the certificate program in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy at the NYU Psychoanalytic Institute. He is currently a social worker in the outpatient psychiatry department at Bellevue Hospital.
Fatima Ali-Kahn '04 is working as a consultant for the United Nations World Food Programme within the School Feeding and AIV/AIDS Units in Rome, Italy.
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Obituary
Myrna Lewis: Social Pioneer, Mother, Wife
The 1970's marked a period of time when the women's liberation movement moved full force in creating social awareness on various women's issues. While many writers addressed concerns pertaining to gender inequality and social injustice, one woman boldly challenged another aspect of the movement – the lack of focus on older women. In an essay entitled "Why is Women's Lib Ignoring Old Women?" Dr. Myrna Lewis proclaimed that not enough discussion was generated about the impact of aging and the experiences of older women. And thus her passion and work in the field of aging began.
Collaborating with her husband, Dr. Robert Butler, Dr. Lewis co-authored pioneering books on aging including Aging and Mental Health (1973) and Love and Sex After 60 (1976, 2002). Her writings addressed not only the psychiatric but sociological aspects of aging and health. Dr. Lewis was passionate about her work and issues pertaining to understanding the human condition. Her academic insight, social involvement and kind personality have earned her numerous awards and great respect from her peers, students as well as business leaders.
While Dr. Lewis was well-known among many circles, her first priority was always with her family. She was first and foremost a devoted wife and mother to Alexandra and several step-daughters – a positive force and unifier of a family of in-laws and grandchildren as well. Dr. Lewis also loved listening to music and traveling. She was very international in her outlook and admired the work of Harry Hopkins and Jane Adams, among other social work pioneers.
The Columbia School of Social Work celebrates the work and life of Dr. Lewis by honoring her request and establishing the Myrna I. Lewis Minority Students Scholarship in her memory. We will remember Dr. Lewis as a wonderful social worker, colleague and friend.
Dr. Myrna Lewis, an active member of the CUSSW community, passed away on November 15, 2005 of brain cancer in New York. She was 67. Dr. Lewis is survived by husband Dr. Robert Butler and daughter Alexandra Butler, her sister Diane Barnhart and brothers Donald and Virgil Eickhoff.
In Memoriam
Elizabeth C. Beine '49
Helen K. Fisher '58
Anne M. Gladstone
Gertrude A. Kanner '53
Miriam Furst Ostow '43
Dr. Harold L. Plotnick '51, '62
Roslyn Roose '44
John K. Canupp '64
Lois M. Cullison '51
Herman L. Zimmerman '53
Margaret R. Rich '58
Helen K. Yepes '52
Helen A. Weinberg '47
Jean M. Cluett
Dr. Myrna I. Lewis '65, '00
Sylvia Rosenberg '58
Dr. Denis Patrick Cronin' 94, '04
Dr. Robert Morris '59
Marjorie G. Siskey '33
Jean R. Barr '40
Helen McKay Day '45
Thelma B. Likovich '50
Charlotte Gordon Kirschner '64
Elisabeth B. Morrissey '45
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Dr. Wilda A. Chevers '59
Ursula L. Sprachmann '82, '85
Iris G. Azary '51
Louis P. Kurtis
Dorothy Wiest '39
Estelle N. Cross '43
Anne B. Bicknese '68
Shirley O. Cooper '46
Ruth J. Farber '44
Dr. Joseph L. Vigilante '51, '68
Dr. Nathan E. Seldin '54
Dr. Louise Boatman '75
Dorothy D. Dunlap '40
Fred A. Morrow '57
Raymond Gordon '41
Elizabeth M. Allison '47
Adina Edith Michaeli '88
Rebecca L. Cauman '41
Dorothy C. Downing '46
Cathryn S. Guyler '40
Aaron Mitrani '55
Frances P. Simsarian '36
Elma Kahn Wolf '43
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