On the Move: CU School of Social Work Adapts to Challenges of New Millennium
Alumna Alexis Miesen ’04MS made an unusual detour en route to her career goal of working with economically distressed African communities. Tired of relying on corporations to fund community work, Miesen and a business partner started an eco-friendly, organic ice cream shop in Brooklyn.
Three years later, Blue Marble Ice Cream has been such a smashing success that it has enabled the partners to launch a nonprofit venture and open the “first-ever” ice cream parlor in Butare, Rwanda. Today it is empowering local women with a cool and delicious means of support.
Running a profitable ice cream business may not be the typical career path of the social worker of old. Yet Miesen’s story is emblematic of the aspirations and ambitions of a new generation of graduates. Some go on to work in community organizing, a traditional social work field made popular again by a young Barack Obama; others opt for jobs in government agencies, human resources departments of universities and hospitals, the social responsibility offices of large corporations, labor unions, and clinical settings.
At the PhD level, graduates are heavily recruited by leading universities as well as by governments and quasi-governmental organizations. They value the education they receive and the mentoring and opportunities provided through the collaborative efforts of Julien Teitler, chair of the doctoral program, and Allen Zweben, associate dean for research and academic affairs. Another notable success story is that of Jared Bernstein ’94PhD, a senior economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden.
Yet the fundamental calling of the School’s more than 800 students each year is the same as that of previous generations: transforming communities, organizations, and people’s lives, whether from a perch in the White House, in an ice cream shop in Rwanda, or in Columbia University’s neighboring Harlem community.
This mission of bettering society dates back to the founding of the nation’s oldest school of social work in 1898 and continues to the present day to ensure that CUSSW graduates become influential leaders in the field of social work.
The tradition of distinguished service is everywhere in evidence among the faculty and the administration. Today, the legacy continues with a faculty whose highly acclaimed, multidisciplinary work spans diverse fields including economics, sociology, public administration, neuroscience, psychiatry, medicine, and law. Among them are the faculty and administrators featured in this issue of Spectrum.
Working with colleagues in other Columbia departments and universities around the world, many of our distinguished scholars and practitioners have established centers focused on the family; urban demography; innovations in the workplace; the role of fathers in the lives of their children; and HIV and drug abuse intervention and prevention, to name just a few.
In the past year alone, four longtime faculty members received high honors for their outstanding contributions to the field. Drs. Irwin Garfinkel, Sheila Kamerman, David Fanshel, and Barbara Berkman were inducted into the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare. Also last spring, Professor Sheila Akabas was honored by the National Network for Social Work Managers for her lifetime contributions in the area of social work management.
The tradition of excellence is alive and well in the faculty. Earlier this year, Dr. Rogério Pinto received an Early Career Achievement Award from the Society for Social Work Research for his innovative approach to HIV and substance abuse prevention programs among racial and ethnic minority populations in New York and Brazil.
Dr. Pinto’s binational and bilingual research exemplifies the School’s growing emphasis on global partnerships to advance social work here and abroad. One such example is the Global Health Research Center for Central Asia, a multidisciplinary team of experts and students led by Drs. Nabila El-Bassel and Louisa Gilbert along with Professor Steven Schinke. With two offices in Kazakhstan, the Center conducts research in marketplaces and villages alike, and provides professional training to address such global health challenges as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and hepatitis C.
In another corner of the world, Associate Professor Fred Ssewamala has studied whether something as basic as encouraging poor youth in the developing world to save money might lead to improvements in their economic status, health, and education. Ssewamala is a co-investigator, working with Washington University’s Michael Sherraden, on a $12.5 million grant from the MasterCard Foundation to examine the social utility of savings accounts in Kenya, Ghana, Colombia, and Nepal, where some 170,000 young people are expected to reap the benefits.
Ssewamala’s research on vulnerable children resonates with that of Professor Jane Waldfogel, who spent a year at the London School of Economics studying Great Britain’s approach to child poverty.
Her research, published this year by the Russell Sage Foundation under the title Britain’s War on Poverty, found that New Labour’s decision to boost support for working families and expand child health programs was more successful in lifting children out of poverty than the work-oriented approach of U.S. welfare reform.
Childhood poverty is just one of a multitude of research interests of the faculty. Others include aging and bereavement, mental health and disabilities, immigrant services, domestic violence and substance abuse, homelessness, social work education, and issues related to the workplace.
The faculty’s all-encompassing scholarship is mirrored in an increasingly diverse student population with a similarly broad range of interests. About a third of the student body is comprised of people of color, with more than 10 percent from foreign countries. Students range in age from their early 20s to 50s, arriving with degrees from more than 90 undergraduate and graduate institutions. A significant number matriculate after substantial experience in the workplace, with some looking to launch a new career.
Even before they graduate, students are mobilized for action, and many join one of the School’s 24+ student caucuses to explore issues and concerns of personal and professional interest. One such caucus was formed earlier this year to respond to the devastating earthquake in Haiti; some others are focused on the shared experience of being black, Hispanic, Asian, gay or lesbian, or a nontraditional student.
Students’ outstanding work wins them many accolades every year, including membership in the prestigious Presidential Management Fellows program. Fellows receive two-year paid internships in the federal government, which can lead to highly visible positions in the agencies that determine public policies and programs.
In the end, because the School is only as good as the students who will become the next generation of leaders in the social work field, the faculty has fully committed the institution to a range of assistance programs, including financial aid, career counseling, and academic support.
At the Writing Center, students can find answers to questions about grammar and punctuation, and hone their ability to develop, clarify, and organize ideas. The Willma and Albert Musher Student Computing Center provides access to dozens of computers, high-definition scanners, and high-speed printers.
In the crucial area of job placement, the Office of Career and Leadership Development helps students negotiate the challenges of long-distance job searches, career fairs, networking and informational interviews, references and resumes, and salary negotiations.
As the School prepares to enter the second decade of the 21st century, students are proving they are more than ready to handle whatever challenges await them.
In 2009, graduate student Julianna Gwiszcz won the Georgia L. McMurray Award from the New York City Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers, the fifth consecutive year that a Columbia student has won the coveted prize.
Within months, she had landed a job at a university in Philadelphia, where she is the director of a new campus initiative set up to help students connect theory and practice, reach out to the community, and make a commitment to others.
Sound familiar? Each component of the program—connection, community, commitment—mirrors the core values she would have encountered as she pursued her master’s degree in social work on the Morningside Heights campus of CUSSW.
Gwiszcz reflected on how her graduate education had prepared her for the challenges of the workplace in the 21st century. “There were so many partnerships at Columbia with agencies and within the University. This gave opportunities to students to pursue things that interest them personally and professionally,” she said, adding that the faculty and staff are “a tremendous resource. They serve as students’ primary connection to the work we will do in the future.”
Just as the School has enormous pride in its roots, it has tremendous excitement about the future.
The very best to you,
Jeanette C. Takamura
Dean and Professor