Message from the Dean
If it’s true that “March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb,” this year is no exception. Here in Philadelphia we are patiently enduring the last few weeks of winter in hopes of an early spring.
Traditionally, spring is a time of rejuvenation and renewal. There is a mounting air of excitement at the School of School of Social Policy & Practice, due to the success of our recently completed, second-year class gift campaign (see feature article) and the newly announced Master of Social Policy degree, offered starting in September 2007 (See School News section of this newsletter or visit www.sp2.upenn.edu/programs/mssp).
On another note, many of you may not know that from 2008-2010, we will celebrate our School’s Centennial and one hundred years of Social Work Education (The first classes began in 1908, but the School was officially established in 1910). Another little known fact is that March is “Women’s History Month.” As our country acknowledges its historical sheroes, it is only fitting that we recognize two of our very own – women who have significantly contributed to the history of both social work and our School.
Virginia Robinson along with Jessie Taft pioneered the Functional Approach to social work practice, the cornerstone of our School’s social work education and flagship MSW degree. Please join me in saluting these remarkable educators, without whom the School would not be what it is today.
As we build upon the positive foundation established by Robinson and Taft, by adding new initiatives and degree programs, the future of our School looks bright. As key stakeholders in this future, I hope that you will embark with us on the incredible journey ahead.
Richard J. Gelles
Dean
Feature
A Commitment to the Future:
The 2006 Class Gift Campaign
At the Class Gift closing party on Friday, February 10, the School’s graduating class certainly had something to celebrate. They had just ended their four-week Graduating Class Gift Campaign, and raised $14,014 to support the renovation of Classroom A-8 in the Caster Building. Even more impressive, an astounding 94.2% of the graduating class participated in the campaign. This is only the second class gift campaign in the history of the School; the tradition began last year when the 2005 Graduating Class Gift raised $12,391 with 92% of the class participating, and supported the renovation of Classroom A-14.
[read more about the 2006 Class Gift Campaign]
Alumni in the Field
Jodi Bergstein Rabinowitz, MSW’88
Vice President for Learning and Development at ABN-AMRO – the world’s largest foreign bank – is not a title that usually gets associated with social work. But Jodi Bergstein Rabinowitz, MSW’88, the Penn graduate who currently holds that position, is most certainly a social worker, and her journey to that position was built on her social work skills.
[read more about Jodi Bergstein Rabinowitz]
School News
The School of Social Policy & Practice is a vibrant community on Penn’s campus. On a daily basis, our faculty, staff, students, and alumni engage in research, discussions, social activities, mentoring, and professional development. Below are some of the most recent pieces of news from the SP² community.
New MS in Social Policy Degree Program Approved
In September 2006, the School of Social Policy & Practice will admit its first class for the new Masters of Science in Social Policy degree program. Although the program was finalized only a few months ago, it has been in the planning stages for several years. The idea for such a program grew out of Dr. Richard Estes’ extensive professional interests in International Development. Recognizing that International Development was too specific a field for a degree program within SP², he sought to create an overarching program that could accommodate many interests. As the chair of the planning committee, Dr. Estes researched comparative programs in the United States and other countries. The MS in Social Policy, which provides a foundation for policy while offering the opportunity for specialization, was the solution.
[read more about the MS in Social Policy Program]
Out-of-School Time Resource Center
Assesses Professional Development
Funded primarily by a grant from the William Penn Foundation, the Out-of-School Time Resource Center (OSTRC) is housed in the Center for Research on Youth and Social Policy (CRYSP), one of SP²’s research centers. The OSTRC promotes out-of-school time (OST) student achievement by conducting research on and providing access to staff resources and professional development.
[read more about the OSTRC]
The Field Center’s
Successful Breakfast Meeting Series Continues
The Field Center for Children’s Policy, Practice & Research, an interdisciplinary program of Penn’s School of Social Policy & Practice, Law and Medicine and the Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania, held it’s most recent Breakfast Meeting on February 21, 2006. Howard C. Stevenson, PhD, Director of the School, Community, and Clinical Child Psychology Program, Psychology in Education Division of Penn’s Graduate School of Education, presented on Playing with Anger: Making Meaning of Aggression and Bonding with African American Boys.
[read more about the Field Center Breakfast Meeting Series]
Faculty Notes
Our full- and part-time faculty are leaders in research and practice. They are experts in fields such as gerontology, child welfare, family violence, international social work, homelessness, mental health and health. This section of our newsletter will keep you up to date on the most recent research accomplishments of the School of Social Policy & Practice faculty.
Dennis Culhane, Ph.D., was selected by Esquire magazine as one of the “Best & Brightest in 2005”. Dr. Culhane appeared in the December issue of the magazine, in a profile that highlighted his groundbreaking research on homelessness. The “Best and Brightest” list, published annually by Esquire, features leaders in society, business, science, and culture.
Damon Freeman, J.D., Ph.D., received a unanimous vote for a secondary appointment in the University of Pennsylvania Department of History. He continues to revise his manuscript on the life of African American psychologist and civil rights activist Kenneth Clark into a biography. He has also been invited to give presentations on various aspects of Clark’s thought and work at the Middle Atlantic American Studies Association Annual Conference in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in March; the “Naming Race/Naming Racism” Symposium organized by the Scholars of Critical Race Studies at the University of Memphis in April; and the Policy History Conference organized by the Journal of Policy
History at the University of Virginia in June.
Roberta Iversen, Ph.D., presented a paper entitled "Does 'Place' Matter to the Economic Mobility of Low-Income Families?" at the Annual Meeting of the Eastern Sociological Society in Boston, MA, Feb. 26, 2006. She will give an invited presentation at the Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago on March 31, 2006. Her talk is entitled "Children’s Schools, Parents’ Work and Policy: Alignment and Misalignment."
Lara Krawchuk, MSW, LSW, MPH, spoke at the NASW Pennsylvania Chapter conference in March, 2006. She presented the topic When Helping Hurts: Understanding Compassion Fatigue & Preventing Burnout.
Andrew Lamas, J.D., is the author of "Race, Poverty, and Shared Ownership," in
Chester Hartman, ed., Poverty and Race in America: The Emerging Agendas
(Lexington Books, 2006). He is also presently serving on the Board of
Directors of the Bread & Roses Community Fund, which distributes grants ($9
million since 1971) to local organizations working on issues of social,
economic, environmental, and racial justice. Professor Lamas is a part-time
lecturer at the School of Social Policy & Practice, and his primary appointment
is through the Urban Studies Program in the School of Arts and Sciences.
Roberta Sands, Ph.D., was mentioned in the “Health Matters” column of The Wall Street Journal, December 12, 2005 regarding her research on grandparents who raise their grandchildren. The reporter had learned about Sands’ research from an article Sands wrote with Robin Goldberg-Glen and Pamela Thornton, “Factors associated with the positive well-being of grandparents caring for their grandchildren,” which recently appeared in the Journal of Gerontological Social Work.
Roberta Sands gave several presentations at the Annual Conference of the Society for Social Work and Research in January 2006 in San Antonio, Texas. She presented “Incorporating analyses of critical incidents in research on diversity training” and “The use of participant logs in assessing the development of intercultural sensitivity in diversity training” together with Joretha Bourjolly. These presentations were in tandem with papers given by Phyllis Solomon and Victoria Stanhope in the symposium, “Evaluation Research of Diversity Training for Behavioral Health Professionals.” In addition, Roberta Sands collaborated with Irene Wong and Phyllis Solomon in the paper, “Beyond neighborhood: A mixed-method approach for understanding community integration” in the symposium, “New Directions in Homelessness Research: Innovative Methods and Findings,” at the same conference.
Roberta Sands gave the paper, “Religiosity and spirituality among American Jews: A look at the National Jewish Population Survey 2000-2001” at the 37th annual conference of the Association for Jewish Studies, Washington, DC. Steve Marcus and Rivka Danzig were co-authors of this paper.
Carol Wilson Spigner, DSW, was quoted in the February 20 Houston Chronicle article “Missing out on help they may need”, about the disproportionately low number of Hispanic children in the child welfare system in Texas.
[Read the full article]
Mark Stern, Ph.D., and Michael B. Katz, a University of Pennsylvania history professor, have published a new book, One Nation Divisible: What America Was and What It Is Becoming. The book examines how, despite the vast changes that have occurred in the American lifestyle during the twentieth century, economic, social, and racial inequalities persist. One Nation Divisible is published by Russell Sage, and was released in February, 2006. For a full description of the book, please click here.
Alumni in the News
Jack Lewis, MSW’81, is director of Diversity and Community Outreach at Penn’s School of Medicine and works to “help increase diversity at all levels.” To read the full profile in the University of Pennsylvania Health System System News, click here.
Future Leaders
Stephanie N. Pelz
Summer 2005 Finland Exchange Program
During my first year in the MSW program at Penn, I discovered that one of my areas of interest within the field of social work is that of comparative social welfare policy and its impact on social and community development. It was at about this time that Richard Estes, PhD., outreached to students that may be curious about study abroad opportunities at Penn. I attended the initial meeting to simply gather information about the possibilities, and ended up becoming more motivated than I expected to explore how I could fit this experience into my academic program!
[read more about Stephanie N. Pelz's experience in Finland]
Upcoming Events
Alumni Weekend:
Friday, May 12 – Sunday, May 14, 2006
Welcome back! Penn SP² and the University of Pennsylvania have planned an exciting Alumni Weekend and Reunion! Whether it has been five years or fifty years since you graduated, we hope you will join us for this important weekend. With a full schedule of events, there’s something for everyone:
Friday, May 12
8:30am-12:30pm: The Impact of Social Work Through the Decades
2:00pm-3:30pm: Improving Young Lives (Welcome by President Gutmann)
5:30-7pm: Reunion Reception at the Union League of Philadelphia (for the Classes of 1941, 1946, 1951, 1956, 1961, 1966, 1971, 1976, 1981, 1986, 1991, 1996, 2001)
Saturday, May 13
Noon – 4pm: Alumni Weekend Picnic and Parade
In addition, there are many University events that are open to all alumni.
[click here for Alumni Weekend Details and Registration]
Continuing Education:
There is still time to register for the following Continuing Education Seminars. For more information on each session, or to register, please visit our continuing education site.
March 22 – 23: The Current Understanding of Addictive Diseases
March 24: Using Mindfulness Meditation to do Psychological Work
Editor's Note
We are always seeking to better serve our alumni and offer a more convenient way to share news with the Social Policy & Practice community. The Sociolog Online offers a way to highlight happenings and information in a timely manner. It acts as a supplement to the printed Sociolog, which will still be mailed to you every September. We welcome your feedback and suggestions about the Sociolog and Sociolog Online. Please email Alumni Relations with questions, comments, feedback, and suggestions.
The Sociolog Online is created using Cascading Style Sheets according to W3C web standards for compliance and accessibility. It is accessible for Braille, aural, and handheld readers, and the layout is fully resizable through your Internet browser preferences. For your convenience when printing, all images will be omitted and the text will be set to a 12 point Arial font. Please contact Lizza Robb with any questions or suggestions.
Emily M. Brueckner, MSW’05
Editor, Sociolog and Sociolog Online