An Experience-based Tenure

/ SSWorks /

An Experience-based Tenure

BY MEGAN RUBINER ZINN

James Drisko is retiring from a prolific career as practitioner, clinician, educator and writer

[ ON RETIRING ]

Over the course of his career, James Drisko received many accolades: he was elected to the National Academy of Practice in Social Work, named an inaugural Fellow of the Society for Social Work and Research and honored by Massachusetts NASW with their “Greatest Contribution to Social Work Education” award.

Although disparate in their subjects, taken together these recognitions beautifully illustrate the well-honed combination of roles—practitioner, researcher and educator—that made Drisko such an asset to the School for Social Work.

As the child of social workers, Drisko quips, his connection to the field is genetic, but his environment also prepared him for his career. He grew up in the diverse community of Yonkers, New York, but spent several weeks a year in his father’s homogeneous hometown of Columbia Falls, Maine. As Drisko observed, “Cultural and class differences were obvious to me early on.”

Drisko’s perspectives were also shaped by his experience as a Vietnam War conscientious objector, when, for his alternative service, he spent three years providing childcare in a racially diverse residential treatment center in Albany, New York. Inspired by this work, Drisko earned his M.S.W. at SSW and went on to work in public community mental health before completing a Ph.D. at Boston College. Drisko returned to SSW in 1984 as an adjunct M.S.W. thesis advisor and joined the resident faculty in 1989.

In Drisko’s view, his tenure at SSW was very much a continuation of his education. He learned a great deal about teaching, research, theory and writing from his fellow faculty members, while his students helped orient him “with their self-reflection, critical questioning and investment in learning.”

In turn, Drisko’s pedagogy and leadership also shaped the School. He primarily taught practice and research courses as well as child development and child treatment, served for 12 years as M.S.W. Research Sequence chair and was a faculty field advisor for the Denver-Boulder area for nearly 20 years. He was also the first faculty member to do both Ph.D. field and research advising, and he participated in the development of the School’s anti-racism commitment. In 2001, then Professor Joyce Everett, (now Professor Emeritus), and Drisko obtained the largest external grant in the School’s history to study the implementation of Casey Family Services’ Family Unification Programs.

Drisko poses with the sea level sign in Rocky Mountain National Park. Drisko was an FFA to students in the Denver-Boulder area for 20 years.

Carol Brill, NASW-MA executive director, Drisko and Marianne Yoshioka, SSW dean, at the Women’s March in 2016.

James Drisko represented CSWE and NASW at the White House Social Work Conference in 2013.

Drisko contributed extensively to the broader field of social work education. Known for his clear writing style and ability to communicate complex ideas, Drisko published widely on research methods, clinical practice and social work education, among other subjects. He also developed expertise in qualitative research and taught over 1,000 people in workshops on the subject. Throughout, he’s continued to practice as a clinician and provide supervision to M.S.W. licensure candidates.

Drisko is deeply appreciative of the role that SSW has played in his career. “It has been an honor to teach at Smith and to be part of this wonderful, vibrant learning and teaching community.” After his retirement in June 2021, Drisko plans to remain connected to the college and the field, continuing to learn and write, and to see his current Ph.D. students through their dissertations. ◆

SUMMER 2021 / 13 /