Fall 2024 InDepth Magazine by Smith College School for Social Work

InDepth

InDepth is published by the Smith College School for Social Work. Its goal is to connect our School community, celebrate recent accomplishments and capture the research and scholarship at the School for Social Work.

EDITORIAL TEAM

Laura Noel, Simone Stemper

DESIGN

Lilly Pereira, Maureen Scanlon: Murre Creative

PRINCIPAL PHOTOGRAPHY

Shana Sureck

COVER ILLUSTRATION

Zoe Pappenheimer

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR AND ALUMNI UPDATES CAN BE SENT TO:

CORRECTION

The following obituary was omitted from the Spring edition of InDepth.

John A. Bogardus, M.S.W. ’80

May 8, 2023

Following his B.A. in psychology from Antioch and his M.S.W. from Smith SSW, John provided inpatient and outpatient community mental health services while securing licensing in CA. He then had a lengthy, successful career as a psychotherapist, specializing in control mastery theory in Sonoma and San Francisco. He prized time with family and friends sharing his avid interests in sports, music, and travel always with his warm good humor and wit. He died unexpectedly of a stroke and is survived by his wife, Lourdes, his mother Lela and siblings Steve, Jim and Janet, his daughter Alexis, and granddaughters Saoirse and Kaia.

You Inspire Us

We are excited to share this special edition of InDepth with you, showcasing the remarkable contributions of the 2024 SSW Alumni Award recipients. In this edition we delve into the inspiring journeys of four exceptional alumni whose transformative work embodies our School’s core values of compassion, integrity, and commitment to social justice. These individuals not only excel in the profession but also create lasting impacts on their communities and clients.

Dawn Faucher, Director of Development

Stay connected:

■ Join The Network

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P.S. Save the date for our next Deepening Clinical Practice Conference: August 1, 2025!

The awards recognize alumni at different points in their careers who are making significant contributions to the world of social work. The Day-Garrett Award, established in 1978 and named for Florence Day and Annette Garrett, pays tribute to a distinguished alum whose lifelong dedication and accomplishments have left an indelible mark on the profession of social work. The Change Agent Award celebrates an alum who embodies the spirit of transformation in the profession. The Social Work Leadership Award honors a mid-career alum who has demonstrated exceptional leadership in the social work profession, and the Emerging Leader Award recognizes an alum who has graduated in the past five to ten years, showcasing their remarkable contributions and potential to shape the future of social work.

This past June we celebrated the winners at a special awards dinner with their loved ones and faculty. It was inspiring to celebrate the vital role our alumni play in fostering positive change in the world and to learn more about their achievements. We invite you to explore their stories and join us in celebrating their invaluable contributions to society. As we look ahead to 2025, we hope you will help us identify deserving alumni to spotlight: ssw.smith.edu/awards.

In addition to the awards dinner, our alumni events have been a fantastic way to connect and collaborate. We’ve truly enjoyed working with you to create these experiences. Over the past two years, we’ve rolled out a series of Curriculum Brunches across the country, designed to gather your input and introduce you to our current curriculum. We’ve come together for meals during conferences that many of our Smithies attend, and we’ve hosted engaging virtual events as well.

The upcoming year will offer new opportunities to engage with our vibrant alumni community. We are excited to facilitate connections through a series of volunteer-led events and regional gatherings, including the Connect with Smith events featuring President Sarah Willie-LeBreton happening throughout the year in various cities. These initiatives are chances to connect, strengthen our network, foster collaboration, and continue our collective commitment to the values of social work.

We are here for you, our alumni—to support and celebrate your work; to facilitate connections between you, and to engage with you about what’s happening on campus and around the world.

We hope you enjoy learning more about the award recipients and we invite you to stay connected. ◆

Katie Potocnik Medina, LCSW, Director of Alumni Engagement

YVETTE COLÓN

Blending Social Work and Technology

In sharing formative moments in her life, Yvette Colón, M.S.W. ’90, Ph.D., might say something happened “almost at random,” or by another turn of phrase suggest that it was just thanks to good fortune that things worked out a certain way. But obviously her fellow alums know there’s more to her story. They nominated her to be this year’s recipient of the Day-Garrett Award, which goes to “a distinguished alum,” an “enduring source of inspiration,” in honor of a lifetime of achievement. In fact, both perseverance and great ability underlie Colón’s many accomplishments, which include developing innovative approaches to social work; teaching and mentoring students as a faculty member of Eastern Michigan University School of Social Work; publishing and lecturing widely on pain management, psychosocial oncology, end-oflife care, healthcare disparities and LGBTQ+ issues and serving on nonprofit boards. Her expertise and contributions have been singled out for an American Cancer Society Quality of Life in Cancer Care Award and a Leadership in Oncology Social Work Award from the Association of Oncology Social Work (AOSW), among others, and she was named an AOSW Fellow in 2020.

STORY BY FAYE S. WOLFE

PHOTOS BY SHANA SURECK

daygarrett AWARD

Dean Marianne Yoshioka and Yvette Colón share a moment during the Alumni Awards celebration at Smith this past summer.

Her determination to make her own way is reflected in her multifaceted work in the area of pain management; in educating herself; in exploring the professional use of computers when they were boxy and their screens were small, and the Internet was in its infancy; and today, in being able to say that she is a 42-year cancer survivor.

“When I was 27 years old, I had cancer. In 1982, my treatment was pretty rudimentary— brutal—but I made it through,” Colón said. Afterward, observing a social worker facilitating a cancer support group, she knew what she wanted to do. But first she had to finish her B.A. It took her 15 years altogether, being interrupted by her illness and having to work to support herself. She did her final year at what was then North Adams State College, now Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts.

“I wanted to become an oncology social worker, and I was not in a position to move from Pittsfield. I had never heard of Smith until I came east, but because it was close, I looked at its social work program. When I read about its psychodynamic orientation and clinical focus, I knew it was the program for me. I thought, ‘I’ll just keep applying until they take me’—then I got in the first time! I still remember, it was snowing, and I went out to the front porch to get the mail, and there was the acceptance package. I was thrilled. Three weeks after getting my B.A., I started at Smith.”

“I had lived in very diverse cities,” she noted, “and there were only nine students of color in my cohort in the program. But the rigor of the education, the placement, writing the thesis, all that gave me a solid foundation.”

In 1993, she began working at CancerCare, in New York City, as program coordinator of online services. From her earliest days in social work, Colón has merged her passion for helping cancer patients with a penchant for technology—she’s the quintessential early adopter.

“I got my first computer in 1982. The internet was vastly different then, everything was menubased—you had to know where you were going. I signed up for email from one of the two ISPs back then,” Colón recalled. “It cost twenty-two dollars an hour, so I would log in, download my messages and read them off-line.” In 1992, Colón joined Echo, “a bulletin-board-style virtual community …[and] a star of the early internet,” according to The Atlantic. (Instructions to new members were sent by postal mail.) Colón remembers it as “a good, low-cost way of connecting with people in a meaningful way.” She facilitated her first online psychotherapy group on Echo in 1992.

“ My time at Smith was pivotal, and the degree I earned there has been incredibly important in my life.

I’m honored to be given the Day-Garrett Award. I’m in very fine company.”

—YVETTE COLÓN

She has continued to bring tech and social work together. In the late nineties, she was one of the AOSW members who contributed to the creation of a set of free audiotapes for cancer survivors. In 2001, at CancerCare, she and colleague Amanda Sutton, LCSW created its award-winning Endof-Life Internet Forum. She oversaw a consumerfocused website and online discussion community for the American Pain Foundation in the 2000s. And she is the board chair of The Pain Community, a nonprofit she describes as “100 percent virtual and all-volunteer.” Its online resources include forums and the TPC Pain College—expressive art and music programs. Colón explained, “The programs are self-paced and the videos short because people with pain can’t necessarily sit for a long time.”

“The management of pain has been medication-focused,” she added, “but an integrative philosophy seeks a different avenue, managing

pain through therapeutic interventions and activities—like expressive arts, music, and writing programs—that are pleasurable and meaningful.”

Reflecting on how connecting with patients has changed, Colón recalled that, decades ago, when she worked at Berkshire Medical Center, some patients didn’t even have a telephone. On the other hand, “the things patients need don’t change. Someone who gets a knee replacement needs very different support from someone with multiple sclerosis or cancer. Health systems tend to focus on technical repair, not so much on supporting patients and their families.”

While Colón was an early tech adopter, she was a relative latecomer to academia. In 1998, she began her doctoral studies at New York University, working full-time and attending classes at night, paying her way as she went. She graduated in 2007, and at a conference not long after, someone from Eastern Michigan University (EMU) asked if she’d thought about teaching.

“I had no plans or desire to go into academia, but I said yes. I didn’t expect anything to come of it.” A year later, EMU offered her a part-time teaching position in the School of Social Work; later she became a full professor. “I ended up teaching for 15 years. I absolutely loved it. I loved connecting with students who were enthusiastic about social work, had a commitment to promoting mental health in underserved communities, who were ready to do the work.”

During her tenure, she arranged for several social work students to provide needed mental health services at a local free medical clinic for two years. During the pandemic, she managed virtual internships with The Pain Community for B.S.W. students. Since retiring this year, she has arranged for two EMU students to intern at Amplify Colectivo, the multicultural private practice group she belongs to. “Social work schools,” Colón said, “tend to focus on training students to work in the community, not in private practice. But I believe it’s for them to decide. Private practice is just as legitimate a way to help people and invest in community.”

Colón is a longtime SSW supporter, having filled several roles over the years. Currently she’s on the Alumni Leadership Council. “About five years after graduation, I became a regional representative. Then I served as chair of the Alumni of Color Standing Committee. Now I serve as development rep and chair of the 1918 Fellowship Society. It was a very easy commitment to make. Not everyone is comfortable asking for money, but

I am because I know that many who want to pursue a graduate degree can’t afford to. The School helped me, and I wanted to make it easier for others.”

Colón reminisces,“My time at Smith was pivotal, and the degree I earned there has been incredibly important in my life. I’m honored to be given the Day-Garrett Award. I’m in very fine company.” ◆

The Day-Garrett Award, established in 1978 and named for Florence Day and Annette Garrett, pays tribute to a distinguished alum whose lifelong dedication and accomplishments have left an indelible mark on the profession of social work.

Yvette Colón embraces her father at the Alumni Awards celebration at Smith this past summer.

Trailblazer in Education and Equity

Last summer, Adama Sallu, M.S.W. ’93, Ph.D., was honored for being an alum “who embodies the spirit of transformation in the profession, driving positive change through groundbreaking approaches.” >> Change Agent AWARD

ADAMA SALLU

STORY BY FAYE S. WOLFE / PHOTOS BY SHANA SURECK

“The sheer idea of being nominated”—by her peers, no less—“is humbling,” Sallu said. As someone whose life is very full, she doesn’t spend a lot of time reflecting on her achievements. “I don’t think about my impact,” she said.

In part her modesty stems from her childhood in Sierra Leone, where she was born. “I was raised to serve, to be of service,” she said. And at that time in that country, the message to girls and women especially was “be humble, don’t elevate yourself; put your head down.”

When Sallu’s mother was a child, girls in some parts of Sierra Leone were not permitted to go to school. The reason was, as Sallu has understood it, “Girls ask too many questions.” Her mother was determined that her daughters be educated, as Sallu explains, to “change their trajectory.” Sallu dedicated her doctoral thesis to her mother, Amie Kamara, whose “simple wish for her three daughters was ‘to learn how to read and write.’”

Sallu has done a little bit more than that. From her days as a top student at an academically-rigorous boarding school in Sierra Leone, Sallu has pursued excellence. A dedicated educator, she has educated herself throughout her life while building a career, and raising two children. In addition to her M.S.W. from Smith, she earned another master’s degree from Northern Arizona University

in educational leadership, and a doctorate from the Mary Lou Fulton School of Education of Arizona State University.

Her trajectory has been upward, and she has demonstrated both a commitment to positive social change and an ability to lead, an ability tempered by that early-ingrained sense of humility.

At age 17, she immigrated to the United States to go to college. When she was at SSW, she was president of the student org and voted by her fellow students to deliver the commencement Class “A” address. (Receiving the Change Agent Award is not the first time she has been honored by her peers.) She looks back on the speech she gave then and marvels at her younger self. But the values she espoused then—to service and to the interruption and disruption of systems of inequity at the macro level—still guide her.

Since moving to the Phoenix metro area 21 years ago, she has held several education-related leadership positions, including assistant principal, and assistant director of equity and inclusion. Since 2018, she has been director of equity and inclusion in the Chandler Unified School District (CUSD), one of the fastest growing school districts in Arizona, with more than 40,000 students. She frequently speaks at conferences about closing the achievement gap through cultural pedagogical

Adama Sallu celebrates with her family at the Alumni Awards celebration at Smith this past summer.

practices, and in 2021 she contributed a chapter to the book The Gift of the Universe Through Women That Lead

Sallu has created change in many other ways, like serving on the Arizona Department of Education Equitable and Inclusive Practices Advisory Council as well as on the advisory board of the Arizona Teacher Residency. The latter is an organization whose mission is to recruit, educate, and support a more diverse range of teachers. According to its website, “over 75 percent of teachers in Arizona are white—while more than half the students are people of color.”

In recognition of her efforts, she received the Martin Luther King, Jr. Education Award from the City of Tempe, Arizona, in 2016, and in 2022, a Martin Luther King, Jr.: Keeping the Dream Alive Award from the city of Chandler as well as the 2022 United States Congressional Award for Service.

Fighting for change has not always been easy. MSNBC once described Arizona’s state superintendent of public instruction, Tom Horne, as “America’s worst state education official.” He has sued school districts to eliminate dual-language programs; his 2022 campaign literature featured his opposition to critical race theory and “ethnic studies.” A 2021 Education Week article, “Suburban Public Schools Becoming Majority-Nonwhite. The Backlash Has Already Begun,” described some of the tensions that the CUSD in particular has experienced. There, as in many school districts around the U.S., debates about what should be taught have become more heated—and more politicized—in recent years. Sallu was hired after several disturbing events in Chandler, including some junior high students posting on Snapchat a racist video they made at home. Her charge, according to a local news article about her appointment, was to ensure that “all children coming to Chandler schools have access to an equitable and inclusive learning environment where they’re valued and excellence is demanded.”

That seems a praiseworthy goal, even a given for a school district, but since taking the job, Sallu has seen more than her share of contentious school board meetings, angry emails, and parents accusing her of wanting to make their children gay or to give children of color resources at the expense of white children. Some parents objected to teaching kids about the Harlem Renaissance. “I fear sometimes,” she said, “that in 30 years we will have a generation of adults who know nothing about American history.”

The Change Agent Award celebrates an alum who embodies the spirit of transformation in the profession.

“ SS W gave me a vocabulary and theoretical framework to explore and unpack social systems.”

—ADAMA SALLU

Sallu is not about to let that happen if she can help it. In confrontational moments, Sallu draws on her empathy, courage, and belief in basic humanity—and her SSW training. “I let them talk, I don’t react, I try to hold a space, to honor their story. It comes automatically to me.” She credits SSW for giving her those skills. “SSW gave me a vocabulary and theoretical framework to explore and unpack social systems.”

Since 2017, Sallu has been teaching Arizona State University social work courses. “I enjoy promoting our profession to young people. It brings me joy,” she said. She sees herself on a continuum, bringing along the next generation of social workers by sharing what she has learned.

Travel also brings her joy. Sallu can reel off a list as long as your arm of countries she has visited, including Norway, Sweden, Hungary, Argentina, Poland, Vienna, Estonia, Finland, Portugal and Mexico. She’s looking forward to spending Christmas in Uganda. Besides enjoying meeting new people and learning about new places, she also likes to travel for a more unusual reason: “Because you have to be humble, vulnerable, and rely on others.” ◆

MIKE LANGLOIS

Redefining Leadership

Mike Langlois, M.S.W. ’94, this year’s recipient of the Social Work Leadership Award shared why fellow alums might think he’s a leader:

“Though I do not experience myself as a leader much of the time, I frequently display the attributes of leadership which I call the three ‘I’s— irritable, irritating and impulsive…. To be irritated at the world as it is, is the beginning of the desire to change it. And when we begin to change the world, we irritate the status quo, the powers that be…. Which brings us to impulsive, a trait which has a bad rep in the mental health field. Leaders take risks, speak up, lean into things when forethought might have urged caution to avoid the displeasure of others.”

This is typical Langlois, approaching a subject from a fresh angle, turning conventional wisdom on its head, and using the element of surprise to make a cogent point. His self-defined leadership qualities and his way of seeing earned him the award, given to a “distinguished mid-career SSW alum.” That, and the credo he follows: “When you find yourself complaining about something, do something.”

As a psychotherapist, writer, teacher, severalyear member of the Massachusetts Commission on LGBTQ Youth, and frequent speaker at conferences and academic institutions, Langlois has often turned his attention to contemporary technology and how the social work profession and society in general relate to it. He has advocated for digital literacy within and beyond his profession, for examining technology, and gaming in particular, with an open mind. And over the years he has used emerging forms of technology and social media—video games, blog posts, online therapy platforms, Zoom, YouTube, podcasts, X, Instagram, TikTok, Twitch—to

connect, to get his message out and to critique unexamined assumptions.

Take, for example, his 2013 video conversation with Nancy J. Smyth, LCSW, Ph.D., available on YouTube. At that time, Smyth was the Dean of the University at Buffalo School of Social Work—she and Langlois met via Twitter—and the topic was “Social Work Is Changing: Integrating Social Media and Technology into Practice.”

In the course of their lively dialogue, Langlois’s ideas came fast and furious. Ideas about “learning how to integrate these huge, powerful, new technologies into our lives.” About how “the ability to make and use technology is part of what makes us human.” How technology is “inherently social,” can “amplify our ideas,” “collapse space and time,” and provide “windows in to people’s unconscious”—and how therapists ignore it at their peril.

Their discussion led to Langlois producing a podcast for UB’s School of Social Work, “GamerAffirmative Practice: Today’s Play Therapy,” and teaching a course, “Raising Our Technology IQ to Enhance Clinical Social Work Practice” at UB and later at Boston College. In other YouTube videos, he has explored the subject of race and social media, gaming addiction, and a question posed by one of his students, should social workers post videos of themselves? His answer, a qualified yes: It can be beneficial if done with caution. “Technology amplifies kindness and cruelty,” he noted.

Langlois has also built community via online discussions and workshops. In 2023, when the American Psychoanalytic Association’s Holmes Commission released its report “Racial Equality in American Psychoanalysis,” he was concerned that it wasn’t getting the attention it deserved

STORY BY FAYE S. WOLFE / PHOTOS BY JOSHUA B. GRAY

social

work leadership AWARD

and organized a 12-week series of online discussions. A year later, a core group of members still meet.

When the pandemic made in-person therapy impossible, Langlois, who had been offering online therapy for years, held free how-to workshops for therapists new to and possibly intimidated by the prospect. Langlois speaks wryly of how some technophobic colleagues scorned the very idea of virtual sessions—until there was no other way. Too many social workers, he believes, have made excuses to avoid using technology because deep down they’re afraid to make mistakes and take risks.

Similarly, Langlois has long challenged dismissive attitudes about gaming. Langlois loves gaming. He’s written a book about it, Reset: Video Games & Psychotherapy, and articles, and given numerous presentations on gaming and mental health. It all started in his earliest days as a social worker. He recalled how it disturbed him to hear people say kids who spent hours on a computer were “on the spectrum,” without knowing anything about gaming—or autism.

“It seemed to be about kids not fitting some heteronormative stereotypes. Somehow, making connections via technology was lesser, deviant. Hearing about kids spending hours playing video

games, I’d say, ‘I don’t care about how many hours they’re playing, if they’re competent, doing their homework, have friends.’” Adults’ concerns, he believed, often were rooted in prevailing notions of success: high grades, going to the right college, having the right career—productivity, always at the expense of play.

He sees parallels with the current fears about artificial intelligence. People worry about AI taking away jobs, but in Langlois’s view, that perspective’s too narrow. We need to go beyond trying to ensure people have jobs to survive, to making life for everyone less laborious. Historically, technology has advanced society, democratized it, and disrupted class structures for the better, he argues, and we all need to understand it, use it, shape it. “Change the logarithms to reflect all people, not just white males,” he said, and think more broadly about how AI can be of value to society.

Receiving his award has got Langlois thinking about what a “mid-career” designation means. (Being in his fifties, he said wryly, he found it “touching” to be so described.) “Mid-career, you’re a more mature self. It’s not so much about proving yourself as about creating opportunities for others, continuing the tradition of lifting up,” he said.

“ Mi d-career, you’re a more mature self. It’s not so much about proving yourself as about creating opportunities for others.”

—MIKE L ANGLOIS

“When I was an intern,” he recalled, “I asked my supervisor what I should do when a patient didn’t show up, and she said, ‘Read an article.’ In other words, it was okay to use one’s time creatively.” These days, as a teaching associate in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School supervising interns and clinicians, he said, “I tell my trainees, ‘Find time to rebel a bit.’”

Growing up in a working-class Massachusetts town, Langlois had only a vague notion of social work: “If you did something wrong, a social worker would show up.” He read Freud in high school but found college psychology courses too focused on behavioral approaches rather than psychodynamic theory, and majored instead in philosophy and English. Pursuing advanced degrees in psychology was beyond his means, but social work seemed an option. Poring over the Smith College School of Social Work catalog, he was excited to see “so many psychodynamic courses,” he said, but what sold him was “a photograph of a social worker talking to a kid. She looked so thoughtful, and he looked so engaged.”

“I’ve never regretted my SSW experience,” he said. “There were class differences, but as a community, people were trying to engage, to include, and I had a feeling of belonging by the end. Going to SSW was transformative.” ◆

The Social Work Leadership Award honors a mid-career alum who has demonstrated exceptional leadership in the social work profession.

Bridging Innovation and Personal Passion

emerging leader AWARD

Receiving the 2024 Emerging Leader Award, says Helen Chao, M.S.W. ’19, feels like confirmation of what brought her to Smith in the first place. “I chose social work as a way to serve,” she said, “and I believe that the best way to serve is to lead.” >>

HELEN CHAO

“I feel honored to have been chosen,” she added. “There’s a little bit of an ‘impostor syndrome’ feeling I have about it, but I’m grateful and I’m glad that my hard work is being recognized.”

Since graduating from Smith, Chao has certainly worked hard. Her first job was at LifeLong Medical Care, a Bay Area nonprofit started in 1976 by a group of Gray Panthers. Chao describes being “a street medicine clinical social worker” this way on her LinkedIn page: “Jumped out of vans with a nurse providing behavioral health and case management services to unsheltered individuals in East Oakland.”

She went on to work as a psychotherapist at a Kaiser Permanente mental health center in Oakland for two and a half years, during which time, 2,000 mental health clinicians at the HMO’s Northern California facilities went on strike for more manageable workloads, reduced patient wait times, improved staffing and better wages. Chao was all in with the effort, spreading the word by teaching, leading and uploading TikTok dances, which went viral and garnered hundreds of thousands of views. (At 172 days, it was the longest strike by behavioral healthcare workers in U.S. history and won significant concessions from Kaiser, the largest private HMO in the country.)

Last year she started up her own private practice and, in March, joined Mind Therapy Clinic, in Larkspur, California, just north of San Francisco. The small group practice provides intensive outpatient services in person and online.

be unwilling or unable to accept what is keeping them from changing their lives, or in an environment that makes that difficult.”

Chao was drawn to DBT because, she said, “I’m a logic-oriented, logic-based person, but I was also raised in an East Asian household, as a Buddhist.” A patient going through the DBT process works to recognize and reconcile opposing and contradictory elements of one’s personality and both to accept the complexity, the messiness of one’s inner life—and the world—and the need for change. In developing DBT, Linehan incorporated the Buddhist idea of radical acceptance as an essential concept. (Linehan is now a Zen Roshi, or “senior teacher.”)

“CBT is change-based, DBT is acceptanceoriented,” Chao said. “Both change and acceptance are true, and both are needed.” DBT is serious work, but Chao mentions that, like Zen Buddhism, it also uses “irreverent humor” to disrupt ways of thinking and engage someone’s attention.

Chao provides Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) services in the clinic. “I started doing DBT in 2020, and I’ve been training ever since,” she noted. “It’s my primary modality.” Her approach is grounded in the psychodynamic theory she studied at SSW and informed by relational group work and liberation psychology.

“The majority of the patients I see are suffering from severe mental health issues, manifesting severe behaviors, including self-harm,” said Chao. Created by Marsha Linehan, Ph.D. in the 1980s, DBT has become the leading treatment for many complex disorders, including borderline personality disorder and post traumatic stress disorder. There are stages of treatment; Chao works primarily with people at Stage 1.

“It’s putting out fires, reducing behavioral or emotional dysregulation that is keeping someone from life,” she said. “The people I see are miserable, their lives must change, but they may

Having grown up in the Silicon Valley and currently living in the Bay Area, Chao is very engaged by the topic of artificial intelligence. “I’m close to a number of people in the field, people who are invited to speak at AI conferences. It’s in the water I’m drinking.” While she herself is not using it professionally, she’s aware that it’s making rapid inroads in how mental health care is provided. So last March, Chao offered to give a workshop, “AI x Mental Health,” at the annual meeting of the American Group Psychotherapy Association. Chao, a Group Foundation board member, saw that “many of her amazing, inspiring colleagues were curious, possibly fearful, of AI and how it might affect their practices and their lives.”

The workshop was set up as a mock group therapy session that an AI program could “hear” via Zoom. “The session’s participants,” said Chao, “were floored by the accuracy and perceptions of the AI program’s report,” which provided a summary of the session, analyzed its emotional content, suggested possible interventions, and proposed an agenda for follow-up.

“There were multiple reactions, including curiosity, excitement, and legitimate concern. People had questions about how using AI would relate to informed consent, who would have access to the data generated, how the voice recording might be misused. But there was also a decrease in their fearfulness,” said Chao. She herself believes AI can be a force for good but also wonders how

it might change the therapeutic experience. “We experience therapeutic transformation in our bodies—a tightening in the chest, for instance— and the therapist responds to those accompanying physiological signs. It’s the dynamics of a session, the flesh-and-blood element. How does AI capture that?”

As a dancer since childhood, Chao has a highly developed sense of dynamics, of the flesh-andblood elements of interactions. She started ballet classes at age 8; as an undergraduate at Carnegie Mellon University, she was on the CMU Ballroom Dance Team. A big part of her life is teaching, performing, and choreographing dance, as well as participating in dance competitions. She is an accomplished West Coast Swing dancer and more recently has been studying the art of Brazilian zouk. In videos of her performing in both genres, she moves gracefully, sensually, with dazzling precision and fully in step with her partner, in tight, fast-moving routines. She’s clearly enjoying herself, and there’s even a dash of that irreverent humor in her performances.

Her dedication to dance reflects a larger belief in the importance of striking a balance between one’s professional and private lives—maybe another way in which she is an emerging leader. “I’m not interested in throwing my whole life into my career, spending 80 hours a week doing one thing,” she said. “I really hope I can do multiple things, travel, be with family, train and compete.” She seems to be succeeding. Last year, Chao traveled to Jordan, and previously she has been to Taiwan, Iceland and Namibia, among other destinations. Her participation in competitions and other dance-related events takes her around the country and abroad.

For Chao, there’s a sort of dialectical relationship between dance and therapeutic work: one being physical and embodied, the other primarily observational, intellectual. There is contrast, but also cross-over. “Like therapy,” Chao said, “dance is part science, part art.”

And another pair of opposites, Chao points out, which are complementary, not contradictory: “Therapy is just for you; dance is just for me. I shift between thinking this, and being acutely aware that, in the end, both therapy and dance are for us.” ◆

Emerging Leader Award recognizes an alum who has graduated in the past five to ten years, showcasing their remarkable contributions and potential to shape the future of social work.

“ We experience th erapeutic transformation in our bodies—a tightening in the chest, for instance—and the therapist responds to those accompanying physiological signs. It’s the dynamics of a session, the flesh-andblood element. How does AI capture that?”

—HELEN CHA O

Facing page: Helen Chao and friends enjoying the Alumni Awards celebration at Smith this past summer.

“ Th ere is an old saying, ‘a smooth sea never made a skilled sailor.’ I have come to appreciate the gifts borne from the force and unpredictability of storms, and the waters of Smith have honed my ability to sail through the complexities of this work.”

RIAN BODNER, NA SW STUDENT OF THE YEAR 2024

The National Association of Social Work (NASW) Student of the Year Award is given by faculty to a student who has shown exceptional professional and academic commitment and dedication to social work values.

BRITTANY BRATHWAITE

Championing Accessibility

Brittany Brathwaite, M.S.W., M.Ph. candidate, and adjunct assistant professor, received the second annual Laura Rauscher Memorial Teaching Award.

Established in 2023 in honor of the late Laura Rauscher, the award is given annually to a faculty member who shows dedication to universal access and social justice in the classroom along with collaboration and collegiality.

Lisa Page, accommodations coordinator for the Smith College Accessibility Resource Center (formerly known as the Office of Disability Services), extended deep appreciation for Brathwaite’s commitment to “creating a safe, inclusive and accessible learning environment that celebrates students of all bodies and minds.”

Page said that according to Brathwaite’s students, universal design and accessibility is inherent in her pedagogy and classroom space, which is foundational to social justice.

“I had the honor and the privilege of working with Laura Rauscher for over ten years, and [Brathwaite is] truly continuing [Laura’s] crucial work with [her] dedication to these tenets, and for that we are so grateful,” said Page.

Brathwaite has made a deep impact on students and the wider SSW community with her warmth and energy. Students shared that Brathwaite embodies these values not only in her teaching but in all of her actions.

Said one student, “Professor B’s teaching exemplifies the values of accessibility,

The Laura Rauscher Memorial Teaching Award. Established in 2023 in honor of the late Laura Rauscher, the award is given annually to a faculty member who shows dedication to universal access and social justice in the classroom along with collaboration and collegiality.

intersectionality, social justice and a commitment to collaboration and collegiality on a day-to-day level. I can think of no other professor I have that so perfectly fits this description so authentically.”

Another student wrote, “I appreciated and deeply respect Professor B’s intentional and purposeful pedagogical choices—engaging different learning modalities, inclusive language and learning materials, small group and whole group discussions, and queries to hone critical thinking skills. Lastly, watching Professor B interact with her colleagues is inspiring, as she models collaboration and authenticity.”

Laura Rauscher was the director of the Accessibility Resource Center at Smith for over twenty years, a longtime SSW adjunct and friend of the School. A disabilities rights activist involved in developing the policy framework that became the Americans with Disabilities Act, Rauscher brought a sense of hope, and unwavering commitment to universal access grounded in an understanding of the intersectionality of systems of oppression.

Brathwaite’s influence at SSW goes well beyond the classroom. In a congratulatory video for her, Professor JaLisa Willams said, “I really thank you for sharing your gifts, your love and your care. I get to brag a little bit because you are a part of the [SSW] policy team. I’m just so grateful to have you working here. Your energy, your knowledge and your skills are so so so necessary for this work.” ◆

2024

SUMMER TERM

One for the Books

We learned. We conversed. We pondered. And from the Spirit Week kickoff BBQ to Juneteenth events, to the summer solstice, we celebrated togetherness.

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CHANGE SERVICE REQUESTED

Embrace the joy that lands on our doorsteps and seize the wonder in our lives—not ignoring the pain and suffering around us, but—divining the magnetic center of our own compass in order that we may help others find theirs.

— Sarah Willie-LeBreton, President of Smith College, at Smith College School for Social Work 2024 Commencement