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Uncovering History
Recruiting Change Agents Smith’s campus sustainability initiative taps SSW students for input and inspiration When considering campus sustainability, and which students might be most invested in stopping climate change, one would likely approach those majoring in biology, engineering, geology or meteorology. But Dano Weisbord, director of campus sustainability at Smith College, wanted to receive input from a less-likely group of students. “Several members of the Study Group on Climate Change, myself included, met with SSW students last summer and asked them what connections they saw between climate change and their work,” Weisbord said. “The SSW students had remarkable observations about both their clients and how the spectre of climate change affects everyone. One student talked about her work with people in the fishing industry,” he said. “The student commented ‘They don’t use the term climate change, but they talk about it in terms of the pressures on natural resources and how that impacts their income and increased utility costs.’” Weisbord described how other SSW students “talked about ways to help
people process their anxieties around climate change and how SSW might be able to work with undergraduates in this regard.” Smith’s strategic plan outlines its commitment to addressing what it calls “Complex and Urgent Problems.” The challenges today are … seemingly intractable. They include global climate change; education access; the status of women; infectious diseases; and the path toward racial inclusion, diversity and equity. This plan recommits Smith to using its campus as a classroom, modeling ideas in its curriculum, co-curricular options and campus operations to address these and other emerging high-stakes challenges that often lie at the heart of global inequities. Weisbord adds, “Smith, as a small institution with a global perspective, is very well positioned to carry out this joined-up notion of applying innovation in our operations and using the process and outcome as learning opportunities for students.” As for the School for Social Work, he thinks last summer’s conversations were precursors to more
Social workers’ roles in the Japanese-American internment When Yoosun Park stumbled onto information about social workers’ involvement in the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, she didn’t expect to become the leading expert on the subject. She assumed there must be plenty of writings about the complicity of social work in the internment. There weren’t. This led Park to spend more than 15 years culling information from primary sources. The result is her upcoming book, Facilitating Injustice: Tracing the Role of Social Work in the World War II Incarceration of Japanese Americans (1941–1946). The first substantial glimpse into her research came in 2008, with the publication of her article on the topic in the Social Service Review. It revealed that social workers interviewed families, recommended placement, decided whether interned individuals could leave to further their education or join the military and provided an array of services through social work units in the camps. The lack of secondary sources makes the research intimidating. “It’s scary, because when there are no published resources to check your conclusions, you could be getting it completely wrong,” Park said. To be sure she was correct, Park exercised due diligence in her research, seeking out additional primary sources to confirm her findings. Even when looking at primary sources, the realities of the past can be hard to believe, especially when they have been covered up for decades. “Sometimes, I’ll read a primary source document and think ‘they must have made a mistake, that must be a typo,’” Park said. “It might take weeks to check to make sure that it’s a mistake. That information will never make it into anything I write because, if I am right, it was incorrect information.” As someone deeply committed to anti-racist social work, Park knows it can be hard to understand how social workers could be active participants in the oppression of a group of people. “On the one hand, you could say ‘If social workers didn’t do it, someone else would have, and they might not have done it as kindly and efficiently,’” said Park. “But one can’t help but wonder what the effects might have been if all of social work had said ‘No, we will not participate and support this injustice.’” Park’s new book, based on research funded in part by the Lois and Samuel Silberman Fund and the Brown Family Foundation, provides a deep exploration of the apparent contradictions of the roles that social workers played in the internment. It will be published by Oxford University Press in the near future. —Tynan Power
The SSW students had remarkable observations about both their clients and how the spectre of climate change affects everyone. —DANO WEISBORD
collaboration. “I would love to see more crossover among SSW, SSW students and Smith’s sustainability efforts,” he said. “The conversations last summer were just the start and offered a ton of potential suggestions. I’m especially drawn to the idea of applying SSW know-how to support undergraduates as emerging change agents.” —Dane Kuttler
SAV E TH E D ATE Return to campus to celebrate the lives changed throughout SSW’s first century and those that will be enlivened during its second.
Smith College School for Social Work
CENTENNIAL C E L E B R AT I O N
June 29-July 1, 2018 @ SMITH COLLEGE
HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE: Alumni Networking SSW Documentary Premiere Inaugural Bertha Capen Reynold Society & Grécourt Society Reception President’s Reception Ph.D. & M.S.W. Milestone Class Receptions Lectures Campus Tours BBQ Dinner Dance through the Decades
Want to share your pride in SSW? Please see page 32 to learn how.
See story on page 16.
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