Donor Spotlight

The Philip L. Smith Memorial Award in Macro Social Work

The School of Social Work is deeply grateful to Sharon Smith for establishing the Philip L. Smith Memorial Award in Macro Social Work to honor her late husband.

by Sharon Smith

Philip Leonidas Smith was born in Atlanta, Georgia on October 8, 1943 to E. Leonidas Smith and Elizabeth Huddleston Smith.

He grew up in Chattanooga and graduated with his BS from the University of Chattanooga (now the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga) in 1965. When he began his studies in social work at the University of Georgia, he requested a macro practice experience in community organization, the first MSW student to do so. The School of Social Work accommodated his request by fashioning a combination micro and macro practice. His first field placement was a micro placement within a school system, and his second field placement was a macro placement in a community center in Atlanta. The School of Social Work provided him an excellent educational foundation upon which his professional life would take various paths.

Upon his graduation with a Master of Social Work in 1968 he returned to the Tennessee Department of Public Welfare and was appointed director of The Neighborhood Services Program, a federally funded War on Poverty program which offered community based programs in public assistance intake, homemaker services, and child welfare.

In 1970 he was recruited to serve on the staff of the Florida Board of Regents, at the time the sole governing body of the Florida State University System. His assignment was to conduct research on human resource utilization in Florida agencies that were primary employers of social work graduates. During and following the completion of this research and publication of findings he worked with schools of social work across Florida, both public and private, to facilitate better understandings and working relationships between the institutions producing social workers and the agencies employing them. The result was the development of a differential staffing model that received a great deal of attention nationally.

In 1975, he was recruited to Tampa, Florida, to develop a social work program at the University of South Florida, a large urban university. He put together a solid cadre of faculty to create the Department of Social Work, and over the next several years developed the BSW and MSW programs, both fully accredited by the Council on Social Work Education. He served as Chair of the Department of Social Work for thirteen years. He taught courses in both programs and continued to be involved in research and grant writing. He assisted in the development of the Human Resources Institute at USF and was the creator and director of the Center for the Study of Developmental Disabilities. He was elected twice by university faculty to represent them as Speaker of the Faculty Senate. He was a tenured associate professor, and an award-winning teacher at the university.

Following his tenure as chair of the department of social work at USF, he was invited to serve as assistant provost. In this capacity he guided the administration and the faculty in matters of collective bargaining, faculty development programs, and faculty recruitment, salary equity, and faculty retention. When seeking his counsel, faculty members and administrators knew Phil would speak candidly and truthfully. At the time of his retirement in 2005 he held position of Associate Provost.

Philip L. Smith

Submitted photo

In all aspects of his life, whether personal or professional, Phil was a vanguard for social justice, civil rights and equality. He spoke the truth. In the late 1960s during the civil rights movement he was one of four friends who started the first Chattanooga chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and served that organization as its second president.

Phil was a man of unimpeachable integrity, humor both subtle and outrageous, and a great storyteller. He was also a man of great compassion, as anyone who knew him would attest. He and his wife, Sharon, rescued many cats and a few greyhounds during their nearly 45 years of marriage.

Phil Smith died on May 14, 2020 at the age of 76, before he could complete the establishment of this scholarship. It now becomes a memorial scholarship, not only to honor the man for which it is named, but to pay it forward for macro practice students in social work who will strive to make their communities more inclusive and more humane for everyone.