Faculty Updates

NEW FACULTY

“It is my hope that social work will become the global platform for universal change.”

“As the need for social work continues to grow, the use of technology in social work expands our reach. What an exciting time to be a part of a meaningful career!” In January 2021, Leroy “Curtis” Johnson joined the College of Social Work (CSW) as a practicum coordinator and assistant professor (clinical). Prof. Johnson brings over 37 years of social services experience to the College, spanning from criminal justice to child welfare, and mental health. He earned his MSW from Howard University, and put his education into practice as a child protection services social worker in California and as a faculty member at Touro University Worldwide’s Edith Neumann School of Health and Human Services Social Work Program. Prof. Johnson is passionate about advancing practicum techniques to better prepare students for their future in social work.

MSW graduate Susiane Manning returned to the College in January as an assistant professor (clinical) and practicum coordinator. Prof. Manning joins the College from an executive leadership role in a mental health agency, where she directed clinical operations, supervised interns, and maintained her client caseload. She also has experience working for a digital health company and providing online mental health services, which she mastered prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and the world of virtual healthcare. She looks forward to using her background to continually improve the experience for students in their field education. Assistant Professor (Lecturer) Frank McAlpin joined the CSW in January. He earned his MSW from Fordham University, followed by his DSW from the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. McAlpin has spent years working in community-based agencies around the country, including his role as the senior housing manager at the Los Angeles LGBT Center, where he developed residential and clinical programming. He also taught classes about family resilience and health disparities as an adjunct professor at California State University while in Los Angeles. Dr. McAlpin is passionate about many social work-related issues, including trauma-informed care, ending youth homelessness, LGBT rights, and social justice.

In May, alumna Allison O’Connor took on a new role as an assistant professor (lecturer) in the College, building upon her previous experience as an instructor of applied statistics and a field education coordinator. Working in research and administrative roles, she has established evaluation collaborations with state and national partners, and has worked to provide mental health services to individuals, families, and groups. She is passionate about the intersection of social work research and practice, and supports students in connecting micro, mezzo, and macro levels to integrate materials.

“I hope that the field of social work continues to address social injustices by prioritizing human connection, empowerment, solidarity, and liberation.”

“As we look to increasingly complex futures, social work students give me hope and inspire me to challenge my own understandings.”

RETIREMENTS

David Derezotes, professor and facilitator of dialogue groups, chaired the MSW Program’s Mental Health and Practice focus areas for many years and directed the College’s original Bridge Training Clinic. He continues to serve as director of Peace and Conflict Studies in the College of Humanities and host a weekly radio show. His scholarly work included many journal articles and the publication of six textbooks. He created and directed the U’s Transforming Classrooms into Inclusive Communities program, pioneering EDI trainings for students, staff, and faculty. During his 32-year tenure at the College of Social Work, he was the recipient of the University Distinguished Teaching Award, the Bennion Center’s Civically Engaged Scholar of the Year Award, and six-time recipient of the College’s Outstanding Faculty Award. He earned his PhD in Social Welfare from the University of California, Berkeley.

Larry Smith, professor, was an institution at the College of Social Work for 50 extraordinary years. He served as the director of MSW admissions for 20 years, as well as 10 years as director of the MSW Program, and five years as director of the College’s Neighbors Helping Neighbors program. Dr. Smith loved helping thousands of remarkable students earn their degrees and go on to serve their communities. He also enjoyed serving on numerous faculty search committees and took great pride in helping bring talented new faculty to the U. He authored or co-authored a number of books, including multiple U.S. and international editions of Introduction to Social Work. His work was recognized with the Mary Shields McPhee Award for faculty excellence in community. Dr. Smith earned his MSW and DSW from the University of Utah.

Scott Sorensen, associate professor (lecturer), led the College of Social Work’s distance programs from Cedar City for nearly 26 years. Recognizing the critical nature of supporting students beyond the campus, and the urgent need for skilled social workers in rural areas, Prof. Sorensen served as president of the National Rural Social Work Caucus and published and presented on the importance of rural social work education and practice. He worked with the Utah Department of Workforce Services and the Utah Attorney General’s Office to secure funding to establish day programs for at-risk youth in Iron County, as well as the Iron County Children’s Justice Center. Prof. Sorensen earned his BSW and MSW from Arizona State University.

Aster Solomon Tecle, assistant professor, was passionate about global health and directed the College’s Case Management Certificate Program for several years, enjoying the work with Utah residents with immigrant or refugee backgrounds. She mentored students through the U’s Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program and served on the dissertation committees for numerous doctoral students. In addition to serving as the College’s Belle S. Spafford Endowed Chair from 2016-2017, Dr. Tecle was a member of the advisory boards of the Utah Refugee Women’s Reproductive Health and Utah Refugee Women’s Initiative programs. She earned her MSW and her doctoral degree in social welfare from the University of Washington, where she received the Doctoral Student Award for Excellence.

Joanne Yaffe, professor, was a dedicated mentor to her students, invested in multidisciplinary collaboration, and an ardent proponent of evidence-based practice and reproducible research for the last 34 years. As director of doctoral studies, she established the Technology Enhanced Doctorate program. She chaired the University Research Committee and the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women, and served as a member of the Academic Senate Executive Committee. She authored or co-authored eight books and served as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Social Work Education, and on editorial boards for many other journals, as well as for the Campbell and Cochrane Collaborations. Dr. Yaffe’s work was recognized with the Linda K. Amos Award for excellence in service to women and the Mary Shields McPhee Award for faculty excellence in service, among many other honors. She earned her MSW and PhD from the University of Michigan.

Rising TO THE Challenge

ADDRESSING UTAH’S SOCIAL WORK WORKFORCE SHORTAGE FROM MANY ANGLES

In March 2019, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that social work was one of the fasting-growing professions in the country. Fast forward to 2021—it needs to grow much faster. “Every conversation with our community partners is the same,” reports Dean Martell Teasley. “‘We need social workers, we’re posting great jobs and can’t get applicants, send us your graduates.’ These are desperate pleas and we’re making strategic changes to respond on multiple fronts.” The College of Social Work is addressing this crisis in three key ways: program expansion, streamlined admission, and increased scholarship support. Throughout the spring of 2020, Dean Teasley, BSW Director Jason Castillo, and advocates in the legislature and the community shared this workforce emergency with the Utah legislature. When the final votes were cast and bills were signed, the dean learned the College had secured just over $900,000 in recurring legislative support for program expansion efforts. These dollars allowed the College to hire additional faculty for classrooms and field placements, as well as additional staff in the academic advising office. Dean Teasley explained, “Our new colleagues provide the bandwidth needed for us to increase enrollment and to track down new field placement opportunities for the expanded student population.” Dean Teasley sees the growth in more than just the numbers, too. “We hired seasoned professionals with lots of different experiences in Community partners are social work, which means more classes and a growing array of pleading, ‘We need social electives.” The dean enthusiastically workers, we’re posting talks about the impact of these great jobs and can’t get funds on our online plans, too. “A clear path to expanding applicants, send us your enrollment is through online programming,” he notes. Thus, graduates.’ Cynthia Sanders, the new director of online education, received a hearty welcome and lots of support for the efforts she has outlined to create a quality MSW online program and to update the BSW online program. Dr. Sanders added, “If we learned anything from the pandemic, it’s that online education can be incredibly effective, not to mention more convenient for many people.” Dr. Sanders is excited to be at the helm of this expansion, and she’s laser-focused on creating a quality program that meets the needs of all students. “We’re excited to provide this learning option to better serve more students— which consequently serves to fill the workforce gap and benefit our communities.”

These changes helped the College to begin to grow our enrollment last year, most notably in the online program and in the three-year programs that accommodate students who also work full-time. Remarkably, the admissions committee still faced the difficult task of turning away a significant number of outstanding applicants to our programs. “We still need to hire more faculty to meet the demand,” explained Dean Teasley.

This trend will continue as the online programs expand and as future applicants take advantage of another change—a streamlined BSW-MSW pipeline for our students. “We realized 90 percent of our BSW students qualify for our MSW Program,” said the dean. Accordingly, U BSW grads with a 3.0+ GPA who seek to enter the MSW Program will enjoy a speedy application process—a simplified application, no reference requests, and no timed essay for those who earned degrees within the past seven years. Dr. Caren Frost, associate director of the MSW Program, explained “the updated application reduces the amount of paperwork U BSW students have to submit. But it also requires applicants to address why they want an MSW degree, thus providing reviewers with insight into the applicants’ views of social work as a crucial profession for working with populations in need.”

Familiar Faces in New Leadership Roles

The College of Social Work was excited to welcome a few faculty and staff members into leadership roles for the 2021-2022 academic year. Until the search for a new associate dean for academic affairs resumes, Associate Professor and former Director of the Social Research Institute (SRI) Philip Osteen will act as the interim associate dean. “I am excited to step into the role of the interim associate dean for academic affairs and serve the College in this way,” said Dr. Osteen, who has excelled in supporting the College in his previous positions. “My primary goal is to ensure that faculty and staff have the resources and support they need to successfully carry out the mission of the CSW.”

As Dr. Osteen takes on this new role, his former position as director of SRI will be filled by Research Assistant Professor Chad McDonald. SRI Biostatistician Meghan Broadbent will serve alongside Dr. McDonald as the interim associate director of SRI. The team is “looking forward to broadening SRI’s reach by advancing the CSW’s mission, strengthening the partnerships we have in the community, and elevating the skills and expertise of all those who carry out the important work of the grants and contracts that faculty and staff manage.”

With three new passionate leaders, the College will continue to successfully serve the community and the University, and offer an excellent educational experience to our social work students.

Philip Osteen Chad McDonald Meghan Broadbent

Rising to the Challenge continued

Dr. Frost is particularly excited about the workforce implications of these changes, as she believes they “will ensure that we have identified those applicants who will be an asset to the social work profession.”

Of course, growing enrollment also translates to a push for more scholarships. “The University of Utah provides a great return on investment,” said Assistant Dean for Development Lisa Himonas. But, a “good deal” within the Pac-12 still comes with a hefty price tag within the state. “We know our students are more likely to graduate and that a U degree typically translates into higher wages upon graduation,” explains Ms. Himonas, “but many students need the financial boost a scholarship provides to make their educational dreams a reality.” It is tremendously helpful that numerous donors contributed annual scholarship gifts and created new endowed scholarships in the past several years, she said. “Both types of funding provide valuable support—it’s critical to award dollars right now to hard-working students; it’s also essential to have the promise, through endowed scholarships, of dollars that will last in perpetuity.”

As the College addresses the workforce shortage, we remain focused on our educational mission. All of the changes we’re making aim to fill a gap in our community, but they also better serve our students. The dean, a self-described “futurist,” looks toward the new landscape with great hope and the burning question of what’s next. “We’ve got to keep moving forward, thinking ahead. We have an obligation to our students to provide a top-notch, cutting-edge learning experience. We have an obligation to our community partners to send them graduates who can hit the ground running. And we have an obligation to the community at large to fill the social work gap with the talented, caring professionals emerging from our programs.”

According to their most recent projections, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics expects the number of social work jobs to grow by 109,700 between 2016 and 2026

Who was that masked donor?

This story is about you—or it could be.

We’re taking advantage of a theme here. Since masks provided a degree of anonymity over the past year-anda-half, it seemed the right time to celebrate contributors in a similar fashion. What follows are the tales of several donors to the College—donors who gave single figures, six figures, and in between. To conceal their identities, we avoid using names. We hope you see yourself in these stories and appreciate that gifts at every level truly make a difference.

It All Adds Up

We celebrated hundreds of $5 donations to our emergency student fund this past year. Our virtual events attracted dozens of first-time donors to the College, as many made good use of the learning opportunities and generously volunteered support of the emergency student fund attached to our online “QuaranTalks with Teasley” and “Grand Challenges for Social Work” series. Comments from attendees let us know the sessions were informative, insightful, inspiring, enlightening. We were gratified to see “Fantastic!” quite a bit, too. Fortunately, this enthusiasm translated to 210 gifts that generated over $15,000 to the emergency student fund. Pooling these dollars with the University-wide drive allowed our students to receive more than $70,000 since spring of 2020. From assisting with daily needs such as food to big-picture items like rent and utility payments, this support proved instrumental in helping students across campus navigate life during a challenging time.

Scholarships Change Lives

Several couples jumped in with jaw-dropping five-figure gifts for student scholarships. Inevitably, their motivation was concern for social work students. As one of these philanthropists explained, “We were thinking of all the students who have made the commitment to social work but now face an uncertain future and work situation.” Echoing a common sentiment among this group, the individual continued, “We are thankful for the students, professors, and administrators and feel privileged to be able to help in these uncertain times.” Twenty-five students received scholarships from donors who gave directly to the College. The recipients included BSW and MSW students, many of whom were first-generation and non-traditional students. The students were effusive in their appreciation for financial support—support that helped them feel proud of their efforts, that buoyed them during a time of hardship, that allowed them to finish their degrees, that inspired joy as they look forward to joining the social work profession.

Programs Connect Us

While student support was critical, our efforts to continue our programs remained high on our priority list—not only for their connection to the student funding efforts mentioned above, but as an important connection to others during a very isolating period of time. Last summer, as a thick layer of unrest blanketed our country, we heard from an alum who believed the College could be a source of leadership around issues of race and social justice. This individual wanted to be an “ally to the school and the cause moving forward.” Retired and able to be more involved, our friend reported a “longtime membership with NASW,” adding “I always liked the piece in the code of ethics about political activism.” Through a generous contribution, this decadeslong donor supported two special events in 2020-2021 and will sponsor a third in 2021-2022. We hope others share this alum’s view of the College as a source of change and inspiration.

Research Informs Care

In the research arena, donors made significant gifts to advance edgy new research that could have a tremendous impact on mental health, addiction, and pain treatment. Both long-time donors and new donors contributed generously to research that weds Associate Dean for Research Eric Garland’s successful mindfulness interventions with new ideas for psychedelic-assisted therapy. This is a unique, big-vision effort that donors are helping to advance in exciting ways. We are fortunate to have partners who understand the power of evidence-based research, the timeline for solid research, and the “payoff” that can come in the changes that impact countless lives. As one contributor noted, “We appreciate that this work doesn’t come out of nowhere. It takes community support.” Dr. Garland is excited that two studies in this area are advancing, noting “The science clearly shows this work has the potential to alleviate the suffering of many people struggling in this country and around the globe.”

Mahatma Gandhi inspired the quote, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” These unnamed donors, along with all the contributors listed on the closing pages of this magazine, made good on this message by playing a vital role in helping the College of Social Work support our students, contribute to the betterment of our communities, advance behavioral science research, and more. Thank you, “masked” friends!