Crunk Reflects on ‘Dream Job’ With Washington, D.C. Internship Program

Dr. Crunk, with daughter and UA associate professor of social work, Dr. Amy Traylor.

From the School newsletter archives: Dr. Crunk, seen here with Washington, D.C. interns in 1996.

CRUNK REFLECTS ON ‘DREAM JOB’

WASHINGTON, D.C. INTERNSHIP OFFICE NAMED FOR FORMER DIRECTOR By David Miller

A little over 30 years ago, University of Alabama School of Social Work dean Jim Ward called Dr. Phil Crunk to offer him a new role with the School.

Crunk was no stranger to the School – he’d spent parts of the 1970s and 1980s in various faculty and administrative roles, including associate dean. He’d received a Fulbright award in 1980 and worked extensively abroad, helping establish a graduate social work program and faculty exchange at Shue Yan University in Hong Kong and consulting governments in Taiwan and Japan on social work policy.

Then, Ward offered him his choice of assignment for the School: become associate dean once more; control the master’s program; or, continue his Hong Kong program and take over the Washington, D.C. internship program from recently retired Charles Prigmore.

“I took a nanosecond to think about it,” said Crunk, who would go on to lead the D.C. program until 2006. Crunk, professor emeritus for the School of Social Work, immediately helped grow the program in scale and scope. He started with roughly 10 students who aspired to work in policy to nearly 25 per semester, including students in clinical placements. He’d made valuable connections with Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the National Naval Medical Center and members of Congress, among others, to ensure the School’s MSW students received the experience they wanted.

On Nov. 7, 2019, Crunk returned to the School to celebrate the program’s 40th anniversary and the naming of the Washington D.C. Internship Office in his honor.

Prior to the reveal, he’d visited the program office a pair of times and was able to have lunch with some of his former students, including Coy Stout (MSW, 1994), vice president for domestic commercial access for biotech company Gilead Sciences. Stout said his “life story would undoubtedly be quite different” if not for Crunk’s support of students in the program. “I had a lot of really good students,” Crunk said. “For me to see people grow, develop and get something out of it, that was a success.”

Opportunities for UA students in Washington, D.C. have continued to grow since Crunk handed over director’s duties to Carroll Phelps, who, along with the School’s field office, has added the nation’s only undergraduate social work internship program in D.C. Additionally, in 2017, the School launched an annual “fly-in” program that provides both undergraduates and graduate students opportunities to advocate for policy and learn about the legislative process from various elected officials and advocates on Capitol Hill. The fly-in program has more than 70 participants from UA each year and has grown to include students from Ohio State University, the University of Alabama at Birmingham and the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

That growth and reach reflect Crunk’s career at UA, which began in 1970, shortly after he’d completed his doctoral degree at Tulane University.

Dr. Crunk, right, discusses the D.C. program with Carroll Phelps, his successor.

Howard Gundy, the first dean of the UA School of Social Work, hired Crunk as associate dean.

In the early 1980s, Crunk received a “very advantageous” Fulbright Scholar Award to help set up a master’s program in social work in Taiwan. He would take brief detours to Japan to counsel government officials on elder care – he’d served on the White House council on aging in the 1970s – and Hong Kong, where his work with Shue Yan University would result in a fully-accredited MSW program and establish a long-running partnership with the UA School of Social Work.

After completing his Fulbright, Crunk helped develop UA’s first graduate school evaluation of supports for handicapped students. Crunk and his team developed a thorough assessment and plans for action, which impressed organizers at the federal level and resulted in Crunk joining an eight-member team that traveled to more than 15 cities to share UA’s model.

Crunk also is a founding member and past president of the Alabama-Germany Partnership and a 2002 inductee to the Alabama Social Work Hall of Fame.

“Working at UA was a dream job,” Crunk said. “When I retired, I told the dean that I liked my job so much that I would have done it for nothing, but I never brought it up because I was afraid he’d take me up on it.”

SSW LENDS A HAND FOR DAY OF ACTION

School of Social Work faculty and staff, from left, Allison Curington, Tameka Ross, Jennifer Thomas, Lindsey Johnson, Lesley Reid, Carrie Turner and Heather Sullivan.

Faculty and staff from the School of Social Work volunteered on the United Way Day of Action in June.

Two teams were formed to complete service projects in the community as a way to display care and support for our community. Brookwood Middle School needed assistance with painting their hallways, and Hospice of West Alabama benefited from clean-up projects.

The United Way Day of Action is part of a broader national effort hosted by United Way chapters across the country. Groups of volunteers from across Tuscaloosa helped paint, clean up and restore gardens at various United Way agencies across West Alabama. Since the first Day of Action, United Way of West Alabama has doubled its number of volunteers from 280 to 500.