CLASS NOTES
Florence Alexander
Marilyn Broka
Lindsay Bryan-Podvin
FLORENCE ALEXANDER, MSW ’19 After graduation from the U-M School of Social Work, Alexander joined the Movement for Black Lives as an Electoral Justice Project Fellow creating the Black the Vote campaign to organize art, activism, voting education and people’s assemblies, and One Love Global, Lansing as a Policy and Data Science Specialist. Alexander helped organize The People’s Black National Convention and served as an ambassador to talk about issues facing Black communities. “The U-M School of Social Work provided me with many opportunities, such as serving as a National Community Scholar and being able to travel to Boston to create curricula so we could see ourselves in what we learn. I was able to work in the DEI Office as a program assistant and organize events at the School and outside of Ann Arbor. Through the policy/evaluation track I learned about policy memos and briefs, found amazing mentors who still guide me and serve communities.” Alexander is dedicated to racial justice, inclusion, amplifying voices that have been historically marginalized and working toward a transformative society that values all of humanity.
AMANDA BOSWORTH, MSW ’09, graduated from Cornell University in May 2020 with her PhD in history. Her dissertation, “After ‘Walrussia’: American, Russian, Canadian, and Japanese Fur Seals between Empires, 1867–1911,” explores transnational maritime, humananimal and indigenous-imperial relations in the North Pacific region. In November 2020, Bosworth married Igor Shirnin in St. Petersburg, Russia, to become Amanda Shirnina. The couple live in St. Petersburg.
MARILYN BROKA, MSW ’67, is enjoying retirement at the age of 80 and not searching for new activities. Picking raspberries and trimming shrubs, weeding flower beds and looking for space to plant a few new bulbs for spring bloom. Last year she married a classmate whom she has known since they started kindergarten together 76 years ago. Their spouses had both passed away and their shared childhood
experiences made for comfortable reacquaintance facilitated by annual class reunions. They are living in Idaho, where her husband has a son and family.
LINDSAY BRYAN-PODVIN, MSW ’11, owner and founder of Mind Money Balance, is a financial therapist who started her career in the field of mental health treatment and advocacy. As the first financial therapist in Michigan, she combines financial literacy with the emotional and psychological side of money. She always had an interest in mental health and found an even greater love working at the intersection of mental health and money. She is a published author of the Plutusnominated book The Financial Anxiety Solution, which helps people work through their anxiety when it comes to engaging with their money. She loves speaking on the emotional and psychological side of money, and in addition to hosting the “Mind Money Balance” podcast, she’s been a guest on over 50 podcasts. She’s been featured in publications including C|Net, Next Advisor by Time, ReWire by PBS, Allure, Bustle and more. She also has a degree in sociology from Michigan State University. Bryan-Podvin lives with her partner and their dog in Ann Arbor.
GEORGIA CRAWFORD-CAMBELL, MSW ’01, was appointed in August 2019 by Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer to the Michigan Commission on Services to the Aging Board for a three-year term. She has a private practice in elder care clinical social work and consultation.
AMY ELLWOOD, MSW ’83, Professor Emerita of Family Medicine & Psychiatry, University of Nevada School of Medicine, has been doing volunteer teaching as an adjunct professor at UNLV School of Medicine’s Psychiatry Residency and Child/Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship programs. She teaches a course on family therapy and supervises the fellows’ family therapy cases. She also volunteers on the Southern Nevada Human Trafficking task force.
ONGOING · Spring 2021 · 29
