Dean's Corner | March Issue: Welcome spring, renewal, and the chance to begin again
Dear CSSW Community,
With March comes the anticipation of spring – a season of renewal, new birth, and planting new seeds. The month of March also marks the time we acknowledge and celebrate some of the communities most often pushed to the margins, including: Women’s History Month, Development and Disabilities Awareness Month, and International Transgender Day of Visibility. We get to lift up these communities while also acknowledging how our profession, the social work profession, supports and advocates for individuals and communities to enable not just surviving but thriving – an important reminder during Social Work Awareness Month.
Social Workers choose to be in the front row when supporting and advocating for individuals and communities. Our students, faculty, staff, and alumni have made the choice to uphold social work values, such as our north star for this year: the dignity and worth of every person. This year’s theme for Social Work Awareness Month from NASW echoes this thought, with the words: Uplift.Defend.Transform. This is a fitting call to action as we continue to see painful depictions across our country and around the world of too many being stripped of their humanity and dignity.
We have already been able to honor this month in a few ways. On March 2nd, I had the pleasure of being in conversation with author Lorissa Rinehard, discussing her newest book, Winning the Earthquake: How Jeannette Rankin Defied the Odds to Become the First Woman in Congress. Congresswoman Rankin graduated from the New York School of Philanthropy, now known as the Columbia School of Social Work, back in 1908. She was a fierce advocate who influenced policy on the federal level by championing women’s suffrage and world peace. Congresswoman Rankin was the consummate social worker. She saw, firsthand, how policies impacted individuals, families, and communities. She led with her values, with purpose, and with conviction; and came to understand that lasting change requires both action and compassion. Her courage reminds us that social workers are not only responders to crises; they are architects of a more just and humane future.
On March 12th, we hosted a panel discussion entitled: The Intersection of Politics and Social Work in Honor of the Late Lieutenant Governor of New Jersey, Sheila Oliver. Lieutenant Governor Oliver was a member of the CSSW class of 1976 and pursued an extraordinary career in public service, becoming the first woman of color to serve in a statewide elected office in New Jersey. Her CSSW education fueled her ability to see systemic challenges as interconnected, informing a holistic approach to leadership and community impact; she believed that effective policy must be rooted in compassion and grounded in people’s lived experience. We partnered with the Sheila Y. Oliver Foundation to host a panel with CSSW alumni who are using their social work training to influence policy. Panelists included: Emily B. Jabbour (SW06), Mayor of Hoboken; Mathylde Frontus PhD (SW07, SW15), Former NYS Assemblymember; Ashanti Jones, PhD (SW18), New Jersey Institute for Social Justice; and moderated by Charles E. Lewis, Jr., PhD (SW01, SW02), Director of the Congressional Research Institute for Social Work & Policy. Like Ms. Oliver, these alumni share a firm belief in crafting policy that centers the lived experience of those most impacted.
On Tuesday, March 31st, CSSW’s Office of Diversity Equity, & Inclusion – in partnership with the Lavender Collective and Gender-Affirming Practice Caucus – will host this year’s Transgender Day of Visibility. In 2010, trans advocate Rachell Crandall, the head of Transgender Michigan, created this day as a way to take back the narrative that up to that point, seemed to focus solely on the violence faced by our transgender community (a reality that is, sadly, worsening across the nation). Their full humanity was not centered, however – nor was it common for community members to tell their own stories. I look forward to this event on March 31st when we will be able to learn from two trans women of color: Elisa Crespo, Executive Director, Stonewall Community Foundation; and Tabytha Gonzalez, Director of Policy and Advocacy for Destination Tomorrow.
I was also honored to attend an event on March 25th sponsored by our wonderful students in PDSA, featuring Professor Loretta Ross from the Department of Women and Gender Studies at Smith College. Professor Ross (or as she insisted we call her, Loretta, without a title) has published a fantastic new book entitled Calling In: How to Start Making Change with Those You’d Rather Cancel. PDSA students centered the following questions in organizing the event: “What does community building actually require? What does it look like to be together as imperfect humans shaped by systems that reward hyper-individualism over interdependence?” It was a beautiful conversation that allowed us to probe, in the words of our PDSA colleagues, “a framework that challenges us to rethink accountability, harm, and the possibility of staying in relationship even when it is difficult.” It was a thought-provoking discussion that challenged even my ability to keep track of great quotes, but here is one from her book that I will share now: “At the heart of a call in culture is that simple act of love.” We will definitely be discussing Loretta’s work even more going forward, and you will hear more on this point soon.
There is a popular quote circulating on social media about spring that is resonating with me: “Spring exists to remind us that everything can begin again.” I recently came back from a study and research trip to Greece with Dr. Mashura Akilova and a cohort of her very impressive MSSW students. Through the outstanding efforts of Dr. Akilova and staff members at the Athens Global Center, we visited with colleagues from the University of West Attica – which kindly hosted a symposium with the title After the Crisis Narrative: Refugee Protection and the Politics of Care in Greece. We also spent time with partners from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the Greek government, and several non-profit agencies doing incredibly important work with the refugee and migrant community. It was a beautiful depiction of what it looks like, actively and in real time, to safeguard the values of social work globally. And with the permission to begin again (and perhaps wiser from our lived experiences), we get to examine how it might look to uplift, defend, and transform ourselves and help to empower others in their plight.
I believe that hope is the main ingredient that enables us to begin again. Hope for a more just world, hope for a kinder world, hope for a world that recognizes and celebrates our differences while also acknowledging our interconnectedness and relatedness. Rinehard summed it up best when describing Jeannette Rankin: “[Her] greatest flaw was her belief that if people knew the truth, they would demand justice. Her greatest strength was that even after so many defeats and so much evidence to the contrary, she continued to believe.”
May we continue to believe; and remain unwavering in our commitment to humanity with the stamina to begin again, and again, and again.
In community,
Melissa