Dean's Corner - September Issue: The dignity and worth of every person

Dear CSSW Community,

Welcome to the new academic year. I want to extend an especially warm welcome to the newest members of our community – our students who joined us this summer and fall. We are delighted and honored that you have chosen CSSW and we look forward to a purposeful and productive year. As I have said every year since my arrival in 2019, the need for social workers and social work thinking has never been greater. 

Last year at this time, I began to reflect intently on the core values of social work, as enumerated in the NASW Code of Ethics: integrity, service, competence, social justice, the dignity and worth of the person, and the importance of human relationships. All six are crucial; that said, I was particularly drawn to the last one (the importance of human relationships) as perhaps key to that moment one year ago. This year, I am going to lift up the dignity and worth of every person. 

The dignity and worth of every person is more than a principle; I view it as a challenge to each of us. How can we uphold one another’s dignity at all times, even when we disagree? In the heat of discussion, how can we embrace nuance and complexity, and avoid the pitfalls of either/or thinking? How can we find each other’s humanity and an appreciation for how our different experiences have shaped our lives and our views? 

Right now my focus remains on our School, and how best to advance our research, education, and practice activities – while co-creating a community here at CSSW we can all be proud of. We share a common goal of wanting to build a better, fairer, more just world that upholds the human rights of all; and I encourage us to center that thought as our north star.  

My intention here is not to overlook how hard the recent months and years have been for our School, University, country, and world – that pain is real and ongoing. On the contrary, I am using the restorative and hopeful feelings we bring to a new school year as our anchor while we continue to engage in much-needed repair. This moment requires us to care for the community we have chosen to be a part of in a different way; to create a shared definition of what community actually looks like when we uphold the dignity and worth of every person. What kind of community do you want this to be? How will you help co-create it?

Despite the many challenges we face here and across the globe, please know this: I am immensely proud of this community. I am immensely proud of our students and their commitment, expertise, and experiences. I am immensely proud of our staff and faculty who are pressing ahead with their important work for the good of our School, our students, and our society.  Below this message I describe just a few of the outstanding achievements of our community and recognize some of the individuals responsible for them. I thank you all most sincerely. 

As those who have been here before know, I love quotes and keep an extensive file of my favorites. For some reason, this quote from Bryan Stevenson is uppermost in my mind – perhaps because it underscores the dignity of every person in a meaningful way: “The truth is it’s the broken among us that can teach us things about humanity, grace, mercy, and redemption.” Even more reason to lift every voice.

I look forward to seeing you in classes, lectures, workshops, and informal gatherings wherever they take place. Best wishes for a productive year!

In community,
Melissa

Updates for our Community: 

• Please join me in congratulating the following faculty members who have been promoted and/or honored over the past year:

  • Dr. Carmela Alcántara has been promoted to Professor of Social Work.

  • Dr. Rob Eschmann has been awarded tenure by Columbia University.

  • Dr. Qin Gao has been appointed as the Maurice V. Russell Professor of Social Policy and Social Work Practice. 

  • Dr. Richard Hara has been promoted to Senior Lecturer in the Discipline of Social Work.

  • Dr. Yamile Martí has been promoted to Professor of Professional Practice in Social Work.

  • Dr. Julien Teitler has been appointed as the D’Elbert and Selma Keenan Professor of Social Work.

  • Dr. Brooke West has been awarded tenure by Columbia University. 

• Please also join me in thanking and congratulating a number of long-term faculty who are retiring this summer/early fall – we wish them all great joy in the future:

  • Dr. Rick Greenberg, Senior Lecturer in the Discipline of Social Work, is retiring after 14 years of dedicated service to CSSW. Dr. Greenberg has been a leader in his efforts to create new curriculum, develop innovative approaches to teaching, and contribute his expertise to numerous committees. Dr. Greenberg previously spent many years as a psychotherapist and non-profit leader. He has conducted training workshops on a range of mental health topics. Outside of the workplace, Dr. Greenberg has applied his vast knowledge base to board and community affiliations, including leadership roles within the Network for Social Work Management, NASW NYC Chapter, and the Mental Health Division of the UJA-Federation.

  • Dr. André Ivanoff, Professor of Social Work, is retiring after 37 years at CSSW. Dr. Ivanoff is an authority on Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), an evidence-based model of treatment for severe emotion dysregulation and other complex mental health disorders. Her DBT training program was the first and only such program to be offered in a school of social work. Dr. Ivanoff has over four decades of clinical and research experience in mental health and criminal justice settings. She serves as Chair of the Board of Directors at the non-profit Behavioral Tech Institute. She is currently involved in implementing DBT in Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and across nine Russian-speaking countries. 

  • Dr. Amy Werman, Senior Lecturer in the Discipline of Social Work, is retiring after a decade of service as a full-time faculty member. Her career has encompassed medical social work, clinical practice, research, program evaluation, and social work education; and she has contributed knowledge of novel therapeutic approaches, including wilderness therapy and animal-assisted therapy. At Columbia, Dr. Werman has participated in many initiatives to foster dialogue and understanding across difference, such as the Listening Tables. She has also collaborated nationally and internationally to address antisemitism in social work and higher education. As an innovative educator, Dr. Werman received multiple awards from the University to pilot new pedagogical approaches. 

• Recent initiatives, honors, and awards (a non-exhaustive list – just a few highlights!):

  • CSSW has just launched a new dual degree program with the Columbia School of Professional Studies, pairing the MS in Social Work degree with the MS in Bioethics. 

  • Dr. Mashura Akilova designed and led a travel course to Athens, Greece. 

  • Our School will host the second cohort of the Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy Training Program this year under the leadership of Dr. Heidi Allen. 

  • Dr. Riana Anderson was honored with the Early Career Award from the American Psychological Association. 

  • Given recent disruptions to federal funding for research, Columbia University developed a Research Stabilization Fund for faculty. We are proud that several of our colleagues competed successfully University-wide for these awards, including: Dr. Nkemka Anyiwo, Dr. Natasha Johnson, Dr. Charles Lea and Dr. Elwin Wu, and Dr. Samantha Winter. 

  • Dr. Alissa Davis participated in the Columbia AI (Artificial Intelligence) Summit as a panelist in a session entitled Decoding the Mind: From the Brain to Mental Health. 

  • Our colleagues in SIG (the Social Intervention Group), led by Dr. Nabila El-Bassel, have begun an exciting, interdisciplinary, cross-school initiative on Artificial Intelligence for Social Good and Society. 

  • In addition to being selected as a Fulbright Program Specialist, Dr. Qin Gao received the Award for Outstanding Individual in Academia from the Congressional Research Institute for Social Work and Policy (CRISP). 

  • Dr. Richard Hara was chosen as a Fulbright Program Specialist. 

  • Dr. Charles Lea and Dr. Susan Witte were elected Fellows of the Society for Social Work and Research (SSWR). 

  • Dr. Jane Waldfogel published a new book entitled: Child Benefits: A Smart Investment for America’s Future. 

  • Dr. Ovita Williams and colleagues in the Action Lab for Social Justice garnered renewed funding from the New York Community Trust to continue the Social Work Pathways initiative. 

• Please be sure to bookmark socialwork.columbia.edu/news to see some of the latest thought pieces written by our faculty for the media.