One of your goals upon coming to Rutgers was to raise the school’s profile both locally and nationally. Do you feel you’ve done that?
Yes, there’s been substantial progress in that. Part of the evidence is that candidates we are getting to fill faculty positions are from the best universities. The number of applications from students has increased so we can be more selective in admissions. The school has increased its external funding, we’ve expanded our international activities, we are revamping our field education program, and our faculty are increasingly productive in terms of presentations at national and international conferences. Another accomplishment is a new weekend MSW program for employees of the Division of Youth and Family Services.
You’ve hired about a dozen new faculty members in the past two years. What strengths have they brought to complement the existing faculty members?
We’ve added faculty in the areas of families – particularly battered women and children – gambling addiction, child welfare, gerontology, and disabilities.
Earlier this year you created the Institute for Families within the school, and established three new centers – the Center on Violence Against Women and Children, the Center for Gambling Studies, and the Center for International Social Work – as part of the institute. What was your goal in establishing the institute and what do you hope its various centers will accomplish?
We had a number of disparate activities related to families, children, and communities and we wanted to have an entity that could be an organizing framework for those activities and also help us secure funding for research and technical assistance. The goal of the institute is to strengthen families throughout New Jersey and the nation.The goal of the Center on Violence Against Women and Children is to bring the best research to bear on improving the skills and practice levels of professionals in the field of domestic violence. We have also developed a stipend program for students who will do their second-year field placements in agencies related to violence against women and children, which is funded by the Verizon Wireless Foundation. The center has received funding from Verizon Corp. Foundation to develop a certificate program for individuals working in battered women’s shelters and other programs for women suffering from violence. In addition, the Allstate Foundation has provided funding for research on domestic violence programs in 11 states.
There are multiple foci for the Center for Gambling Studies. One is to engage in research on problem gambling. Another is to develop a certificate program to train people who are dealing with individuals with gambling addiction. The third goal is to serve as a resource for policymakers on a broad range of issues related to gambling.
The New Jersey Child Support Institute, which also is part of the Institute for Families, provides training to workers in the child welfare system, the courts, and child support services. In addition, we are the lead university in a child welfare training collaborative funded by the Division of Youth and Family Services and are developing curriculum and delivering training to DYFS employees throughout the state. Both of those are multiyear projects that will help several thousand employees strengthen their social work skills.
How are the study and practice of social work changing in an increasingly globalized world?
Social workers have to be increasingly sophisticated about working with diverse populations, particularly here in New Jersey, which is the most diverse state in the nation. So understanding different cultures and global issues and being able to work in a cross-cultural style and setting is important.
One of the ways we’re working toward that goal is through our Center on International Social Work. The center sponsored a summer school trip to Romania and Hungary this past spring and we will have a winter session course in Israel. We are developing activities related to social work and human services in central European countries and we are developing relationships with Ben Gurion University in Israel, which will ultimately result in exchange programs with faculty and collaborative research.
Are there other skills students need now that they didn’t need 10 or 20 years ago?
There is an increasing emphasis on evidence-based practice, at seeing what works, what are the outcomes. It’s no longer sufficient to evaluate services in terms of efforts. Students seem to be more aware of intervention research and evidence-based practice.
What are the school’s future goals?
One major thing we’ll be dealing with is our accreditation in 2010. We also will be part of a plan to transform the Livingston Campus into a hub for professional and continuing education programs that would include the School of Social Work, Rutgers Business School, the Graduate School of Education, and the School of Management and Labor Relations.