Strategic Plan
Background
Description of faculty, staff and resources
Brief history of SSW over past decade
The School of Social Work celebrated 85 years of social work education at Boston University in 2003-2004. In 2005, the Commission on Accreditation of the Council on Social Work Education reaffirmed SSW’s full accreditation for eight years, continuing through June 2013. SSW has received national recognition as a graduate social work program, ranked 19th in the nation by U.S. News World Report in 2005 and 10th in terms of faculty publication rates by the Journal of Social Work Education in 2002. In July, 2005, Wilma Peebles-Wilkins stepped down as SSW Dean after serving for 12 years. Professor Gail Steketee was serving as dean ad interim until June 2008 when she appointed Dean. During her tenure, Dr. Peebles-Wilkins maintained the long tradition of excellence in teaching and actively supported faculty research and scholarship, helping transform the School into a research institution with national prominence. Dean Steketee continues to lead the School in these directions.
During the past two years, several new faculty members with varied experience and research interests, and from culturally and racially diverse backgrounds, have been hired at SSW (seven began in Fall, 2005; two will begin in Fall, 2006). While several long-time and esteemed faculty colleagues have recently retired, we anticipate that faculty hired in recent years will build upon the School’s traditional strengths, as well as add new and diverse perspectives.
Over the past decade, there have been some technological improvements at SSW including: office computers and printers (or printer access) for full-time faculty and staff; wireless routing network access for some SSW offices; one classroom at 264 Bay State Rd. equipped with a computer and LCD projector; a small computer lab located in the basement of 264 Bay State Rd. for students and research assistants; use of course info sites for SSW courses; and Mugar Library electronic reserve sites for SSW course readings. These improvements are helpful, but insufficient to address the needs of our faculty, administrative staff, and students, and the increasing demands of the social work profession.
The School has long mounted full- and part-time programs both on and off campus. In 2001, a third off-campus program site was added at Cape Cod as part of our Southeastern Massachusetts Program. This site enrolled 16 students in its first year and admits a new cohort approximately every other year.
Description of faculty and staff, their relationship to the mission, and their roles in SSW’s major teaching and research components.
Faculty
When hiring is completed in spring 2006, SSW will have 27 full-time faculty, of whom 8 (30%) are tenured (3 full and 5 associate), 12 (44%) are tenure-track (1 associate and 11 assistant), and 7 (26%) are non-tenure track faculty (2 full, 3 associate, 2 assistant). Two administrators (Dean, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs) also hold faculty rank (full and associate). SSW also has 3 half-time clinical assistant professors and a large number of adjunct faculty who have been with the School for many years. The faculty is organized into five departments—Clinical Practice, Macro Practice, Human Behavior, Social Policy, and Research—each with a chair who is usually a tenured professor.
At the time of hire, faculty members are selected to represent a range of teaching and scholarly/research interests. Some overlap in faculty interests and cross disciplinary research is valued to promote collaborations within SSW, within the university, and with outside academic institutions. Across substantive areas many faculty are engaged in community based research projects around which the school is developing integrative teaching and research models. Funded research projects focus on the following areas:
- substance abuse—alcohol, drugs, training, relapse prevention, teen prevention
- health and health policy—HIV/AIDS, men’s health, Latina women’s health, minority adolescent health disparities, professional roles, children with special health care needs, disability
- mental health—development of interventions for depressed mothers, for obsessive spectrum conditions; community intervention partners; psychopathology of hoarding
- children and families—child welfare training, parenting, adolescent mentoring, child trauma, adolescent dating violence, public policy effects
- aging—nationwide training and evaluation project
Unfunded research currently focuses on empowerment strategies for communities and organizations, workforce development with disadvantaged workers in the non-profit sector, effects of public policies addressing poverty and inequality in children and families, social work practice with Latino culture and communities, effects of race/ethnicity, adult and child trauma, child abuse and neglect, exposure to violence, family caregiving, gay and lesbian families, women’s health and mental health, adolescent health risk behaviors, international collaborations on macro practice issues, and occupational stress among SW health practitioners. Most full-time faculty members teach both required and elective MSW courses and a few also teach doctoral courses. MSW electives and doctoral courses usually represent some aspect of the faculty member’s research and/or clinical interests. Recent average ratings of faculty members’ teaching range from 4.3 to 4.7 on 1-to-5 scales, indicating that teaching is routinely rated as very good to excellent; ratings below 3.0 are extremely rare. Faculty members also serve as administrators of dual degree programs. Several tenure line faculty also teach in the doctoral program and many advise and support doctoral students as RAs and TAs.
Staff
Key administrators include the Dean and two Associate Deans, one for Academic Affairs to provide leadership for the MSW program and curriculum development, and a second for Enrollment Services and External Relations to oversee admissions and alumni and donor activities. Three Assistant Deans oversee Field Education and advising, Off-Campus Programs, and Finance and Personnel, including SSW and grant budgets and payroll. Other full-time administrators include six Directors: admissions, financial aid, student services, part-time program integration and coordinator of the GEM Project, professional education program, and our Southeastern Massachusetts Program. The doctoral program is directed by a tenured faculty member. Other administrators are the Associate Director of Field Education, the Registration Administrator, the Macro Practice Field Education Coordinator, the Personnel Administrator, the Assistant to the Dean, a computer consultant, an admissions manager, an administrative assistant to field education, and a writing tutor. SSW’s administrative programs are supported by the equivalent of 13 full-time support staff. Four full-time support staff currently assist faculty. The School has one development officer (Nadia Chamblin-Foster).
How has the composition of the faculty evolved over the last decade in response to changes in the focus of SSW?
Since 1995, SSW has seen 23 faculty departures from the School due to 7 retirements (including the Dean), 8 acceptances of positions at other institutions (assistant to full professors, two of whom took deanship positions), 6 who left because of concerns about tenure and two who were denied tenure. During this same period many new faculty were hired, including 7 professors who entered in 2005 and 2 will begin in 2006 after our current search is completed.
The bar for hiring new tenure track faculty is higher than in past years. For tenure track faculty, we require a minimum of two recent publications, a clear research agenda, teaching experience with very good ratings, and post-doctoral research experience (strongly preferred). This higher standard befits a stronger and larger applicant pool for SSW positions (120 applicants for several tenure-track openings in 2005 and 70 for one opening in 2006). The very large influx of new faculty to the School is exciting, but also demanding as SSW administrators and faculty work to inform and mentor these new faculty members. All eight tenured faculty members are actively involved in mentoring, an important activity for several years to come.
The current faculty complement seems well balanced across tenured and tenure track ranks; about one-quarter are clinical professors who carry a somewhat heavier teaching load and are somewhat less engaged in research activities. Because the current tenured faculty is not yet near retirement age, the balance in ranks will gradually shift toward more tenured faculty as those hired during the past several years move up through the ranks. Having a full complement of faculty means that relatively little change will occur in faculty composition during the coming five years compared to the previous five. We currently have moderate diversity among faculty, and will have limited opportunity to increase this in the coming few years.
Who are the five most important peers/competitors for SSW? How does SSW compare to these peers in intellectual strength, strategic mission, and available resources?
Our top five peers/competitors in order of their national ranking according to U.S. News and World Report are University of Michigan (1), Washington University in St. Louis (2), Columbia University (3), University of California at Berkeley (4), and Boston College (24), the last chosen because it is our major competitor in the local region. SSW is ranked 19. These programs were selected because of their high ranking, urban setting, private status, and the high frequency of SSW applicants who enroll in these programs instead of our own.
Intellectual strength
With a faculty of 27 and a student body of approximately 350, we are moderate in size—smaller than Columbia ) and BC, similar to U of Mich and Wash U, and larger than Berkeley. Compared to comparably sized programs, with 27 faculty, we have considerably fewer than U of Mich (53 faculty) but more than Wash U (21 faculty). Other programs are similar to our own in faculty/student ratios. According to websites for these programs, the total number of faculty grants ranges from 28 for Wash U and BC to 43 for U of Mich and 73 for Columbia; our faculty hold 16 current grants. The number of federal grants ranges from 5 for BC to 17 for U of Mich (Columbia does not break this figure out); we currently have 11. Thus, we have fewer grants than the top programs, but more federal grants than BC. Also relevant to resource issues below is our single university-based grant compared to 10 for U of Mich and 3 for Wash U. In general, we believe SSW has considerable room to improve intellectual and research traffic to SSW, as currently we do not have an invited lecture series or visiting scholar programs such as Columbia and other schools mount.
Strategic mission
Our master’s level programs are not dissimilar from top ranked schools in boasting a range of educational options such as dual degree programs and specializations. However, U of Mich, Columbia, and Wash U offer additional cross-disciplinary programs including MSW/MBA and which we do not offer, and MSW/JD which is approved but not currently operating. These are options we could consider, as BU has such professional schools with which we might partner. An important area of shortfall relative to top peer schools is the size and rigor of our doctoral program. Other schools offer more advanced training in methodological skills, including active involvement in research and grant activity and provide more financial and technical resources for teaching and research assistantships. This competitive disadvantage hinders our Ph.D. graduates from competing nationally for top academic positions. Producing scholars who compete at the highest level will markedly increase our reach and visibility. SSW is very similar in faculty diversity to other schools; our student diversity is somewhat below that of other schools (23 to 35%), except BC (16%) which is comparable.
Available resources
All of these peer schools but BC have their own buildings that house their educational programs, faculty offices, library facilities, and technical support; research activity is sometimes located within that building and sometimes nearby. Other resources that generally exceed our own include computing and IT support to faculty and computerized classrooms and facilities for students. All of these programs have an on-site library and staff who support courseware, lit searches, and research datasets. Several have a school-based research coordinator. Three of the five school websites are comprehensive and state-of-the-art with links to important resources; detailed faculty profiles link directly to papers and centers to showcase research and practice areas. Our own website is not up to these standards and plans to remedy this are already in progress. Of special interest are Columbia’s university-wide graduate student activities that encourage socializing and scholarly lectures and other activities. This program strikes us as fertile ground for fostering important cross-disciplinary thinking at the graduate level.
Endowments at SSW are considerably below those of these peers. Wash U leads with $110m endowment and 10 endowed chairs, followed by Columbia at $40m endowment. U of Mich is presently in a $16.5m fundraising campaign to endow scholarships, faculty chairs, and research funds. Berkeley has four endowed chairs. Alumni giving information was not available. Clearly, fundraising is an area in which we can improve substantially.
Distribution of resources used to finance SSW. How has this evolved over the past decade? Are the external sponsors the same today as a decade ago? What is the role of direct support from endowment in SSW?
The resources used to finance SSW have remained the same in the last 10 years. The Provost sets an expense budget to cover most of the salaries and operating expenses. An additional amount is added each year to cover the annual merit increase of employees. The Off-campus programs are set up as entrepreneurial accounts from which tuition income covers the salaries and operating expenses for the programs and the margin generated each year is used to supplement the main budget. Depending on the enrollment, the margin has varied from $250k to $500k. Funds from discretionary accounts are used to cover unanticipated expenses. As awarded grants have increased in recent years, the School’s share of IDC cost recoveries has also increased modestly. These funds are used to supplement costs incurred in building the research infrastructure. The School has had a balanced budget at the year-end for the last 10 years and has built a moderate margin reserve to provide resources for special projects.
There have been substantial changes in the School’s fundraising efforts and success over the past decade. The total number of gifts decreased by 42% compared to fiscal year 1994/95, but the total dollars raised in the same comparison rose 51%. (There has been some variability in both categories during the past 10 years.) Of particular importance has been the significant dollar increase in individual giving. During the same timeframe, support from corporations decreased while foundation support increased. Over this time period, nearly 20 new endowed scholarship and prize funds were established through fundraising. Despite the increases in funds raised, the participation rate has declined steadily from a high of 19% in 1999 to a low of 12% in 2005. This decline may be attributable to the high loan burden and low salaries of recent graduates.
Currently the Chair of Clinical Practice is a Clinical Professor (Cassandra Clay) while Gail Steketee serves as Dean ad interim.
