Departments
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Week of 31 October 1997 |
Vol. I, No. 10 |
Feature Article
In its 79th year, SSW turns 60
by Eric McHenry
The School of Social Work is unsure about its age.
Events have been scheduled locally and around the country to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the school, which was established in 1918. Wilma Peebles-Wilkins, dean of SSW, can explain this discrepancy.
"What we're really celebrating," she says, "is 60 years as an autonomous two-year graduate program. The first classes were held, I think, 78 years ago. The organization of the department actually began 79 years ago, so if we had waited another year, we could have celebrated our 80th -- perhaps a more prestigious anniversary."
By any gauge, BU's is among the oldest schools of social work in the country. It was conceived, Peebles-Wilkins says, in the spirit of the settlement house movement and its progenitor, social work pioneer Jane Addams, who founded Chicago's Hull House in 1889 to provide a health- ful living environment for the disadvantaged.
SSW is not resting on its laurels during its 60th year, but is undertaking a major fundraising campaign. Activities related to the anniversary, such as BUSSW on Wheels brunches and dinners held in cities all over the United States, will continue through June of 1998, the end of the school's fiscal year.
The most concentrated celebrating, however, will happen on November 1. At BU, there will be the daylong Sixtieth Anniversary Symposium, and at the Boston Museum of Science, the Alumni Association Awards Dinner. Mayor Thomas Menino has issued a proclamation declaring November 1 Boston University School of Social Work Day.
Rather than a keynote speaker, the symposium, entitled "The Changing Face of Social Work: Advancing Toward the New Millennium," will offer a keynote dialogue between SSW Professors Carolyn Dillon and Melvin Delgado. Workshops will take place throughout the day, conducted by SSW faculty and alumni.
The awards dinner will honor both students and distinguished graduates of SSW. In addition to the annual Louis Lowy Scholarships, two awards will be presented for the first time, the Saul and David Bernstein Prize and the Annette Schaffer Eskind Scholarship, both of which recognize meritorious work done by current students.
Dan Wesley, a 1942 graduate of SSW who has been a univer-sity-based career advisor and administratior for 35 years, will be honored with the Outstanding Career in Social Work award. He'll come from Stillwater, Okla., to receive the prize. Peebles-Wilkins says part of the appeal of the awards dinner is that it not only recognizes, but also reunites, so many alumni.
"There will be lots of socializing," she says, "because we're getting to see people whom we don't always see. We expect maybe 150 people."
Other alumni in attendance will be Edith Fraser (SSW'72), who will be given the award for Outstanding Contributions to the Field of Social Work, and Geoff Wilkinson (SSW'85), who will get the Hubie Jones Urban Service Award. Wilkinson is executive director of an advocacy group called the Massachusetts Senior Action Council and an adjunct assistant professor at SSW.
The work these honorees have done, Peebles-Wilkins says, reflects some of the school's long-standing ideals.
"Although they've changed, obviously, with the social environment and political scene," she says, "I think the school's commitment to social change and its sense of social responsibility for people in need have been constants through the years."
For more information about SSW's 60th anniversary events, please call 617-353-3765.