Student Spotlight: Chasing Change
Get to know MSW student Kate G. (SSW ’24)
Kate Glynn recalls how using her business as a platform for volunteer work led her to pursue social work as a career. Glynn also details how her advocacy to include course material educating students about reproductive justice eventually led to the creation of a course at BUSSW that taught exactly that. Glynn also underlines the importance of examining systems in the field of social work and illustrates how her current work for Reproductive Justice Now strives to achieve systemic change.
Could you describe your background to me? What are your interests outside of work and school?
I’m in my 40s now, so this is a career pivot. I grew up in both New York City and Boston, half my time in each, and now I live in Western Mass and have lived here for 20 plus years now.
Before deciding to be a social worker, I owned two retail stores in downtown Northampton. They were baby and children’s stores, focused mainly on gear. My first store had strollers, car seats, kids’ clothing, that kind of thing. The other one, which was the one that I had for a little bit longer, was cloth diapers, slings, wraps, children’s books, and wooden toys. That was 14 years of my life; being part of the young professional world and business community out here in Western Massachusetts.
I really always saw my businesses as a platform to do volunteer work. I like to say that I did my career plan backwards. I was originally going to retire into owning a children’s bookstore, but the opportunity presented itself much earlier, and now I’m doing the other nonprofit work that has kind of always been part of the through line. Before that, I also worked at a camp for emotional and behavioral special-needs kids in upstate New York, which I did for about seven years. That was a big part of shaping my value system; seeing children in the context of their lives, and thinking about how we work as teams, not just individuals. That was one of the origin points of how I started to think about the world in the interconnected systems model.
Why social work? What brought you to want to be a social worker? How did you first become interested in social work?
I have been involved in a lot of volunteer boards. I’ve been in board leadership for many years, including the United Way of Hampshire County, which then merged and now is a different entity. But I sat on that board for 10 years and was the chair for three years.
I was also part of the founding members of the Northampton Area Young Professionals. I sat on the board of our Chamber of Commerce for that. I was also on the board of a national organization that looked at handmade toys. Then most recently, and particularly pertaining to my chosen path in social work, is that I’ve been very engaged with the Abortion Rights Fund of Western Mass. I was on the board for five years, doing abortion funding work. That was a lot of the volunteer engagement that I was doing as a professional retailer, so I never saw myself as a retailer or an entrepreneur. It always felt so funny to be painted like that, and I was like, “No, no, I’m really more of a community educator and organizer.”
So, in a lot of ways, I really have been moving through the space like a macro social worker for a very long time. I did my undergrad degree based on Broff and Brenner’s ecological systems model. We like to talk about the difference between the micro, which is the individual, versus the macro, which pertains to community wide systems. So, I kind of always knew that I would go back to school eventually. I’m waspy enough that I always figured that I would get an advanced degree. I closed my store right before the pandemic, which actually had nothing to do with the pandemic; it was just the best stroke of luck in timing, ever. I gave up my lease March 1, 2020, which was 15 days before things hit the fan. I had no idea that the world was going to completely turn upside down. But I knew that I couldn’t figure out what was next while I was still doing the store, so I decided to stop. When I was trying to figure out what was next, I was involved with volunteering in the vaccine rollout in my community, as well as continuing to be part of the abortion funding world.
I was poking around, and I had looked at the macro program before, but it didn’t make sense to move to Boston. But now BU has a hybrid option after the pandemic, which seemed perfect because I could go to Worcester one night a week for the first year and a half of the program. And then, because of the pandemic, I learned that the online world isn’t terrible. It’s not my first choice, I prefer to learn in person, that’s the way my brain works. But it felt doable. So that’s how I ended up choosing this program, because I always knew that, again, macro was the way in for me. And I always knew that I was looking at public policy versus social work. I have a framework of reproductive justice, which is how I think about my macro practice. And I could do public policy, looking at reproductive justice or social work.
What’s your most outstanding memory or experience in your academic career at BUSSW?
The thing that I loved the most about the hybrid program is that we had a cohort.
There was this group of us that all started as awkward grad school students together. That first day we’re like, “I don’t know where the classroom is. What are we doing? Who are you?” Good thing we were all social workers, and we generally like people, so that helped. But that meant that I got to really know this group of people and go through learning with them for the first year and a half of the program. I was the only macro student in my cohort, which was a little bit of a bummer. I would have loved to have someone else that was a macro student in my cohort, but I also appreciated that I was very much integrated into the cohort; people always said that they appreciated my macro lens that I was using to look at things.
Certainly, when we got mainstreamed into the online world, it was nice to be in classes with other macro-minded people. That was lovely. Being this many years into my career and really knowing what I wanted to pursue, I was really clear about the coursework that I wanted to engage in during the program. So, I’m really grateful that the hybrid program is small enough for Susan to be able to help me and meet my needs so that I could really get the educational experience that I really wanted out of BU.
What makes social work worthwhile to you?
I believe in humans. I believe in our experience and our interconnectedness. The older I get, the more certain I am that there is nothing that isn’t helped by human connection.
That doesn’t mean that it’s going to fix it, but I cannot come up with anything that isn’t made a little bit better by some kind of human connection. I think using that and the framework of social work is the way that we move through the world of understanding. Humans are important, our relationships are important, and we exist in the context of our lives. That doesn’t mean that [human connectivity is] going to fix it, but I cannot come up with anything that isn’t made a little bit better by some kind of human connection. That is social work to me.
I also think the area that I focus in, which is reproductive justice, understands it is the intersection of the individual making choices about their reproductive future; to have or not have children, and in the context of safe and sustainable communities. It made a ton of sense for me to think about what degree I wanted to help me make this career pivot, and macro social work made all the sense in the world.
And I feel like I’ve landed in my dream position with the Reproductive Equity Now organization. I’m doing policy and advocacy work around reproductive equity, which is just amazing.
I spend a lot of my time explaining what macro social work is to people, but I kind of like it. It kind of gives me a chance to educate people that there are other kinds of social workers out there than just clinical. And we’re trying to come at the same kind of issues in our culture, but from different perspectives. Clinical is working on the individual level, and macro is working on the systems level. What are the common denominators in what’s happening in people’s lives? And how can we organize around that? Be it policy, or community organizing. Chances are whatever kind of problem it is, it’s typically a system issue.
What work during your academic career are you proudest of?
Hands down, I am deeply, deeply proud of how I was able to affect curricular change at BU. Not only being able to be part of the team that brought the Reproductive Justice and Social Work class into existence, and brought reproductive justice as a framework and abortion as a human rights issue to campus, but also being able to get some of these ideas into the general curriculum earlier.
In my first year, I was going to one of the equity and inclusion monthly talks. I think it was about abortion and disability, or reproductive rights and disability. Which is the corner of the world that I sit in. And so, I was looking it up on the equity and inclusion website; there’s a lot of great resources there, but there’s nothing about reproductive justice or abortion access. Whatever your feelings are about abortion, reproductive justice as a movement and a framework is very much in line with social work. The idea that people have the dignity and respect to make the choices for their lives that they want to make, and that there are systems bigger than they are that get in the way of people being able to make those decisions.
I sent an email to Ellen DeVoe and Dawn Belkin-Martinez saying, “Just a question. I’ve noticed that there aren’t any resources about this, and I’m curious about if you’d be open for a conversation about it.” Ellen responded saying, “Actually, I’m going to put you right in touch with Greer Hamilton, who recently graduated with a doctorate in social work.”
I actually knew Greer in my previous career path because we both worked in the abortion funding space for different abortion funds. So, it was this wonderful moment to find out that she was also a social worker involved here. We started talking and asking questions, and eventually Ellen said we had the possibility to write a class. The moment was right, we were post-Dobbs. The world was paying close attention to abortion and reproductive justice, for the first time really on a national stage ever. Those of us in the reproductive justice space have been talking about this for a long time and saying, “Hey, we are headed to a disaster.”
There was a national realization that this was not just about abortion. This was also about healthcare, about bodily autonomy, this is an economic issue, this is a race issue, this is an LGBTQ issue. This is an issue that touches so many things, and we have to be able to discuss it. We have to be able to hold it and talk about it as social workers, just like so many other things, regardless of what your personal feelings are. It’s our job to center the experience of whoever our client is, whether that’s a person or a community, as a macro social worker.
I am just grateful that the timing lined up really well to be able to write this class. It was me, Greer Hamilton, Renee Landon, who also just graduated this spring, Kim Hokanson, and Ellen Devoe who helped shape the process along the way. Renee Spencer was also hugely helpful. It was amazing to have administrative support and understanding that this was a really important and timely issue topic to get into the curriculum. We also were able to get the topic of reproductive justice introduced in the racism and cultural oppression class, HB 735, which was amazing. All that work to shift the curriculum; that is the thing that I am most proud about at BU as a macro person: systems change.
What are your favorite courses, professors, and events at BUSSW?
One piece that I particularly loved about the Worcester hybrid program was our initial class taught by Hope Haslam-Straughn, who is just one of the best professors. They couldn’t pick a better landing place for students coming in. She really made us feel so welcome and supported and engaged and really helped us get our feet underneath us as students. I think that BU is incredibly lucky to have her as a professor, and that class still remains one of my favorite experiences.
Mary Collins and Taylor Hall who taught us policy one and two out in Worcester. I love policy. So that was particularly interesting, being able to use the opportunity and the privilege to go back to school, and step back and see history in a different way. To see how the system isn’t broken, it was designed this way.
Geoff Wilkinson was an amazing teacher. I appreciated how rigorous he was, and also how he was particularly understanding about where I was in my professional development. He was able to understand how I was coming into the class with experience, not fresh out of undergrad coming to this field.
Also, Maddie Walkman in Public Health Social Work; I loved [it]. It was such a great class. I think I particularly loved it because it was the last in-person class that I had. I was thinking that’s exactly where I sit reproductive justice-wise, in public health social work. It’s this intersection where we evaluate how we see our population in terms of access to healthcare and the implications to that. I think Maddie’s a fantastic professor. She really goes above and beyond to make the coursework interesting and also to help students figure out what they want to do if they want to be in public health social work. She really understood that many of us in the class were at the end of our program. At that stage many students were thinking, “What about a job? What comes next?”
What are you doing in the field currently?
For my second placement, I was with Reproductive Equity Now and doing policy work with them, which was amazing. I knew the team from my work with the abortion fund, so it was a wonderful, easy transition back into the reproductive justice space. I am lucky enough to have been able to stay with them. At this point I’m covering their political and field director’s parental leave. I’m learning a whole lot very quickly about electoral politics in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire. I’m incredibly grateful, I love the team, and I feel like I’ve landed in my dream organization. I’m learning so much about the electoral system and the local race-side of politics. I don’t think that’s where my heart really lives, politics. I think I’m more on the policy side, but I know we have to have the people to vote on them. So, I understand the need.
But other than that, I actually am really enjoying just doing one thing. I’m not in school anymore, and I just had two weekends that I actually felt like were legitimate weekends. I felt like I was forgetting to do a discussion board post or readings that I would have to do; I still have that residual homework feeling. I’m still in the stage where I’m excited about not having to do homework.
I’m also taking a break from all other boards and organizations at the moment. I’ve told myself that I not only need a break, but also to figure out how to fully engage in this career pivot and stop to figure out how to be a professional in this space and then figure out how I can go back to volunteering. I need a full break from doing any volunteer work.
I’m enjoying a year of not having all these other projects that I usually have going on. It sounds super nerdy, but I’m really excited to just be able to focus on my job. Working with a team that I love working in the field that I went to school for and enjoying the privilege of just doing one thing.
What is your dream job in the field of social work?
What do I want to be when I grow up? I have no idea. Because what is your dream job in social work? Which I’m kind of already there, not with the electoral piece, but this organization. They are the one org that’s really looking at state level policy for reproductive equity. We just expanded to Connecticut and New Hampshire last year. There’s actually two other macro social workers that work for Reproductive Equity Now, so I feel like I’m in really good company. The state director for Connecticut and the state director for New Hampshire are also macro social workers who focus on reproductive justice. It’s like a dream that I’ve landed in this amazing spot.
I don’t know if I have a dream job. I have goals about breaking down stigma, and I have goals around abortion. I have goals around organizing our abortion landscape in Massachusetts, but that’s not a job. Those are my macro dreams.
What is your advice for other MSW students?
I feel like there’s the practical advice of figuring out the assistive technology that is different than it was 20 years ago. But talk-to-text now really helps with getting things down on paper. There’s text-to-speech technology, so you can get things read to you as you’re commuting, which is hugely helpful. Particularly for those of us who are older students, we need to relearn how to go to school, and re-engage with things like, how do we write a paper? How do we do this? There’s just a whole bunch of technology which has really grown in helpful ways.
I think my piece of advice is just think about the macro of it all. That’s the point of social work, even for clinical students. We see the person in the context of their lives. If not, there are many other mental health degrees. I say that because BU understands this as well, and we have a general curriculum that we all must take to understand policy, to understand systems of oppression. I think that’s really, really important. I think the advice is just to remember to see people within a bigger context.
Also just do as much reading as you can, but don’t kill yourself. Do what you can. The experience of being in school is not just about how many pages you read; it’s also about the people that you’re meeting. It’s about the connections that you’re making, and the discussions that you’re having. So, make sure that you have enough in your tank to be able to engage with all of the other parts of school that happen when you’re a student.