Rev. Michelle Walsh, LICSW, PhD, will retire from her role as lecturer at Boston University School of Social Work (BUSSW) in August, 2022, after teaching at the school for thirteen years.<\/p>\n
A clinical social worker, scholar and ordained Unitarian Universalist minister, Walsh\u2019s background is in spirituality, trauma, and lived religion. Her work as an educator \u2013 which included teaching master\u2019s-level courses on ethics, human behavior, racial justice and cultural oppression, and spirituality and social work \u2013 was backed by thirty years of experience in urban ministry and clinical services. Walsh has\u00a0directed two mental health clinics, founded an urban youth ministry program that she ran for seventeen years, and made novel scholarly and theoretical contributions to the fields of social work and theology. She also has worked as a clinical social work practitioner, forensic sexual abuse evaluator, supervisor, trainer, and pastoral psychotherapist and spiritual director.<\/p>\n
As a scholar, Walsh\u2019s best-known works include the article \u201cReligiosity Scales: What are We Measuring in Whom?\u201d co-authored with Marsha Cutting in 2008 and published in the international peer-reviewed journal Archive for the Psychology of Religion<\/em>, and the 2017 book Violent Trauma, Culture, and Power: An Interdisciplinary Exploration in Lived Religion. <\/em>The book, a study of trauma-response ministries in the aftermath of violence, was based on Walsh\u2019s doctoral dissertation at BU\u2019s School of Theology and was selected by the Amsterdam Centre for the Study of Religion to be the first in a series on lived religion and societal challenges.<\/p>\n Walsh also contributed to the study of trauma by exploring connections with language, psychological theories, and interdisciplinary schools of thought, such as theopoetics, and by participating in what she calls the \u201cintellectual zeitgeist\u201d around the idea of world\/sense<\/em><\/a> (the way in which one\u2019s identities shape their \u201cfelt sense\u201d of their world). The term has contributed to discussions around trauma, including disability, and to lived religion methodology.<\/p>\n In addition to her work in academia, Walsh is an engaged civic activist at the community level. A regular participant in rallies and marches for social and environmental justice, Walsh has served as clergy, marshal, and street medic, and her dedication has resulted in three nonviolent civil disobedience arrests. She also served as a Boston University union steward for several years and served as a co-chair for a jointly appointed labor-management Distinguished Service Award Committee for the lecturers\u2019 union.<\/p>\n Walsh\u2019s social justice values also have led her to make numerous pedagogical contributions at BUSSW. She was instrumental in incorporating cultural power analysis as a tool across the school\u2019s MSW coursework, particularly in ethics and racial justice, and she was responsible for revising the HB 744 course in spirituality and social work using a social justice framework.<\/p>\n Reflecting on her time at BUSSW, Walsh says, “I have been very proud to be both an MSW graduate and a professor \u2013 first as an adjunct and then as a salaried lecturer, nearly full-time in both cases for over twelve years. I loved the opportunity to be in a supportive relationship with so many amazing and talented social workers, as well as colleagues and staff, and I am grateful to have been able to make different contributions on many levels.\u201d<\/p>\n Walsh is departing from BUSSW to serve as minister of the First Parish Church in Taunton, Mass., but she says she plans to stay connected with the School and looks forward to her evolving role in the BUSSW community. “Though my ministerial identity is calling me in new ways,\u201d Walsh says, \u201cI always will be a social worker and continue to carry these dual identities.\u201d<\/p>\n Rev. Michelle Walsh, LICSW, PhD, will retire from her role as lecturer at Boston University School of Social Work (BUSSW) in August, 2022, after teaching at the school for thirteen years. A clinical social worker, scholar and ordained Unitarian Universalist minister, Walsh\u2019s background is in spirituality, trauma, and lived religion. Her work as an educator […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14869,"featured_media":59438,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7427,4057],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/ssw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59424"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/ssw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/ssw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/ssw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14869"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/ssw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59424"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/ssw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82147,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/ssw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59424\/revisions\/82147"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/ssw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/ssw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/ssw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/ssw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Read More BUSSW Faculty News<\/a><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"