Ethnic identity develops during early childhood and is associated with better adaptive behavior, according to new research by professor Esther Calzada focusing on Latino children. Calzada interviewed more than 600 Mexican American and Dominican American young children (4 to 5-year-old) socially and economically disadvantaged, their parents, and their teachers. She found that most children showed […]
Issues
We are in the top ten!
U.S. World & News Report’s latest edition ranks the UT Austin graduate social work program #7 in the nation. U.S. News & World Report’s graduate rankings, separate from the magazine’s yearly ranking of undergraduate programs, are among the most prestigious ratings in higher education. They are based on surveys of academic leaders and, for select […]
March madness
Every other March, clinical professor Barbara Anderson gets fired up as she coordinates Student Day at the Legislature. On that day, social work students from all over Texas come to Austin, learn how the legislative process works and how to advocate for issues they care about. Then they rally on the Capitol steps and deliver […]
Fall 2016 Class Notes
HOMETOWN: El Paso, Texas. CURRENTLY: Project coordinator for off-site services, Austin Child Guidance Center, Austin. MOST INFLUENTIAL PROFESSOR: Tammy Linseisen trained me to be the social worker that I am. I learned from her the importance of supervision, and that to best serve clients we have to learn about and challenge ourselves. MEMORY FROM FIELD: September 11 happened the […]
Fall 2016 Community
An American story: Dora Gonzalez; Endowments: Dan and Vicki Ross Endowed Scholarship in Social Work, Judge Pat Shelton and family Endowed Fellowship; Why I Give: Kathy Rider.
Community Policing in Austin
How community policing is changing a North Austin neighborhood On a bright winter morning, Officer Taber White watches as two squad cars pull up on the opposite side of North Austin’s busy Rundberg Ln., lights flashing and sirens shrieking. The police officers jump out of their cars and move to surround their target: a large black-and-tan […]
What is Kathy Armenta Up To?
“I would like to know about what my clinical professor Kathy Armenta is up to these days!” A few variations of this request came with readers’ responses to The Utopian survey last fall. As a member of the clinical faculty at the School of Social Work for the past 19 years, Armenta has accompanied hundreds […]
ACE-ing It
How does childhood trauma affect health and what can social workers do about it? One evening in the summer of 2006, Seanna Crosbie, MSSW ’00, was sitting in her Austin living room, transfixed by a slideshow playing on her computer screen. “I was so moved that I don’t think I slept for a couple of […]
How to prevent homelessness
When Mary Dodson, MSSW ’96, was a social work student, she was set on the clinical concentration. We talked with her about how she declined professor Cal Streeter’s suggestion to switch to the community and administrative leadership track, and how she ended up using macro skills many times during her twenty years in homeless services. […]
Criminalization is not the answer to homelessness
By Cal Steeter We are seeing a continuing, worrisome trend across the country: Cities are trying to address the problem of homelessness through ordinances that criminalize life-sustaining activities such as sleeping, eating and even sitting on the street, in parks, on the beach or other public spaces. This is wrong and does nothing to address […]