On a Wednesday morning this past February, after the winter storm that left Texas paralyzed for a week, a long line of people lined up outside Gregory Gym, in the heart of the Forty Acres. People waited patiently, masked under the warm sun and with the proverbial six feet of distance apart from each other. […]
Spring 2021
Alumna Lauren Gutierrez shares her social work journey on social media
Near the end of completing her bachelor’s in psychology, first-gen college student from San Antonio Lauren Gutierrez felt lost at UT Austin. “I didn’t know what I wanted to do,” she said. “I thought I wanted to be an ER physician or work somewhere in the medical field. I just wasn’t feeling any of the […]
Alumnae in politics: Advocating for change in Austin’s education system
Ten-year-old Noelita Lugo was overjoyed to join her big sister in class at the University of Houston. As the youngest child of two working parents, she often spent time with her two older siblings because they were her baby sitters. As a fifth grader, it was the moment she sat alongside her big sister in […]
Alumnae in politics: Running for Comal County Commissioner
Colette Nies had no intentions of becoming a social worker, until meeting with her advisor at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. “We were talking about my work in anti-torture policy and food policy and he asked ‘why aren’t you getting a masters in social work,’” she said. “I didn’t know any social workers and I was […]
Alumnae in politics: Running for the Texas Senate
Coming from small town Mineola, Texas, Audrey Spanko had no idea what social work was. But when she finally discovered the field, she knew it was exactly where she needed to be. She obtained her bachelor of social work degree from UT Austin in 2011 and began direct service work in hospitals, clinics and nonprofit […]
Job searching in the times of COVID
Despite the ongoing challenges of the pandemic we all face in our daily lives, not all is bad news. Jennifer Luna, director of the DiNitto Career Center, shares how some economic and systemic consequences of the pandemic may provide new opportunities for social workers searching for jobs in 2021. The job market After an initial […]
Reflections of a first-gen social work student
By Grace Farley, BSW ’21 In my second year on the Forty Acres, I was hired as the inaugural resident assistant (RA) for the First-Generation Living Learning Community, UT Austin’s first residence hall for students who are the first in their families to go to college. As an RA, I was trained to provide residents […]
Winter of 2021
By Nicole Gollis Golden, MSSW ’04 On Thursday at 5:00 a.m, power was restored at my home in Austin after 75 hours without heat or electricity. For those few days, the temperature read 44 degrees inside during the daytime, while lows outside dipped into the single digits at night. In a dark and cold cave-like […]
Removing the stigma of addiction
Megan and Matthew Szabo Endowed Excellence Fund at the Steve Hicks School of Social Work. Liz Pires thought it odd when spoons started vanishing from her kitchen. She asked her teenage children, Matt and Megan, to please put used spoons in the sink or dishwasher and make sure they were not accidentally throwing them with […]
Why your support matters: Norma Jaramillo, BSW ’21
Norma Jaramillo graduated in the top 7% of her high school class in Lockhart, Texas. Still, she didn’t think she could go to college. “My family couldn’t afford it,” she said. But when her 12th grade culinary teacher, a UT Austin alum, encouraged her to pursue higher education, Jaramillo decided to take a chance. She […]
