Gary Bachman, MSSW ’82, retired from his faculty position at Park University in Parkville, Missouri, with the rank of Emeritus Professor, becoming one of only 27 faculty members to have been so honored. He remains active on the boards of several social service agencies on both sides of the state line in the metropolitan Kansas […]
Summer 2024
Time and Legacy: The GRACE Program & the SHS Master’s Programs evolve with time to new leadership
Time, as they say, is inevitable. It forges legacies, establishes age, and eventually, shapes us all. The Gerontology Resources and the Aging Community in Education (GRACE) Program, a hat has led dozens of social workers into serving older their care partners, is going through its own shaping as program champion Sarah Swords, pictured left in […]
National Leaders from Coast to Coast
From Seattle to Boston and Tallahassee to Anchorage, the Steve Hicks School of Social Work branching its leadership across the nation. What starts on the Forty Acres changes the world. And what starts at the Steve Hicks School of Social Work changes social work education across the country. SHS is becoming an incubator of leaders […]
“How Do I Prove That I am Good at Helping?” What Kewal Hausmann (BSW ’23) Learned About Social Work Through Their Practicum Experience at Doug’s House
In an unsuspecting home in Austin, Doug’s House is a sanctuary that serves as the only hospice and recuperative care facility in Central Texas that supports those living with HIV or AIDS. Doug’s House is one part of Project Transitions which is a local organization that provides affordable housing for Austin residents with HIV or […]
Big Questions with Dean Allan Cole
SHS is moving into a new building. Tell us more about the moving process into Walter Webb Hall and what the long-term future looks like for our facilities. We executed Phase I of the moving process to Walter Webb in March over Spring Break, which took our non-student facing staff and offices (such as development, […]
Thank you, 1925 San Jacinto
In the words of Mark Twain, history may not repeat itself, but it often rhymes. In the mid-1990s, after more than 25 years of being housed “temporarily” in a converted motel, the School of Social Work at The University of Texas at Austin needed a better space to do its impactful work. An opportunity presented […]
Bringing together communities, medicine, and the practice of social work
When Lailea Noel, Ph.D., took over as the new director for the Institute for Collaborative Health Research and Practice (ICHRP) this past summer, her vision for ICHRP included two specific goals: increased communication and increased collaboration. Established at the Steve Hicks School of Social Work in 2004, the Institute of Collaborative Health Research and Practice […]
Up and Out: What Dr. Cynthia Franklin sees for the future of the Steve Hicks School
“Now, nearly four decades since that conversation, Franklin serves at the Steve Hicks School of Social Work as the director of external relations and the Stiernberg/ Spencer Family Professor in Mental Health. Her list of accolades is long. She’s been designated as a Social Work Pioneer from the National Association of Social Workers (NASW), selected […]
Dean Rebecca Gomez is Gone (Home) To Texas
In her first year as a Ph.D. at the Steve Hicks School of Social Work, Rebecca Gomez (Ph.D. ’12) would sit in her data analysis class in the basement of the building, often wondering what her purpose at the school should be. Now, more than a decade later, her purpose is to serve as the […]