School of Social Work News

Alix Gould-Werth (PhD in Social Work and Sociology '15) received a ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Award for her dissertation "From Pink Slip to Unemployment Insurance: Legal Mobilization and the Struggle to Make Ends Meet". The Award recognizes exceptional and unusually interesting work produced by U-M doctoral students.

Associate Professor Andrew Grogan-Kaylor’s recently published a meta-analysis examining the research on spanking and its effects on children which has been cited in numerous media outlets.

Professor Emerita Kathleen Faller gave two presentations and was interviewed by a reporter from the San Juan Star, the English language newspaper for an article on child sexual abuse.

Presentations:

• Allegations of Maltreatment Arising in Divorce, Custody, and Visitation Dispute Cases. Universidad Metropolitana First Symposium on Sexual Abuse. San Juan, PR.
• Sexual Abuse Disclosure Failures and What to Do About Them. Universidad Metropolitana First Symposium on Sexual Abuse. San Juan, PR.

Assistant Professor Mathieu Despard received a grant from the Washington University in St. Louis to analyze data from the 2013 and 2015 experiments of the Refund-to-Savings (R2S) project of the Center for Social Development (CSD) at Washington University. This Initiative is a collaboration among academic researchers and Intuit Company to study the effects of experimental interventions informed by behavioral economics to encourage low and moderate income (LMI) tax filers to save a part of their tax refunds when they file their federal income tax returns using Turbotax Freedom Edition online software.

Associate Professor Robert Ortega was elected, by the Senate Assembly, to fill the final open position on the executive committee of U-M's central faculty governance system. He was elected to the Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs.

Associate Professor Shawna Lee’s study, "Hugs, Not Hits: Warmth and Spanking as Predictors of Child Social Competence" was published in the Journal of Marriage & Family. Her study was also featured in a news article, “Spanking Children Does Not Make Them ‘Nicer’, But Hugging Does” which was posted on the Child and Family Blog.

Associate Professor Luke Shaefer and Professor Kathryn J. Edin of Johns Hopkins University new book "$2 a Day Living on Almost Nothing in America" was awarded the 2016 Hillman Prize for Book Journalism.  The Hillman Prize honors journalists who pursue investigative reporting and deep storytelling in service of the common good. 

Two CASC (Community Action and Social Change Underagraduate Minor) students were recognized for major awards at the University:

Brittney Williams was recognized as one of The Michigan Daily's Students of the Year.

Meredith Starkman is the winner of the 2016 Wallenberg Fellowship.