Class Notes

I continue to volunteer with CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) in the Family court where among other things I am the field supervisor for an MSW student. This uses my skills and knowledge of social services in the community. I also am on the grant making committee of a women's Giving Circle that pools our money and makes grants to programs that increase the self sufficiency of women and girls. I continue to be politically active locally and last fall put in a 17-hour day working at the polls.

Jen Rubin recently published a book, We Are Staying: Eighty Years in the Life of a Family, a Store, and a Neighborhood. The book is a memoir of Radio Clinic (a NYC small business her family owned for 80 years) and tells the story of the political economy of urban American through the life of Radio Clinic. We Are Staying is also an immigrant story, a grandfather-father-daughter story, a story of the unique character a family business brings to a neighborhood, and a reflection on what has been lost as stores like these disappear. Details on how to buy the book can be found here: https://www.rubinjen.com/we-are-staying--the-book.html

Roxanna Duntley-Matos, '11 PhD was selected in October 2018 by the Michigan Government Hispanic Latino Commission as one of the 50 Top Latinas in the state for her scholarly and community organizing achievements. Duntley-Matos was nominated for her leadership efforts during the Flint water crisis and her humanitarian musical missions with Puerto Rico and Mexico.

Jessica Wiederspan, PhD '17 dissertation research, "How the Ideology of the American Dream Persists in an Era of Economic Insecurity" is cited in The Washington Post, "Donald Trump's grotesque fraud".

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2018/10/03/donald…

Angie VanSchoick LMSW, LCSW was recently selected as a Director for the National Association for Court Management (NACM), serving a 2-year term. She has been the current President for the Colorado Association for Municipal Court Administration (CAMCA) since 2016 and looks forward to the additional role she'll be serving within her profession.

49 years after graduating from the University of Michigan, School of Social Work, I'm still a practicing social worker, working mostly with survivors of childhood trauma and dissociative disorders. I wrapped up a long career in NJ about 8 years ago when my husband and I moved to the DC Metro area to be closer to children and grandchildren (5 to date). My office is in Silver Spring, MD.

In 1999 I fulfilled a long deferred ambition to get my Ph.D. and I did so at NYU, completing a doctorate in one of the few remaining clinical programs in Social Work at the now re-named Silver School of Social Work.

I recently published my first book which I think is of interest to both lay readers and clinical communities: Emma and Her Selves: A Memoir of Treatment and a Therapist's Self-Discovery.

Writing and speaking about the book has been an exciting journey for me. And I love hearing from readers.

Ariana (Flood) Thelen is working in professional counseling and therapy at Identity Counseling, specializing in life transitions, family dynamics, elder concerns, grief counseling as well as anxiety and depression. She previously worked as a skilled nursing social worker, coordinating services for safe community living and transitions post-acute care, counseling in anxiety, depression, end of life, as well as interdisciplinary team (IDT) collaboration and policy improvement.

Judy Levick, MSW ’82 and Dr. Shari Munch, MSW ’82 co-authored a practice-based article in Advances in Neonatal Care Journal, entitled “NICU Bereavement Care and Follow-up Support for Families and Staff”, published in December of 2017. They collaborated with neonatal intensive care unit nurses who provide bereavement support at Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital where Judy was NICU Parent-to-Parent Partnership and Bereavement Follow-up Coordinator for 32 years. Dr. Munch is Associate Professor at Rutgers School of Social Work.

The Rev. Jonathan Vanderbeck (MSW, 2016) successfully completed his full social work licensure and recently began a new position with Samaritan Counseling Center in Scotia, New York. He works as a psychotherapist and specializing in issues of race, gender, and sexuality as it related to individuals of various faith traditions, and also serves as a minister of a local progressive Christian church.

Shannon R. Lane, MSW '99, recently co-authored the book Political Social Work: Using Power to Create Social Change, released in 2018 by Springer International. She was recently appointed Associate Professor and MSW Program Director at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut.