Class Notes

Miriam Connolly was hired as Director of the Blavin Scholars Program at the University of Michigan.

Recently retired from a career as an administrator, educator, and therapist at Michigan State University, Pine Rest Mental Health, Calvin College, and Western Michigan University. Looking forward to new ventures as a grandparent and volunteer.

I have recently received tenure and have been promoted to Associate Professor of Sociology at Eastern Illinois University. Since completing my Ph.D. in 2010 from Western Michigan University, I have been teaching Social Statistics and the Sociology of Poverty and Social Welfare at EIU. My research has focused on changes in social welfare programs and their impacts on historically marginalized populations, rural and micropolitan food insecurity, and the location, access, and utilization of food pantries by food insecure populations.

Recently retired after almost 40 years in social work, case management and department leadership in hospitals in Vermont and Maine. Over the years, was active on the Boards of the Society for Social Work Leadership in Health Care and the American Case Management Association. Currently serving as Chair of the National Board of Case Management certification and also enjoying other volunteer work in the Burlington, VT area, travel, leisure, grandchildren and not carrying a pager!

Linda (Turner) Katz spent 40+ years in the child welfare field, as a foster/adoption worker, supervisor, manager, University of Washington lecturer, and retired after 10 years as director of the Court Appointed Special Advocates Program at the King County (WA) Superior Court. She served as a volunteer CASA for 40 years. Since retirement she has published a memoir, Sing Me Awake, about Mississippi in the 60's and her SSW friend, Donna Higgins. Her second book, Rise Up! Discoveries in an Urban First Grade, will be published in March 2017. She lives in Seattle with her husband, and has a grown son.

Amy Ellwood, MSW ’83, retired after 25 years of service at the University of Nevada School of Medicine. She was awarded the academic rank of Professor Emerita of Family Medicine and Psychiatry. She continues teaching on a volunteer basis in the psychiatry residency and child/adolescent psychiatry programs. She was also recently named the Outstanding Psychotherapy Supervisor of the Year by the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellows.

James “Jim” Toy, MSW ’81, was honored by NASW-Michigan with the 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of his outstanding social work practice and his continued commitment to the principles of social justice.

Laurie Carpenter was selected to receive NASW-Michigan’s 2016 Public Citizen of the Year award, along with her Co-Director Michael Hood, for their work in Flint, MI, during the Flint Water Crisis. They founded Crossing Water, a volunteer-run NGO, in response to the crisis, and lead social worker-led Rapid Response Service Teams in providing resources and education to the most vulnerable residents in Flint.

I am celebrating 40 yrs in the profession in May. I have started a new social work program at the Wayne County Medical Examiner's Office in Detroit. I have had a paper accepted to the journal Health and Social Work entitled " Involved in the Business of Death: Social Work's Role in Post-Mortem Care" for an upcoming issue.

Grace Chee, Ph.D., M.S.W successfully defended her dissertation, "Chinese grandparents' ethnic and racial socialization of their Chinese-White biracial grandchildren in the San Francisco Bay Area," in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at Michigan State University. She successfully defended her dissertation on Friday morning on March 25, 2016.

She is currently on the job market.