Faculty News

Assistant Professor Ashley Cureton and Field Faculty Rosalva Osorio have received funding for their project, The Implementation of Forum Theatre to Engage in Difficult Conversations within the U-M Social Work Community. The project uses Forum Theatre to provide social work students with concrete strategies on how to successfully engage in difficult conversations and challenging dialogues. The project was chosen by the U-M Arts Initiative, which supports the connection between teaching and the arts at U-M.

Associate Professor Terri Friedline shares her thoughts on President Biden’s student debt relief program in Fast Company.  She says that while the relief package will make a real difference, she is concerned that it ignores the role structural racism and sexism play in educational debt.  "The Biden administration will have to do more if it aims to adequately address these and the many other remaining structural problems with debt and education," she writes. The story originated in the Conversation and has been included in numerous publications including:

• The Conversation
• the Atlantic Journal-Constitution
• HeraldNet

In a work of fiction for Current Affairs, Associate Professor Terri Friedline imagines “The Day Wells Fargo Closed” — the day when a bank once deemed “too big to fail” is shut down for the benefit of the public.

Associate Professor Matthew Smith created role-playing job interview training that helps people with autism and other disabilities find employment. Smith partnered directly with youth with autism spectrum disorders, their parents, teachers and employers, as well as employed adults with autism spectrum disorders, to ensure the program reflected their needs. Each practice interview is unique and a real-time coach provides ongoing feedback. Students reported that the program was enjoyable, easy to use and reduced anxiety during real interviews.

Professor Rogério M. Pinto has been named a University Diversity and Social Transformation Professor.

Sponsored by the Office of the Provost, and jointly administered by the U-M National Center for Institutional Diversity (NCID) and the Office for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (ODEI), the Diversity and Social Transformation Professorship is an honor designation for senior faculty who have the highest levels of achievement in demonstrating a commitment to the university’s ideals of diversity, equity and inclusion through their scholarship, teaching or service and engagement. The initial appointment is for five years and also includes special faculty fellow status at NCID.

Pinto’s research focuses on finding academic, sociopolitical and cultural venues for broadcasting voices of oppressed individuals and groups. Funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, his community-engaged research focuses on the impact of interprofessional collaboration on the delivery of evidence-based services (HIV and drug-use prevention and care) to marginalized racial/ethnic and sexual minorities in the United States and Brazil. Pinto also conducts art-based scholarly research.

"With this professorship, I will advance my federally-funded research on the impact of critical consciousness to abate racism, homophobia, sexism and other forms of oppression. I will specifically investigate performance and visual arts as vehicles for self-healing and social action against oppression of minoritized people," said Pinto.

Pinto is the Berit Ingersoll-Dayton Collegiate Professor of Social Work and the School’s Associate Dean for Research and Innovation.  He is also a Professor of Theatre and Drama at the School of Music, Theatre & Dance. He was the recipient of the U-M Harold R. Johnson Diversity Service Award in 2021.

Professor Daphne Watkins’ new book, “Secondary Data in Mixed Methods Research,” has been released as part of Sage Publishing’s Mixed Methods Research Series. It is the first book to focus on the use of secondary, or existing, data in mixed methods research, and explains how to find and evaluate sources of secondary data through research design, and writing and reporting. "Writing this book was both hard work and heart work. Few scholars of color serve as thought leaders in mixed methods research, but now is the time for us to adapt traditional research approaches so that they help us serve our communities and our needs,” says Watkins. “I hope my contribution to the field will not only help scholars complete their mixed methods projects with secondary data but also inspire them to identify the gaps in our field and fill them."

Associate Professor Matthew Smith’s research is cited in a Chicago Tribune story exploring the ways to support people with autism to enter the workforce. “Virtual job training programs such as one at the University of Michigan can help fill in these gaps in training. A computerized program developed for virtual job training provided 15 practice job interview sessions of increasing difficulty. This program resulted in greater success in obtaining a job within six months, improved job interview skills and reduced anxiety about interviewing.”

Associate Professor Terri Friedline submitted written comments about the elimination of overdraft fees to the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services March 31, 2022 hearing. “If private banks remain unable or unwilling to take the steps necessary for creating equal, dignified access to retail financial services, then they should step aside and enthusiastically support options such as postal banking, public banking, mission-driven Community Development Financial Institutions, and mutual aid or solidarity economy networks, which are dedicated to serving people in need without charging expensive fees and adding to burdensome debt,” she writes.