Faculty News

The 2016 Student Union Teacher of the Year is Assistant Professor Jamie Mitchell. She was nominated by a member of the student body and was selected based on a submitted essay detailing some of the remarkable ways that Shari has influenced the students in her classes.

Every year the SSW Student Union puts out a call for nominations to the students regarding the teacher of the year. This is an award asking students to submit the name of a teacher they feel has been particularly powerful in their learning and who they hold as the model for an educator in the SSW.

Daniel Fischer was appointed Clinical Assistant Professor and Assistant Dean for Field Instruction at the School, effective May 2017. Fischer currently serves as Interim Director of Social Work and Spiritual Care at Michigan Medicine and has been a long term instructor and field supervisor for the School as well as an accomplished social work practitioner.

Associate Professor Luke Shaefer’s book, $2 a Day was cited in The Atlantic article, “Is It Better to Be Poor in Bangladesh or the Mississippi Delta?”. 

Professors Edie Kieffer and Michael Spencer and research associate Brandy Sinco’s article, "Correlates of Interpersonal Ethnoracial Discrimination Among Latino Adults with Diabetes: Findings from the REACH Detroit Study" was published in the Journal of Ethnic & Cultural Diversity in Social Work.

Professor Emerita Kathleen Faller and Associate Professor Karen Staller co-edited a special issue of the Journal of Interpersonal Violence entitled, “The Witch-Hunt Narrative: Revisiting Child Sexual Abuse in Daycare”. In this issue, Faller wrote, “The Witch-Hunt Narrative: Introduction & Overview” and Staller wrote, “The Methodology of The Witch-Hunt Narrative”.

Associate Professor Shawna Lee received a grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services - Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services for the Healthy Start Engaged Father program to effectively reduce infant mortality by providing men with knowledge and resources to support the health and wellbeing of their partners during pregnancy and the perinatal period.

Professor John Tropman and Assistant Professor Emily Nicklett’s piece, “Talcott Parsons: A Voice from the Past, an Opportunity Missed, and a Road Not Taken” was published in the Winter 2016 issue of Reflections: Narratives of Professional Helping.

Assistant Professor David Córdova received a grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to develop a cross-platform and universal version of Storytelling 4 Empowerment (S4E)--a theory-driven, culturally congruent, interactive, tailored and targeted mobile health intervention--and to examine the preliminary efficacy of S4E, relative to control condition, in preventing and reducing drug use and condomless sex, and improving HIV and STI testing in a clinic sample of at-risk adolescents.