Students News

Kunal Namballa, Gabrielle Fitzsimmons, and Joshua Horning (MSW students) along with mentor Julie Cushman (LEO lecturer) and the Critical Intersectionality Learning Community received an Innovation Grant from the U-M Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion to create an experiential learning game, “Power: A Game of Positionality and Intersectionality” which can be used in courses and other settings.

For the second year in a row, U-M will issue the Made at Michigan annual report, a compilation of annual entrepreneurship highlights with a special focus on graduate and undergraduate student ventures created over the course of the year.

The magazine-style publication shines a bright spotlight on nearly 60 student ventures over a broad range of disciplines, including for-profits, social ventures and innovative new products and services with market potential. It also recognizes the programs, schools and colleges dedicated to supporting U-M’s student entrepreneurs and innovators.

U-M SSW has students involved with three of the projects featured in this year’s Made at Michigan report:

• Evergreen Experience: Allison Ewert (MSW 2016) | Erin Mobley (MSW 2016) | Erica Goble (MSW 2019)
• INK’d: Change Kwesele (MSW 2016) | Charlie Brink (MSW 2017)
• Liquid Gold Concept: Samantha Koehler (MSW 2015)

Min Hee Kim, Angie Perone (PhD students) and Professor Ruth Dunkle's article, "Caregiver stressors and depressive symptoms among older husbands and wives in the United States" was published in the Journal of Women and Aging.

Sara Stein, Abigail Williams-Butler, Analidis Ochoa-Bendana, Oto Alves da Silva, Ronke Olawale, and Joyce Lee (PhD students) received grants, the Bobbe and Jon Bridge Award for Research/Travel to support research expenses and conference travel. The Bobbe and Jon Bridge Award for Engaged Scholarship supports Rackham graduate students who are conducting original research focused on child welfare.

On Friday, December 5, 2014, the Curtis Center Program Evaluation Group convened a panel to talk with the University and the community about the delicate dance between evaluation and philanthropy.  In total, over 70 people were in attendance, including students and faculty from the School of Social Work, members of the University community, representatives from foundations, consumers of evaluation, and professional evaluators.  The conversation was facilitated and moderated by John Tropman, PhD, Professor of Social work.  Panelists included Harlene Appelman, Executive Director of Covenant Foundation; Rob Collier, President & CEO of Council on Michigan Foundations; Jane Fran Morgan, JFM Consulting; and Pam Smith, President and United Way of Wasthenaw County.

The School of Social Work Alumni Board of Governors is accepting nominations for the Distinguished Alumni Award. The Distinguished Alumni Award recognizes School of Social Work alumni whose achievements exemplify the values of the School of Social Work and who have made an exceptional impact on the profession, the community and/or Social Work education. Nominations are due September 5, 2014.

The Curtis Research and Training Center at the School of Social Work hosted the first annual Program Evaluation Symposium on Friday, February 14, 2014.  This day-long event was organized by the Program Evaluation Group and culminated with a keynote address by the President of the American Evaluation Symposium (AEA), Dr. Beverly Parsons.

Dr. Parson's keynote, "Visionary Evaluation for a Sustainable, Equitable Future," highlighted the need for systems thinking, buidling new relationships, and an emphasis on sustainable, equitable living in evaluation. After the keynote address, attendees were invited to participate in small group discussions based on the topic of the keynote. Dr. Parsons will use feedback from the event to inform the direction of the AEA Annual Conference.

The Curtis Center Program Evaluation Group (CC-PEG) received a grant from the New York Community Trust to improve the macro social work profesion.  The awarded Place-Based Evaluation (PBE) Fellowship project was developed to better understand the needs and challenges related to building internal evaluation capacity within non-profit organizations.  The project will place three (3) PBE Fellows into community-based non-profit organizations in southeast Michigan for 20 hours per week for a period of eight (8) months.

The aims of the PBE Fellowship are to: (1) provide recent MSW graduates with the skills and experience necessary to work as professional evaluators in the field of social work; (2) provide communtiy-based non-profit organizations with quality evaluation services at a reduced cost; and (3) build and test the internal capacity for evaluation at each organization.

CC-PEG is happy to announce the selection of the PBE Fellows and non-profit organizations they will be placed in:

• Phylicia Allen, MSW, will be placed at Detroit Parent Network
• Ashley Eason, MSW, will be placed at Detroit Police Athletic League
• Lauren Emerson, MSW, will be placed at SOS Community Services in Ypsilanti

For more information on the PBE Fellowship project, contact [email protected].