School of Social Work News

Maria Wathen successfully defended her dissertation entitled, “Civic Culture Frameworks & Globalization; Implications for Social Services in Russia” and obtained her PhD in Social Work and Sociology. She has accepted an Assistant Professor of Social Work position at Loyola University.

Her committee consisted of Mary Ruffolo, Barbara Anderson (co-chairs), Sandra Danziger, Karin Martin, and Scott Allard.

Professor Lorraine M. Gutiérrez was recognized with the School of Social Work 2016 Distinguished Faculty Award. The Distinguished Faculty Award is intended to recognize a current governing faculty member in the School of Social Work who has achieved national recognition in scholarship, demonstrated excellence in teaching and mentoring, provided outstanding service to the School and the University, and/or contributed significantly to the professional community.

Susan K. Crabb, field educator/lecturer/field liaison, has made the world her classroom by embracing the teacher-learner paradigm and approaching interactions and exchanges through a lens of lifelong/wide learning. In the classroom she is a well regarded instructor earning consistently positive reviews from students as well as professionals. She demonstrates creativity in teaching social work competencies and ethics.

Alix Gould-Werth (PhD in Social Work and Sociology '15) received a ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Award for her dissertation "From Pink Slip to Unemployment Insurance: Legal Mobilization and the Struggle to Make Ends Meet". The Award recognizes exceptional and unusually interesting work produced by U-M doctoral students.

Associate Professor Andrew Grogan-Kaylor’s recently published a meta-analysis examining the research on spanking and its effects on children which has been cited in numerous media outlets.

Professor Emerita Kathleen Faller gave two presentations and was interviewed by a reporter from the San Juan Star, the English language newspaper for an article on child sexual abuse.

Presentations:

• Allegations of Maltreatment Arising in Divorce, Custody, and Visitation Dispute Cases. Universidad Metropolitana First Symposium on Sexual Abuse. San Juan, PR.
• Sexual Abuse Disclosure Failures and What to Do About Them. Universidad Metropolitana First Symposium on Sexual Abuse. San Juan, PR.

Assistant Professor Mathieu Despard received a grant from the Washington University in St. Louis to analyze data from the 2013 and 2015 experiments of the Refund-to-Savings (R2S) project of the Center for Social Development (CSD) at Washington University. This Initiative is a collaboration among academic researchers and Intuit Company to study the effects of experimental interventions informed by behavioral economics to encourage low and moderate income (LMI) tax filers to save a part of their tax refunds when they file their federal income tax returns using Turbotax Freedom Edition online software.

Associate Professor Robert Ortega was elected, by the Senate Assembly, to fill the final open position on the executive committee of U-M's central faculty governance system. He was elected to the Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs.