School of Social Work News

Professor Linda Chatters, Associate Professor Emily Nicklett and Professor Robert Joseph Taylor’s study on socially isolated adults was featured in a Reliawire article.

Sallie Foley, LMSW, was awarded the SSW 2018 Distinguished Lecturer Award for her exceptional ability, year after year, to engage students, challenge them, train them to think clinically and sensitively and to apply understanding across varied contexts.

Associate Professor Shawna Lee and Joyce Lee, PhD student, received a grant from the Fatherhood Research Practice Network (FRPN) for their project titled "Testing the Feasibility of an Interactive Mentor-Based Text Messaging Program to Increase Fathers’ Engagement in Home Visitation."

Adjunct Professor and Research Scientist James Blackburn, PhD, received a Community Engagement Grant from the Ginsberg Center for Community and Service Learning for Phase 1 of a three-phase city-wide study of Detroit’s older adults.

Pinghui Wu, PhD candidate, Professor Luke Shaefer and Michael Evangelist, PhD Candidate, received an award from Rackham Graduate School for their project on state Unemployment Insurance (UI) policies and the mental health unemployed workers.

Professor William Elliott and the Center on Assets, Education, and Inclusion recently contributed a paper, “Making Education Work for the Poor: The Potential of Children’s Savings Accounts” to the U.S. Child Poverty Action Group compendium. They have also been asked to speak at a Child Poverty Action Group Congressional briefing, Our Kids, Our Future.

Laura Yakas successfully defended her dissertation "Love in a Time of Madness: The Importance of Purpose and Belonging in Healing and Harnessing Madness". Her committee consisted of Karen Staller, Damani Partridge (co-chairs), Richard Tolman and Holly Peters-Golden. Yakas has accepted a summer position at a Global Leadership Forum for high school students.

Assistant Clinical Professor Sue Ann Savas was selected as the 2017 Student Union Teacher of the Year. She was nominated by a member of the student body and was selected based on a submitted essay detailing some of the remarkable ways she influences 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.