This year was marked by abundant opportunities for FSU College of Social Work to make new international connections and to develop collaborations on the world stage. Faculty teamed up with partnering universities and colleagues at leading universities from other continents to bring about innovative scholarship, training, and dialogue. Here are some of the highlights of the FSU social work faculty’s efforts in 2017 all over the globe.

Neil Abell – Queens University Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom

Dr. Neil Abell established a partnership with Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) by cultivating relationships within the Northern Irish social work practice community and facilitating international internship opportunities for undergraduate and graduate social work students. Dr. Abell was also supported by Queens University as a Visiting Research Scholar in fall 2016 leading to his current project developing social work curricula modules to complement existing curriculum on “The Troubles,” a recent period of violent conflict in Northern Ireland between Protestant and Catholic citizens. Dr. Abell collaborated with QUB scholars Drs. Audrey Roulston, Joe Duffy, and Gavin Davidson, along with support from Drs. John Pinkerton and Lorna Montgomery. His was accompanied on his most recent visit by Terry Coonan, JD, director of the FSU Center for the Advancement of Human Rights, who funded the visit. Together they met with the academic, legal, and social work practice communities to expand understanding of “The Troubles” and their legacy in post-conflict Northern Ireland. They explored the intersection of legal and social work initiatives responding to lingering trauma from “The Troubles.” The visit also included the introduction of the curricula modules developed to the Magee Campus of the University of Ulster in Derry/Londonderry. Dr. Abell will continue to work with Queens University on this project and plans to offer the content nationwide as an element of Northern Irish social work education.

Amy L. Ai – Tsinghua University, China

Dr. Amy L. Ai was invited by the Tsinghua University (THU) School for Public Policy and Management (SSPM), the leading institute in its field. Following several major disasters, including terrorist attacks, SSPM developed an interest in learning from Western countries on topics related to crisis and risk management. THU held an international conference with Harvard Kennedy Department of Government on risk management in January 2017. Earlier in 2016, a doctoral student was also sent to the University of Central Florida to pursue this topic area. Based on their interest, Dr. Ai was engaged to serve as a Fulbright Distinguished Chair at SSPM, but the school was unable to provide the required housing. Instead, Dr. Ai was invited to speak at a two-day event in May 2017. At the SPPM Training and Research Center, Dr. Ai's presentation, "Resilience and Human Strengths: Implications for Strength-based Crisis Management" reviewed overall theoretical framework and key findings from several studies linking human strengths with collective trauma and disasters (e.g., 9/11, Hurricane Katrina). The following day, she met with SPPM Associate Dean Dr. Peng Zongtao, faculty and graduate students for a research discussion and exchange. TSSU Dean Dr. Xue Lan, an alumna of Carnegie Mellon University and an affiliate of Oxford University and Harvard University, encouraged the development of further international collaboration. THU, in Beijing, (established April 29, 1911) is ranked as the best university in China and a top institution in Asia, with the best engineering and computer science programs in the world.

James Clark – Paris Institute of Political Science, France

Dean Jim Clark was invited to speak at Sciences Po (Paris Institute of Political Science) in Paris, France where he presented on mass incarceration and the death penalty in the United States.  He was joined by Professor Roberto Galbiati, Department of Economics, Sciences Po, who presented on his recent experiment with sentencing incentives in Italy.  Sciences Po is considered to be a highly influential academic institution in the social sciences in France. Alumni include many notable public figures, including seven of the last eight French presidents, 12 foreign heads of state or government, heads of international organizations (including the United Nations, World Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank), and six of the CAC 40 CEOs. The institution is a member of the Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs and the Global Public Policy Network.

Tomi Gomory – University of Pécs, Hungary

Dr. Tomi Gomory took part in the 650th birthday celebration of the University of Pécs, the oldest of Hungarian universities, and the 25th anniversary of the University’s Social Work Department at the Faculty of Humanities in April 2017 as their keynote speaker. Born in Hungary, having left during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 Dr. Gomory visited the University of Pécs regularly after a six-month residence there as a Fulbright Scholar in 2005, researching and teaching about mental health and homelessness. He formed strong friendships and research affiliations with several of their social work faculty. Drs. Gabor Kelemen and Daniel Molnar both visited Tallahassee, resulting in subsequent collaborative work and publications including Dr. Molnar’s participation in the FSU College of Social Work’s fall 2017 conference, the brainchild of Dr. Gomory and Dr. Jeffrey Lacasse “Critical Thinking and Civil Discourse on Social Problems: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom.” Currently, Dr. Gomory is working to integrate the Deliberate Practice, and Feedback-Informed Treatment approaches into clinical social work practice both here and in Hungry with Dr. Daniel Molnar. There is ongoing planning for a visit in spring 2018 for Dr. Gomory and Dean Clark to Budapest and Pécs to further explore collaboration between the two institutions

Karen Oehme – Tokyo International University & Taisho University, Japan

Karen Oehme, JD as director of the Institute for Family Violence Studies at the FSU College of Social Work forged a new relationship with Tokyo International University and Taisho University and professors Akira Aoki and Noriko Odagiri. The partnership resulted in an international seminar on post-divorce parenting in Japan sponsored by the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership. The event featured Karen as a seminar speaker on FSU’s project Successful Co-Parenting After Divorce, a free online training to parents through a grant from the Vandermark Foundation.  Co-presenter Dr. Anthony Ferraro, a graduate of FSU and assistant professor at Kansas State University, also worked on the project. Interest in creating a similar online training for Japanese parents stems from the lack of join custody or court-mandated shared parenting in Japan.

Bruce Thyer – Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China

Dr. Bruce Thyer is an international member of the external review team evaluating the Department of Applied Social Sciences (APSS) with the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.  The APSS is the largest academic department across all the Universities in Hong Kong and includes master’s and bachelor’s degree programs in social work.  Dr. Thyer spent two days on site at the Program this past November, along with two other external reviewers, one from Australia and another from New Zealand. The Director of the program, Dr. Daniel Lai, facilitated meetings of the review team with various stakeholders, including graduate students, administrators, and program faculty.  Following the program's completion of a self-study next summer, the review team, including Dr. Thyer, will return to Hong Kong for a more in-depth look at the program and prepare an evaluation report, which will be used by the University Administrators to help plan the future direction of the department.  While in Hong Kong, Dr. Thyer delivered a talk to social work faculty and students at the University of Hong Kong, titled “How To Write Strong Design Sections for Research Grants.”

“FSU social work faculty have taken the social work scholarship they’ve developed at the local and national levels and brought it to an international context, where they have formed new collaborations with the potential for global impact,” Dr. Norman Anderson, research professor in the College of Social work and assistant vice president for research and academic affairs at FSU, said.

These international collaborations and partnerships are unique and valuable opportunities to demonstrate how research and scholarship can affect real-life situations and problems on a larger scale beyond the U.S. borders. Dr. Anderson remarked that international work is a two-way street, where there are mutual and reciprocal benefits for FSU and our partners. “We get as much as we give through international collaboration. It not only advances the research by our faculty and those at non-U.S. institutions but can create countless opportunities to enrich the educational experience for our students on the graduate and undergraduate level.  These collaborations are truly a win-win for everyone.”

2017 marks an exciting time of growth and expansion at FSU and the College of Social Work, and more exciting things are in the works in 2018.