Faculty & Research

A Tribute to Social Worker Karen Keroack During Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Karen Keroack was a long-time faculty member in the FSU College of Social Work. She served as an instructor and area coordinator of the MSW program offered in Gainesville, Florida, which is now part of the online MSW program. Karen established and coordinated the Gainesville program for 28 years, providing for the education of a multitude of social workers in the Gainesville area.

FSU Faculty and Prevent Child Abuse America Examine Public Policy Impacts on Child Abuse and Intimate Partner Violence

Prevent Child Abuse America was recently awarded a three-year grant for more than $1.05 million by the Center for Disease Control. The project examines the prevention effects of key public policy strategies, such as paid family leave and child care provisions, on the rate of child abuse and neglect and intimate partner violence (IPV). 

Speech Recognition in Education: The Powers and Perils

As education researchers focused on children’s language and reading, concepts like “equity” and “disparity” are not new to us. In fact, we obsess about them. 

We analyze data to understand and monitor. We design interventions to change them. We labor (sometimes painfully) to better explain the forces that contribute to injustice in schools so that educators, parents, and policymakers can use it to improve outcomes for all students. 

Welcome New Faculty Member Tracy McDade

Moving to South Florida from New York in high school in the 1980s meant Tracy McDade witnessed first-hand the influx of Cuban refugees coming to Florida. Volunteering with various organizations in the South Florida community, McDade heard accounts from these refugees of maltreatment, poverty and injustice. This experience affirmed her desire to improve the lives of disadvantaged individuals, families and whole communities.

Welcome New Faculty Member Brenda Legaspi

“I love seeing students take their classroom learning and apply it in the real world,” said Brenda Legaspi, a new social work faculty member at the College of Social Work (FSUCSW). Legaspi joins the college as an assistant teaching professor focused on working with distance learning students in the Online MSW Program. “My primary interest has been field education, the signature pedagogy of the social work profession.”