Robert F. Kennedy once said, “Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”
John Alderson was born in Pana, Illinois in 1926 where his father served as a doctor and one-time mayor. He had an early love for the outdoors, sports and music. After high school, he served in the U.S. Army in Germany before attending the University of Illinois for his Master's degree in social work. He worked for several years in Evanston public schools in Illinois as a school social worker until moving in 1956 to Tallahassee to join the faculty of the FSU School of Social Work.
Over the years, I’ve become increasingly dismayed by the cost of textbooks and just how much of that burden is shouldered by students. Last year, I received an email from FSU Libraries recruiting faculty to participate in a grant opportunity for something called “alternative textbooks.” With the encouragement and support of FSU College of Social Work Dean for Academic Affairs Dr. Craig Stanley, I decided to apply. All I knew was that the purpose was to create more affordable alternatives to standard textbooks.
Starting in July 2018, FSU College of Social Work faculty member Carol Campbell Edwards will begin her two-year term as president of the National Association for Social Workers Florida (NASW-FL) chapter. Currently, as President-Elect, Carol will spend 12 months working in close collaboration with the President.
Successful Co-Parenting After Divorce, an online FSU multidisciplinary training/research project housed in the Institute for Family Violence Studies at the College of Social Work, has presented a new policy recommendation asserting that co-parent education for divorcing parents should be “trauma-informed.” An article describing this research, “Trauma-Informed Co-Parenting: How A Shift in Compulsory Divorce Education to Reflect New Brain Development Research Can Promote Both Parents’ and Children’s Best Interests,” was pub
This fall, the FSU College of Social Work will welcome a new addition to its faculty, Dr. John Mathias. A recent graduate of the University of Michigan with a joint doctoral degree in anthropology and social work, his research focuses on qualitative studies of community organizations, advocacy, and non-profit management.
Social work and the legal profession have many unique and sometimes unexpected intersections. The same can be said for partnerships between social workers and lawyers. The recent publication of the book Tell the Client’s Story: Mitigation in Criminal and Death Penalty Cases resulted from one such partnership between FSU College of Social Work Dean Jim Clark and attorney and public advocate for the Kentucky Department of Public Advocacy Edward Monahan.
Five Florida State University faculty members are fanning out across the globe to teach and conduct research in Russia, Finland, Ireland, Hong Kong and the Czech Republic through grants from the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program.
Pam Graham MacDill, Director of the BSW and Professional Development Programs at the FSU College of Social Work was presented with the Partners with a Purpose Award on May 16, 2017, for her contributions to the FSU Unconquered Scholars program of the Center for Academic Retention, & Enhancement (CARE).
A poet and a writer since adolescence, Dr. Nick Mazza was working in the maintenance department of a hospital in New Jersey putting himself through college when he noticed an article in Time magazine on poetry therapy. His curiosity piqued, he wrote to one of the national leaders in poetry therapy, attended a national conference in Brooklyn and found himself hooked. He approached the medical director of the hospital about reading poetry to patients, and the director introduced him to the hospital’s social services department. The rest is history.
