- Okay.
As people are settling in,
I'm just going to orient you to the afternoon.
We're going to have Marianne Yoshioka,
our dean share with us her vision.
- (laughs)
- Which she's now smiling about,
so that's all good.
We're excited about that.
A lot of it will interestingly create a
framework for us to think about everything
else we've been hearing about today.
So, after Marianne finishes her presentation,
we're going to then have a half an hour.
We're gonna break out into smaller groups,
and I'll give you some instruction around that.
But at that time,
we're gonna start to really try to weave a lot
of what we've been talking about together today,
to places of real relevancy for
each of us as instructors, and for our school.
So, begin to think about that as you're
listening to Marianne tell us about her
vision for the school which is,
I believe, very much a shared vision,
so I turn it over to Marianne.
- Thank you, thank you.
You know, it's been funny because
over the last few months, everyone has asked,
"What is your vision, share your vision."
And I feel like there's a certain amount of hype
and I feel like cueing the swelling music right now,
and sharing my vision. (laughter)
My vision isn't so complicated, and it's probably,
it is a shared vision, and even whatever vision I have,
you know, it's a collaboration.
A vision is really just a statement of direction
of where you feel you want to go as an institution.
I have a sense of that, but as do the faculty,
as do you, as do our field stakeholders,
and it has to be something where we go together.
And I thought I could talk a little bit about
what I'm thinking about,
and then I am actually eager to have a conversation too.
I'm gonna just move this plant a little bit,
because I feel like I'm, you know,
I don't even know where to put it, actually.
It's so tall.
That actually helps me a lot.
I feel like I was hiding behind the
hedges or something there.
So, my vision is very straightforward.
It is really to be the leading clinical training programs
renowned for our social justice mission.
It's really very clear, and I think that we have
an excellent reputation.
But really to stay there, to get higher, to improve,
to let the world know really the depth of
what we do really does take investment.
Investment in the school, in the programs,
in the faculty, in the curriculum, you know, in the alumni.
It requires investments,
and that's sort of how I'm thinking of it.
My vision of a school is a bustling academic center
where there's lots of options,
lots of good options in courses,
in the extracurricular kinds of programming that's offered.
I personally like it when students have that dilemma of
"Man, there's so many great things to choose from.
"Now I have to make a decision over three great things
"I can choose to do with my afternoon."
I think that is the sign of a great school.
We do have excellence in training,
and I think the number one question that I'm asked,
are things about this school?
What are we going to do?
Are we gonna stay a clinical school, for example.
And my answer to that is yes.
I have no secret desire to add on additional methods.
I think the strength of this school is that
it is a single method school.
It allows for kind of a depth that is harder to achieve
in schools with much more comprehensive curricula.
And I think that is a strength.
My goal is to keep this school about the same size.
If I had my dream come true,
we would bring in so much money,
we could even get a little bit smaller.
It's absolutely not to make it bigger because
I've learned that as you get bigger,
it's harder and harder to maintain quality control.
You need a lot more infrastructure,
a lot more people assisting,
and as that number grows,
it's harder and harder to have things like this;
to come together, have conversations,
and talk together about it.
And then I think the other really big question I'm asked is
"What will happen with the psychodynamic
"focus of our program?"
And some times, that almost feels like the
questions people want to ask, but are afraid to mention.
And we've been having those conversations on the faculty,
as well, because certainly, that is a very powerful
tradition and therapeutic practice,
and the world is changing, and more and more,
it's harder to build, to have that community.
Particularly, once you move out of the Northeast.
It's harder to move into locations,
social service and clinical settings,
where that is the principle method of treatment.
And so, what is going to happen with that?
I think what we've decided as a faculty is
that we are committed to staying theoretically driven,
relationally grounded.
I might have that wrong.
Theoretically grounded, relationally driven?
No, it's the other way around.
Theoretically driven, relationally grounded.
Meaning, that our first, and foremost,
commitment is to teach theory.
Theories that underlie clinical practice that
that allows for kind of a depth and an
expertise that is harder to get when you are only
teaching sort a skills, sort a conceptual models
that not really understanding the
theory upon which it underlies.
And certainly, to date, there actually is a fair
amount of different kinds of clinical
traditions taught in this school.
Some of what we're struggling with is sequencing.
What is taught where?
What is taught when?
But by the time students emerge,
they do have a good strong grounding in
psychodynamic theory,
but they also have a very strong exposure
to cognitive behavioral work.
Increasingly around existential humanistic kinds of models,
and the question for us now is,
how can we make sure that those models
are also really theoretically driven?
So, my long and answer short of it
is that I have no particular...
I don't have an agenda to unilaterally
alter the theoretical positions of the school.
My goal is to work with the faculty and
figure out what makes sense,
to make sure that our students are very well trained,
and get jobs, right?
Because there is a very much a part of a school
of social work that is about labor force development.
We want to do that and make sure that our students
are highly sought after, but that is a part of it,
and that does mean we do have to have
an eye to who's employing,
who are they employing,
what's the field requesting, right?
And while we are responsive to the field,
we also want to exert some leadership as well.
So, that is in essence sort of how I've been approaching it.
And we have been having some wonderful,
wonderful discussions about how do these
things sit amongst us, what's happening in the field,
what's the best training for our students,
how do we bring that about?
These are really hard questions to answer,
and being a head of a school or a curriculum is like
being the head of a really, really big ship.
Sometimes, students or even faculty instructors feel like
why can't we move a little faster?
It's like you can't make quick turns.
All curricula school changes usually happen in one year
increments because that's a cohort of student,
and making a shift is sort of a long, slow process
of turning the big ship over to the right a little bit,
or over to the left a little bit.
And they're not necessarily fast,
but I think the one thing I have appreciated
about our school is that they're thoughtful.
These are very thoughtful decisions,
and we don't always agree.
I would say we often don't always agree,
but that is okay.
I think that intellectual diversity and discourse and debate
are the hallmarks of a healthy academic institution.
We don't want everybody on the same page,
all agreeing yes.
Because that's not really what
is the truth around the table anyway,
and I think that is when you have that
dynamic of diversity is where you can
push each other as well.
And, I hope for, and I long for, and I think we all do,
is chances to have those kind of debates, right?
Have those conversations where we push each other
and we challenge each other a little bit,
holding healthy respect for each other's opinions,
but yet, don't have to agree about everything.
I think that's absolutely fine.
And that is where, in that vision,
of how do we make sure that we are
when anyone in the world says
"Wow, how do you get to be a clinical social worker?"
The answer is the place you need to go is Smith.
That is really what I want,
and did you know that they are powerful in
their anti-racism commitment?
And I think we've made some headway in that.
Already, I think there was a very strong legacy before me,
and I think we've made some changes since I've arrived,
and I think we're plotting a great plan to move forward.
So, let me tell you a little bit about that and where we are,
what we've been doing since July,
and where we are going.
So we've been in a strategic process, more or less.
Having conversations about where does our future lie.
The faculty have been meeting in a group to talk
about how to think about theory and practice
in today's environment and what that
means for our curriculum,
and I think are coming to some resolution in that,
and we'll figure out what that means
for the curriculum moving forward.
We figure out how to broaden, or how to deepen,
or bring our clinical expertise into the next decade.
What that looks like in the training.
We've been working a lot, as well,
on anti-racism initiatives.
So, we have been able to, I don't know,
hopefully many of you saw our statement
that we wrote after, sort of,
the non-indictment of the Ferguson case.
This was a statement that was written, we actually,
our anti-racism task force that is made up of
Professor Hye-Kyung Kang, and Peggy O'Neill,
and Fred Newdom and Yoosun Park,
and there are others who contributed,
but they were very focal in writing this statement.
And we wrote it initially right after
everything happened in Ferguson.
I was thinking of it as a bit of a test balloon.
I wanted to see what the college would do,
because most universities and colleges
are fairly fear driven, worried about losing donors,
worry about litigation.
And the typical path is to either stall something
for a very long time through wordsmithing.
Put it into committee decision
which equals stall indefinitely.
Or just kill it out right, right?
Or water it down until something says nothing.
And I wanted to see what would happen,
I was fearful that that would be
what would happen here.
And we sent off a statement that was powerful.
It was much more declarative in its postion
about what structural racism looks like,
and how it injures and it's a act
of violence in communities.
And we sent it off and within in half an hour
the provost and the head of college relations
came back and said, "Go for it, we love it."
And this to me signaled a whole new day.
This means we're in an environment that allows things,
where new things are possible.
I am eager, I would love to really take then
our commitment and find ways to live it.
Live it so much more boldly and fiercely,
and unapologetically, and push and lead
the social work education community,
and social work community, to push them as well.
To move it ahead, to not be so afraid
of really taking a position, a much stronger position.
So we had this statement ready to go then,
when the grand jury decision came back to not indict,
and we were able to release that statement,
and we had huge, a huge outpouring of support.
Not only did other schools model their statement
after ours, giving us full acknowledgement.
We were mentioned in the Chronicle of Higher Education.
We just really asserted ourselves,
our leadership in that area,
and that is only ours to take and run with,
and that is all our full intention to do that.
Along with commitment though
comes commitments to diversify.
So we know we want as a faculty
we've talked, we were reading as a faculty
in our monthly faculty anti-racism meeting,
which how cool is it to have that every month.
We, as a group read a chapter of Whistling Vivaldi.
It's a book written by Claude Steele,
a social psychologist who has looked at stereotype threat.
And Peggy had chosen a specific chapter
for us to focus on, which we did,
and led to a really wonderful, complicated conversation
about what it means to build critical mass of diversity
within a school, and how would that look,
and how hard would that be.
You know we don't have a number,
I'd say we're shooting for,
but we have an agreement that we need to
put serious resources behind diversifing.
We need to figure out what that looks like,
on the student and on the faculty side.
And so we were able to this year
increase, since July, increase financial aid
by about 23 percent.
We have a wonderful fiscal coordinator
at this school, and with her help
and thinking creatively we're able to
free up 23 percent more of our funds
for financial aid, which goes a long way
into bringing in a kind of very competitive class
coming into this school.
And that also includes around diversifying.
It's hard, and it's a goal
that's going to take us many years.
But that's also part of our vision,
about what it means to be an anti-racism institution,
and that's something I deeply, deeply support.
And we will just continue in that effort.
Along the same lines we brought back
the Bertha Capen Reynolds predoc fellowship.
This was a fellowship that was started in the late 80s
by now Dean emeritus Ann Hartman.
And it's a fellowship for a scholar
who is from any PhD program in the country,
who is all but dissertation.
A person who can bring diversity
to our institution and diversity can be defined
across many dimensions.
Someone who, of course, holds our commitment...
Who's work will support and advance
clinical social work and anti-racism work.
We can bring them in and give them a
fairly decent living stipend, full housing support,
kind of a faculty appointment.
They get benefits and an office,
and they also get to be part of the
five colleges mentoring fellowship program,
which means they will be in a cohort
of pre-doctoral fellows.
Smith also has another one called the Mendenhall Fellow
and the other college's have one as well.
But they'll be part of a program of mentorship
and dissertation support, and conference travel.
And it's also part of our commitment
to working on diversifying that pipeline of faculty.
A faculty who will be better socialized and equipped,
I should say doctoral student,
better equipped to move into academic life,
has a year carved out with support
to finish the dissertation, maybe write in addition,
get teaching experience, get mentorship
and hopefully those mentorship relationships
they'll take them with them wherever they go.
And that feels like a really great success as well.
I'm just going to peek at my notes
to remember what else I was suppose to tell you.
We are also working hard to integrate
as much as we can into the college.
The school has...
Because of our different schedules,
you know where we are meeting intensely
through the summer and the college
is meeting intensely now.
There's ways in which we can miss each other,
through meetings, you know, we haven't
really collaborated a lot.
I've made a purposeful effort to get us better integrated
in ways, I think it can only help us.
I think we have established, definitely established
ourself on the campus as being
important, unique resources around anti-racism work.
And there are ways in which the president and provost office
has already turned to us,
and asked faculty to sit on very important
kind of stuff committees that they're running
to provide important advice and consultation.
And that's a wonderful role for us to have.
We have a partnership, a new collaboration
with the psychology undergraduate program.
They have a community engagement specialization,
where those students do kind of an internship,
sort of a very abbreviated internship
at a social service organization in the area.
It was great and it had some problems
about giving a quality experience
to those undergraduates.
So now we will place those students
at places where we have an MSW interned,
and our MSW student will be a supervisor of sorts
for that undergraduate.
And that's a great experience for our student,
it ensures a better experience for that undergraduate.
We've been able to place some of our master students as TAs
in clinical psych undergrad courses,
if they're in the evening and don't conflict with field.
And looking at Caroline (laughter),
she's like, "Yeah, they won't conflict with field."
And that feels like a great opportunity
for our students.
We've now got, actually thanks to the Field Department,
new kinds of placements through the
Department of Education on campus,
in their campus school that they run
and also Project Coach,
which is a very, very special mentorship program
they're running for students who need more support.
And that's a really collaboration to have.
We are approaching them with other,
we have a couple of other plans to move with them,
and I'm very happy to say that
as of two days ago, or maybe it was yesterday,
so much happens in a day I'm not even sure.
It might of happened this morning.
(laughter)
No it didn't happen this morning.
The president, as a really,
I think a really significant sign of support
and investment in the school
has just offered us $70,000 to engage
in some market research as we launch now
the process to overhaul our website.
And that begins with some really great research
around different aspects of sort of packaging
of the branding of this school,
and it's expensive branding.
And I was getting seriously cold feet
about spending that amount of money
and the president got wind of that
and of her own volition came forward, volunteered
and said, "Why don't I pay for that,
"I would love to pay for that and make that big investment
"in the school."
And that feels like a terrific investment as well.
We've got (applause), I know isn't that terrific.
It feels great.
I feel like we have been so welcome at the table.
We've got a lot of other kinds of collaborations
in the mix.
We're negotiating and looking at ways,
we have an invitation in a way
that we're trying to find out if it can fit for us
of helping to build capacity
to teach clinical social work practice
at Beijing Normal University.
And we're trying to examine ways
in which that might look at.
And that feels like a wonderful opportunity
for us, not only to take leadership
in the way that clinical practice is taught
and thought of, but you know,
it's also a sign of recognition.
And Josh Miller has been already collaborating
with them, and it was actually because of their deep
admiration of Josh, I think that they became
very, very interested in the school.
And that feels like a great thing.
But it also opens the door to say,
you know there are ways that...
The uniqueness of our program
is desirable and sought after,
and there are ways that we can assert
that leadership in other kinds of organizations
in the way that it works.
On a very smaller note,
I literally feel like almost every day
something new is emerging.
So yesterday I had a great conversation
with the director of IT on campus,
because I've been sort of wanting
an early conversation about data in the school.
How can we manage our databases better,
how can build them better?
How can we get out the reports
we want from our databases better?
And very quickly, with Idene's help,
did you all meet Idene Rodriguez Martin?
Who is associate dean of graduate enrollment
and administration.
We cobbled together a wonderful agreement.
Basically she has a bevy of incredibly talented
student programmer types in her office
that do nothing but this database work.
We will provide the funds to hire one student,
she will hire that student
and provide the supervision but seat that student with us.
I feel like everyday a new solution comes about
with the college that feels great.
It feels like there is a big investment in the school
that will only be better for this school.
There are new ways that we're our asserting our vision
of leadership in clinical practice
across other institutions.
We have some other really great ideas
that I'm just trying not to tell you about
because I don't know if they'll come.
But we have these wonderful brainstorming sessions
about a real, like a signature project
that we can bring that brings leadership
in this area nationally.
And we have a whole bunch of ideas
and I think some of them are extremely,
extremely possible, but I'll try not to give it all away.
We are looking for those signature projects.
The one's that make the world say,
well what is Smith doing?
Like what is the leadership that Smith is,
let's find out what Smith is doing first,
as we sort of assess what we're doing.
It is ours to take,
and I think that we are focusing on communications.
I think you will find a whole range
of new kinds of communications coming forward
from the school to help give you more information
about what we're doing.
And it's exciting, it's fun.
I've been on this big alumni tour,
12 cities, I've done six that means
I have six to go. (laughter)
They're fabulous.
You go off, you have these wonderful receptions
with alumni, you find out what people
do with their careers, and it's amazing.
It's a testimony to the power of our training,
what they do with their careers.
And we met with different specific alumni
who have particular ideas or interest in the school.
And then we go off to the next city,
and we do it again,
and it's just amazing the bridges
that we've built, the kind of information we've
been able to get.
We have agreed as a faculty
that we're going to be creating
an endowed chair for Dean Emeritus Ann Hartman.
And Ann Hartman is in the area,
she's been a leader in social work practice
for many, many decades.
We are coming up to our centennial
in about three and a half years,
and I didn't want that long
to launch the endowed chair.
I wanted to get it going now.
And so, we are working hard on that,
and some of the work that we've doing on the road
is working with people on development ideas
to get that chair endowed.
And that feels like a wonderful acknowledgement
to someone who's been very, very important
to this school and to the profession.
And pretty well uniformly where ever we go,
people are excited about doing that for Ann Hartman.
I may have left out a detail or two
that later I'll be like, oh I should have told them.
But I wanted to leave time as well for questions
and sort of hear from you about
what your questions are about this school,
or concerns or excitement, new ideas.
We're always looking for new great ideas as well.
But we are moving full steam ahead
really to make this the program of the country.
I have a goal of really getting us into
the top ten schools.
I feel like it's very, very doable.
I think it should happen next year,
but it may take a few years.
But we will absolutely get there.
We're currently ranked about 17th,
and there's to my mind
there's absolutely no reason
why we can't get in the top ten.
Is there any questions or thoughts,
or ideas that burning questions
you wanted to ask me?
Ask any of the faculty member
about what the school's up to.
You know we have a lot of other
sub kind of goals.
Like so drawing off of the presentations today,
like can we achieve universal design
in our curriculum within three years?
Right, and of course it's possible
if you put dedicated effort to it.
You know, can we build a critical mass
of students within three years.
I mean these are very doable tasks
that we have for ourselves.
Oh, one other thing I wanted to say is
I'm asked often a lot about
what about online education?
Is Smith going to move in that direction?
So I have a complicated answer,
because I spent several years
really working very hard and developing
an online MSW program,
and through it I learned a lot.
I learned a lot about what online does,
and what it can't do.
And what I generally tell people
is it does way more than you think it does.
It can be really good,
and it's probably far more expensive
than you ever imagined to do it well.
I came away not convinced
that not everything can be taught well online.
I came away convinced that not every student
is really meant to learn online.
And not every instructor is meant to teach online.
When you have the student who learns in that way,
where it isn't someone talking with them
or sort of immediate visual discussion,
but it's a lot of different kinds of structured activities,
and you have an instructor who loves to teach that way,
the course comes alive.
And the course is much more technologically
driven then you might think.
But it really is about that fit,
and there are lots of people
who that isn't the way for them,
that isn't the way they can envision teaching,
that isn't the way they can envision learning.
And so, my long answer to this is
I think there are things that can go online.
I think there are ways that we could use that technology.
I personally am not interested in developing
an online MSW program.
Online MSW programs are expensive
and the only way (applause) okay (laughs).
The only way to make them work
is you gotta put a lot of people through it.
That is the only way to really recoup the cost,
the enormous cost it will take
to build that program, build it well.
And I've already said I'm not interested
in getting a far bigger school.
I would be interested in keeping
it the same size or even making it a little smaller.
But I think that something's can be done,
we shouldn't be afraid of it,
but we should use it,
you know we should think very carefully
about where and how it is placed.
I told Peggy, I'm not going to talk
for half an hour.
Of course, you give me an amount of time
I could just keep talking.
But I know we have other things to do,
and I'll be around if anyone
has other kinds of conversation or discussion.
Thanks everyone.
(applause)
- Thank you, thanks Marianne.
It didn't feel like a half an hour, did it?
No, it didn't to me anyway.
I love hearing all of that,
and it's a great sort of template
for us to be thinking about
what we're going to be talking about.
Because this was a lot of information
that came this morning.
There are a lot of new things coming our way,
and how are we going to make it all happen.
And I think that with the energy
and the commitment that's just been expressed,
that we can move ahead with some confidence
that in fact we are going to figure this out.
We're going to find a way to keep improving
our ability to teach, and to keep it current,
and to keep it honorable of our traditions
and so on.
So here we are now with an opportunity
to talk with each other.
And I appreciate the patience
and the very, you now, clear listening
that you are engaged with this morning.
And thanks Marianne very much for that too.
So we have now a worksheet
just to guide conversations for the next half hour
at your table.
And you've been sitting there comfortably
with each other and I'd encourage you
to stay with the same group,
but if you feel so inclined to move around
you're welcome to do that as well.
But it's in your packet, on the right hand side,
about the third or fourth sheet in.
(background conversations)
And what I'm going to ask you to do
is talk with each other with these questions.
And there's three questions.
The first one is really just to connect
with what was talked about.
Really begin with yourselves,
what resonated for you?
That means what resonated
in terms of ways that you liked it,
you agreed with it.
Also, what rubbed you?
What was it that you found to be
challenging or concerning?
And then the next question,
in what ways might those influence
your teaching and or advising?
Many people here hold multiple roles.
So think about that.
A lot of the message this morning
was about placing this information
that we heard today in the context
of our role as instructors,
different than our role in other ways.
Like when we're out in various settings
or functioning as a clinician,
or administrator, or in other aspects of our lives.
So in the role of instructor.
Given that information that you've learned,
also discuss the differences among those roles.
Where is the rub?
Where is the opportunity?
Find the edge for our own development
and our own learning.
How will we bring this into our relationships
with our students?
What do we need to build as an infrastructure
to support all of us in this work
to keep students informed et cetera,
and to support the safety and wellbeing of students.
So that they're in an environment,
and we're all in an environment
where learning is what it's about.
And that's what we're here to do.
So take time, talk for a good half hour
then we'll come back.
Hannah Cartman has volunteered very generously
to help me, when we do talk back.
And she'll take notes up online.
But if you could identify a recorder
and a reporter.
Use the yellow sheets to write down
any questions that you aren't able to address
at your table.
But just you know highlights
of what your table would like
the rest of us to hear from what you've talked about.
Okay?
Thank you.