Smith College School for Social Work, Office of the Dean records

The Office of the Dean provides administrative oversight and leadership for the School for Social Work. It oversees all academic, administrative, and social aspects of the school's departments, students, faculty, and staff. It includes the Dean of the School, the Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and the Associate Dean for Graduate Enrollment and Student Services, as well as the administrative staff that supports the busy office.

Founded in 1918, the Smith College School for Social Work grew out of discussions among leading psychologists and mental health professionals over the needs of returning veterans of World War I. The training program was pioneering and experimental with its focus on the shell-shocked veteran. As the community of patients changed, the Smith program began to focus on the relationship between social workers, agencies that provide rehabilitation, and the patient. The training program combines coursework at Smith and fieldwork in agencies that work with individuals suffering from trauma of all kinds: abuse, injustice, poverty, war; individuals who are ‘at risk’; individuals for whom daily life is an oppressive experience.

In 1918, Smith College President William Allan Neilson, seeking a way for the college to contribute to the war effort, invited Mary Jarrett to implement an apprentice course to train social workers under the auspices of the National Committee for Mental Hygiene.

Jarrett had originally developed this social work course at the Boston Psychopathic Hospital, where she served as Chief of Social Service. In collaboration with Dr. Elmer Ernest Southard, Director of the hospital, Jarrett defined the relevance of social work to psychiatry and originated “psychiatric social work”. At the same time that President Neilson was looking for a way for the college to “[do] an extra share in the war emergency,” Jarrett and Southard were working on plans for a training course for psychiatric social workers to work with “shell shocked” soldiers.

In 1918, sixty-three students completed the first summer’s 8-week course work and reported for 6 months of practical training. The students received certificates at the completion of the full course, which were granted by the National Committee for Mental Hygiene.

The program’s immediate success led the College Board of Trustees to make it a permanent program, the Smith College Psychiatric Training School, which later became the Smith College School for Social Work. The Training School was a pioneering effort enabling young women to learn psychiatry, when educating women in psychiatry was seen as too “radical.” The School earned its first accreditation from the Council on Social Work Education in 1919.

In 1919 Stuart Chapin, of the Smith College Sociology Department, was appointed Director. Jarrett was named Associate Director, and served in that capacity until 1923. While at Smith, Jarrett continued to conduct research and to write, notably The Mental Hygiene of Industry (1920) in which she articulated the relationship of mental health to productivity and the role of the social worker in maintaining the former. She also published The Kingdom of Evils (co-authored with Southard), a landmark book that helped establish psychiatric social work as a credible and useful adjunct to established medical practice.

In 1930 the School held its first “Supervisor's Conference,” demonstrating from its earliest years a commitment to maintaining close working relationships with those who supervise students in their internships. That same year, SSW first published the widely respected professional journal of clinical social work, Smith College Studies in Social Work. In 1939, the School offered its first multicultural course, “Culture as a Determinant of Behavior,” taught by the noted social anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski of the University of London.

In 1943, the demands of World War II led the School to adjust its curriculum from 24 months to just 15 months—though the 24-month curriculum was reinstated in 1946. Two years later, it initiated the Program of Advanced Study, which eventually developed into the SCSSW PhD program.

Throughout the 1950s, the School continued to take the lead in the social work community, expanding its program based on the shifting needs of a changing political climate. While the School maintained its commitment to Veterans, the 1950s was marked by an increasing interest in interdisciplinary collaboration, the expansion of research as an area of focus in social work education, expanded social welfare curriculum offerings, and increasing interest in international social work, including the admittance of students from abroad.

In concert with the Civil Rights Movement, SCSSW expanded its commitment to the issue of multicultural practice. Starting in the 1960s, coursework on socio-cultural, economic, and political environments was intensified. In addition, courses were added on group work, clinical social work and families, and issues of sexual orientation.

In 1994, the SCSSW faculty made a public and formal commitment to work continuously toward becoming an anti-racism institution.

Today, the School continues to be a leader in clinical social work education. In both the master’s and Ph.D. programs, students and instructional faculty come into residence on Smith’s campus for 10 weeks of coursework over three consecutive summers. Classroom learning, meals shared in the dining hall, attendance at lectures and student activities—on and off campus—all offer opportunities for rich interaction between approximately 400 students and faculty. The tight-knit nature of the community is also welcoming to alumni, a significant percentage of whom participate in School events throughout the year. Since 1931, the School has also offered a rich, active continuing education program for professionals around the country. The School offers two specialized certificate programs: Advanced Clinical Supervision and End-of-Life Care (co-sponsored with Baystate Health).

[The above history includes information from the Mary Jarrett Papers finding aid in the SSC written by Burd Schlessinger, and from various documents in the Jarrett Papers, including Florence Day’s report on the history of the SSW. More recent history is from https://ssw.smith.edu/about-ssw/history-school.]

1918

Mary Jarrett, Director

1919-1922

F. Stuart Chapin, Acting Director and Director

1922-1943

Everett Kimball, Director

1943-1956

Florence Day, Director

1956-1971

Howard Parad, Dean

1969-1970

Helen Pinkus, Acting Dean

1971-1976

Kenneth McCartney, Dean

1976-1985

Katherine Gabel, Dean

1984-1986 (intermittent periods)

Dorcas Bowles, Acting Dean

1986-1994

Ann Hartman, Dean

1994-2000

Anita Lightburn, Dean

2000-2014

Carolyn Jacobs, Dean

2014-present (as of March 2021)

Marianne R. M. Yoshioka, Dean