Welcome

Copy of part of the welcome comments to incoming MSW students

I’d like to add my welcome to our Dean’s …we’re very excited to have you here with us. Dean Richman congratulated you on being chosen and choosing UNC. I’d like to add another congratulations to that…congratulations for choosing the profession of social work.

I know I’m biased, but you have chosen the best, most flexible, most satisfying career there is. You’re entering a profession where you will do things that matter. You will make a difference and make change in the world.

I hope you’re aware that you’re also joining a profession that has a long history of leaders who have stepped forward to speak truth to power, even when that was risky, and to fight for social justice.

Think about it...In the profession of social work you’re joining people like:

• Jane Addams, founder of the settlement house Hull House, and Mary Richmond, who developed social casework
• Lugenia Burns Hope, who in the Progressive Era spent her life improving the community through a network of Southern African American women’s clubs—AND who helped found the first African American school of social work @ Clark Atlanta
• Harry Hopkins, who ran the Federal Emergency Relief Administration for FDR, and Francis Perkins, FDR’s Secretary of Labor and 1st woman cabinetmember
• Leah Katherine Hicks Manning, who helped developed the Indian Child Welfare Act
• Carmen Ortiz Hendricks, who has worked tirelessly to increase the Latino presence in social work
• and our own recently deceased John Turner, former Tuskeegee airman, former dean of Case Western’s SSW and former dean of our SSW…and the “turner” in “Tate, Turner, Kuralt” building that houses us.

These people, and countless others, make a path through history to now…and to you.So welcome to your new profession, and to your place in social work. We can hardly wait to see the amazing things you’re going to do.

New Students

The new students are beginning to come in for orientation; today was the Triangle Distance Education Program. They seem like a great group--energetic, connecting with each other, smart, enthusiastic. Our challenge and responsibility will be to help them channel that energy into developing their social work leadership voice. We need many more strong social work leaders...it's exciting to see a new group of them take shape.