From the dean
Meeting challenges with strength, resilience, adaptability
Dear School of Social Work community,
I am pleased to present our inaugural annual report from the VCU School of Social Work.
As you will read in detail in our cover story, our school community rose to meet the many challenges of 2020 and 2021. I am exceedingly grateful for the strength, resilience and adaptability of our faculty, staff, students and community partners during this extremely challenging year and a half. While adapting to the evolving landscape of COVID-19, our school community came together to deepen our commitment to social and racial justice and doubled down on our efforts to innovate in 21st-century social work education. Despite the disruption that COVID-19 caused to their personal and professional lives, our talented faculty continued their efforts to advance knowledge aimed at improving the lives of individuals and making systems more responsive to community needs.
As I write this, I see encouraging signs of a campus slowly returning to a “new normal” – students studying and lounging in our school lobby, faculty and staff gathering for lunch in the conference room, and the return of concerts, lectures and in-person celebrations. At the same time, much has changed – we have all mastered the art of the Zoom meeting, and the demand for our engaging and rigorous online course offerings is stronger than ever. As we begin to imagine a post-pandemic world, we will continue to adapt and evolve, continuing the hard and necessary work of living into our commitment to a just and equitable society.
Alumni and friends, we hope that you will join us in that hard and necessary work – and that you will stay connected with the school, whether virtually or in person. We are grateful for all of the ways that the members of our “Ramily” give back time and time again – through teaching and mentoring our students in classroom and field education, as well as through philanthropic giving that helps create accessible and affordable paths to a VCU social work education.
In solidarity and community,
Beth Angell, Ph.D.
Dean and professor
School of Social Work
Virginia Commonwealth University