Our Strategic Plan

Goal 1: Propose and operationalize  alternative program structures across all degree programs that allow us to oversee the  development and delivery of our curriculum in a fiscally responsible way aligned with  our Core Principles

What could this look like? 

• Offer spring break

• Decrease direct service hours in practicum

• Assess and decide if a new program structure is needed

Goal 2: Accelerate curricular transformation across all degree programs to center the five Core Principles in teaching and learning within the next five years

What could this look like?

• Decrease required courses

• Revise curricula with the Core Principles in mind

• Ensure diversity in Curriculum Committee and that all members have an equal vote

Goal 3: Support students in their search for post-graduate positions through information, networking, and mentorship

What could this look like?

• Create SSW Career Center

• Equip students to pursue financial well-being

• Provide information about placements that offer stipends, scholarships, health insurance, and are accessible for students with disabilities

Goal 4: Address affordability and access challenges to attendance across all degree programs

What could this look like? 

• P4P: grow payment for placements

• Ensure that the tuition and room and board are affordable and accessible to all members of the student body

• Workforce grants

• Ensure payment for students and adjunct faculty committee work

Goal 1: Leverage the SSW Clinical Research Institute to continuously support and advance faculty and  doctoral students research and scholarship

What could this look like?

• Create interdisciplinary research teams

• Support research, publication and publicity

• Support growth of community partnerships

• Develop grant-writing support

Goal 2: Create a SSW Institutional Research program to evaluate student and faculty program experiences for the purposes of guiding teaching, learning and ongoing racial justice transformation

What could this look like?

• Provide or provide access to professional development

• Support research that directly targets/supports communities of color as well as other marginalized communities

• Gather feedback about experience at SSW, overall climate and ideas for strengthening our alignment with Core Principles

Goal 1: Intentionally expand access to resources for communities on campus that have traditionally had less access to funding

What could this look like?

• Identify relationships with other campus offices

• Provide resources (ex. readings/discussion, professional development, executive trainings, funds) to encourage collaboration

Goal 2: Create a vibrant D.S.W. degree program to provide advanced training in clinical practice and theory, pedagogy and supervision in line with SSW’s commitment to relational practice and our Core Principles

What could this look like?

• Leadership support

• Develop appropriate administrative structures to support the growth of doctoral studies at SSW

Goal 3: Identify new streams of revenue to ensure the viability of our programs

What could this look like?

• Increase revenue generated by Professional Education to provide more financial aid to students

• Align overall budget with our strategic plan

• Identify opportunities for faculty to offer and discuss their work through professional education in mutually beneficial ways ie. CEs, publications, podcasts, blog posts etc.

Goal 1: Unite and align SSW racial justice initiatives to create a responsive and impactful system to support the ongoing integration of the five Core Principles

What could this look like?

• Figure out how and where healing and dreaming appears in our curriculum and how culturally relevant pedagogy can be embedded into our required curriculum

Goal 2: Strengthen accountability processes to ensure health and wellness of School community by fostering adoption and embodiment at the individual level of the Community Agreement and other explicit and implicit community guidelines

What could this look like?

• Affinity spaces to gather, heal, build community

• Naming, identifying and addressing identity tax issues

Goal 3: Create supportive spaces for community building and joy

What could this look like?

• Affinity spaces to gather, heal, build community

•  Create a term that encompasses both faculty and staff

Goal 4: Foster greater connection for students during the practicum terms

What could this look like?

• Sponsor local events around the U.S. during the placement year

Goal 1: Re-examine faculty and staff work and structures to allow for innovation, efficiency and embodiment of the five Core Principles

What could this look like?

• Revise job descriptions so they are aligned with Core Principles

• Create processes to retain institutional knowledge with staff transitions

Goal 2: Interrogate the barriers that have prevented/impacted the facilitation of a diverse leadership team across departments

What could this look like?

• Ensure diversity in representation of staff

• Evaluate administrative structure and processes from lens of Core Principles

• Address identity tax issues across SSW faculty and staff

Goal 3: Participate in a process to determine what steps need to be taken to ensure that when BIPOC people are hired to the leadership team they have the necessary supports and resources

What could this look like?

• Evaluate administrative structure and processes through the lens of the Core Principles

• Employ the resident faculty’s summer vacation policy in an overall mitigation strategy to address identity tax

Goal 4: Improve onboarding and lifecycle experiences: Address supervision and mentorship resources; Create professional partnerships; Diversify leadership;  Increase system transparency of lifecycle attributes; Ensure optimal workload, considering identity tax and the relational context of SSW

What could this look like?

• Acknowledge interpersonal, high contact and relational context of the SSW and figure out a more manageable workload for staff e.g. hours per week, vacations/breaks,  opportunities for professional development, mental health resources and community building programming

• Adopt growth oriented supervision strategies, more mentorship and 360 reviews

Goal 5: Foster transparency and alignment in faculty governance, tenure and promotion through the lens of the five Core Principles

What could this look like?

• Revise the SSW Policy on Appointment, Reappointment, Promotion and Tenure to reflect the Core Principles

• Set explicit expectations for faculty annually and during their promotion years

Goal 6: Commit to continued collaborative learning for faculty and staff both individually and collectively around issues of racial justice

What could this look like?

• Continue ongoing trainings for anti-racism work

• Create and demonstrate value opportunities for collaboration and learning between staff and faculty

Goal 1: Create a useable archive of institutional and professional knowledge that serves to support ongoing transformation by considering the work of our past

What could this look like?

• Create a paid cohort historian position/cohort link on the SSW website

• Fund for organizing guide materials + archival and oral history training

Goal 2: Connecting curriculum and orientation activities to political education and centering the contributions of Black women and QTBIPOC care workers within the history of social work through a Disorientation Project

What could this look like?

• Create a Disorientation guide for how BIPOC SSW students have built institutional knowledge

• Access to archival information and databases detailing the history of student-led organizing and advocacy

• Formal recognition that care work is rooted in Black social work tradition

• Include non-white social work movements in the curriculum

Goal 1: Create pathways for faculty, staff and students to understand the work of the School and how important issues, challenges and opportunities are addressed

What could this look like?

• Host budget conversations with committees

• Provide routine updates to faculty, staff and students about challenges and opportunities facing the School

Goal 2: Increase communication and transparency to donors to ensure continued vitality of fundraising

What could this look like?

• Host a town hall where we discuss enrollment shortages and budget austerity

• Produce annual development report that details financial and operational functions in the School