by Ronald A. Feldman, Dean and Ottman Centennial Professor for the Advancement of Social Work Education.
(February/March 1998)

On June 21, 1898, the New York Times announced the first class in "practical philanthropic work" organized by the Charity Organization Society of New York.

On June 11, 12 and 13, 1998, almost one hundred years to the day, the Columbia University School of Social Work will hold its Centennial Anniversary Celebration.  The beginnings of social work education as we know it date from those first classes in 1898 attended by 25 men and women "graduate students from universities recommended by their instructors and those that have had experience in philanthropic work."  The unique blend of academic and practical knowledge that has characterized social work education since its inception traces its origins to the nature of that six- week Summer School, which included lectures by leaders in the field, visits to "hospitals, homes, jails, and other public institutions," and some practical work.  By 1904, the yearly summer sessions developed into a year-long program at the newly named New York School of Philanthropy, which later became the New York School of Social Work and then, finally, the Columbia University School of Social Work.

The School's establishment of the Bureau of Social Research in 1907 formalized its commitment to the intellectual exploration needed by the new profession.  Philanthropic support provided the means for a full-time faculty to teach courses and pursue research.  Former students and faculty members of the School played major staff roles in  the pioneering Pittsburgh Survey, which served as the starting point of the social survey movement of the 1920's.  That early commitment to research never ceased.  Recent studies attest to the fact that the vigorous academic productivity of CUSSW faculty continues today.

By 1912, the School had developed a two-year program of study including a structured field work requirement.  Work on the development of casework theory and practice and methods for teaching practice continued.  When the Milford Conference convened between 1923 and 1929 to seek the common threads inherent in the various fields of practice, the New York School faculty played a leading part.  Porter R. Lee, the dean, and Mary Antoinette Cannon were major authors of the final report, "Social Case Work: Generic and Specific." The curriculum that developed in the 1920's was continually refined thereafter with a balance between the generic and the specialized.  The heirs of that curriculum, today's CUSSW master's degree students, choose their field instruction sites from over 400 public and private social service agencies or organizations that serve a wide range of at- risk client populations.

Following in quick succession, significant initiatives originated from the renamed New York School of Social Work.  In 1919, in order to unite social work educators around their common goals, Porter Lee called together representatives from social work schools in order to form the Association of Training Schools for Professional Social Work, now known as the Council on Social Work Education.  Soon after, in 1922, the  School established and began operating the landmark Bureau of Children's Guidance through a grant from the Commonwealth Fund--the first of many projects combining innovations in practice and research.

The privations brought by the Great Depression demanded new approaches to growing public needs.  They generated a fruitful partnership between social work schools and government at all levels.  School faculty worked closely with public welfare agencies and formulated social welfare legislation which, in turn, influenced the direction of  the School's curriculum. Government funding provided new sources of support for an expanded student body.  Noted New York School faculty and alumni/ae, such as Bureau of Social Research Fellow Frances Perkins, U.S. Secretary of Labor under Franklin D. Roosevelt, helped write and implement the Social Security Act.   A course entitled "Government and Social Welfare," became central in the School's curriculum from the 1940's onward.

The coming of World War II created the need for expanded social work services for the military.  Marion E. Kenworthy, a pioneer in the field and the first psychiatrist appointed to the School's faculty, became consultant to the U.S. Surgeon General in 1940.  Kenworthy and Columbia students contributed significantly to inventing the social work role in the military.  The period during and after the war, with its increased challenges for social workers, saw the entry of many men into graduate social work education thanks to the GI bill.  CUSSW and other schools of social work were the beneficiaries of the legislation.

After the war, faculty member Herman Stein, later joined by Richard Cloward, developed the first courses anywhere in the application of socio-cultural considerations in social work practice. These courses helped students to understand how to select and apply relevant material from the social sciences in their practice.  And in 1952, the School's first Doctorate of Social Welfare was awarded to Alfred J. Kahn, now CUSSW Professor Emeritus, and founder, with Compton Professor Sheila B. Kamerman, in 1974, of the pioneering Cross-National Studies Research Program.

The turbulent 1960's became the era of community action and advocacy in social work, with the Columbia University School of Social Work deeply involved in the leadership of the movement.  During the public welfare crisis of 1960, faculty member Eveline Burns chaired a project by Elizabeth Wickenden and Winifred Bell, whose report, "Public Welfare:  Time for a Change," contributed to the important Social Security Act amendments of 1962.  The School established the Mobilization for Youth Program, the prototype for community action, and provided instruction for Peace Corps and VISTA trainees under the Economics Opportunities Act.  Prime movers and theoreticians for these watershed developments included Richard Cloward, Lloyd Ohlin, Mitchell I. Ginsberg and James O.F. Hackshaw.  Under David Fanshel, Shirley Jenkins and Deborah Shapiro, the School launched a major longitudinal study of foster children, their families, and the agencies serving them, which influenced national policy on permanency planning for children, and also instituted an ongoing child welfare research program of continuing national significance.

In 1969, Hyman Weiner and Sheila Akabas established the Industrial Social Welfare Center  which later developed into the Center for the Study of Social Policy and Practice in the Workplace.  CUSSW became the first school in the United States to have social work in the workplace as a field of practice.  In the 1950's, 1960's, 1970's, and 1980's, the School housed nationally prominent leaders in practice theory, beginning with faculty giants like Gordon Hamilton, Lucille N. Austin and Florence Hollis, and later including leaders like Carol H. Meyer, Mary Goldson and Carel Germain.  They were followed by doctoral graduates who continued their traditions of excellence in schools throughout the country.

The 1980's and the 1990's saw the creation of many pioneering research centers and intervention training programs at the School including:  the Maternal and Child health Training Program (established by Hyman Wiener, succeeded by Alex Gitterman); the Brookdale Institute for Gerontology (established by Abraham Monk), which grew into the Institute on Aging and Adult Human Development; the Center for the Study of Social Work Practice in conjunction with the Jewish Board of Family and Children's Services (established by Shirley Jenkins, succeeded by Musher Professor Edward J. Mullen); the Social Intervention Group (established by Professor Robert Schilling) which designs, develops, tests and disseminates social work interventions that treat or prevent problems which especially affect low income urban communities; the New York City Social Indicators Survey Center (established by Ginsberg Professor Irwin Garfinkel); and a new joint program with the United Nations Economic and Social Council Secretariat.

Today, the Columbia University School of Social Work encompasses many different domains--a faculty comprised of outstanding scholars, teachers and practitioners; a diverse and well-prepared student body; the unique learning laboratory that is New York City; the sharing of ideas, resources and opportunities with Columbia University; the computer-assisted learning offered by today's technology--and it is very different from its early days.  The School's last hundred years have served as a history of the profession, marking the crucial changes in the field and moving with them into unimagined directions.  Yet, the people who make up our profession still answer to the same call as those who began it one hundred years ago when they attended the first summer session and they still share the same ambition--to ameliorate humankind's worst social ills.

That is why the CUSSW Centennial Celebration, beginning June 11, 1998, in Low Memorial Library Rotunda on the Columbia University campus, and continuing June 12 and 13 at the Crowne Plaza Manhattan Hotel, truly belongs to every school of social work in the nation, to every social work educator, and to every practitioner in social work and allied professions. We invite you to share our Celebration, for it is your Celebration.  Join us in bringing social work education and social work practice into the next century.  And, help our profession to reach ever greater heights of excellence, effectiveness and partnership in the coming years.