Calvin News

The social work major at Calvin College heard good news last week about the status of its program.

It has received from the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) a full, eight-year reaccreditation.

That stamp of approval comes after the department went though a laborious three-year review that included reams of written materials, counsel from an advisory council made up of local social work professionals and a February 2005 visit to Calvin by two site visitors (social work faculty of other institutions) authorized by the CSWE to be the eyes and ears of the Commission on Accreditation.

Cheryl Brandsen, director of the social work program at Calvin, says the news is good for the department, good for students, good for graduates, good for area employers and good for people who seek out professional social work services.

"It's really the best news we at Calvin could have received," she says. "The summary from the site visit was excellent. They were very impressed in particular with our students. It's nice to conclude the process on such a positive note."

Although Calvin has offered social work courses since 1934, it did not introduce a social work major until the late 1980s and was granted accreditation in June of 1992, accreditation which was renewed in June 1997 for eight years.

The latest accreditation saw some changes from eight years ago.

Back then the Council urged Calvin to address what it saw as weaknesses in how the school prepared its graduates to deal with diversity.

This time around the Council praised Calvin's commitment to equipping its students to practice their craft in an increasingly pluralistic North American society.

"Students," the site visit summary said, "are well-prepared to practice diversity-competent social work. Students articulately defined diversity broadly to include differences in world views, values, culture, socio-economic and political persuasions. Their understanding of diversity beyond the obvious differences of race, gender and religion reflects the program's emphasis on preparing graduates well-steeped in culturally competent practice."

Brandsen says Calvin graduates go on to practice in a wide variety of diverse settings, so educating students to be prepared for that is a critical concern.

"It was gratifying to see the site visit summary be so positive in that area," she says.

Brandsen also was pleased by how the site visit summary made mention of Calvin's strong emphasis on the liberal arts.

"Social work is a professional program," she says, "so people sometimes wonder how it fits in at a liberal arts school like Calvin. But you look, for example, at the human biology course that our majors all take, with its discussions on end of life and beginning of life issues. That's a really important course for our majors and one of the reasons we believe that our liberal arts emphasis as a college is a perfect fit for the social work major. It was nice to see the site visit affirm that."

Indeed the summary said: "The liberal arts core is foundational to the social work program. The collaborative working relationship between liberal arts cognate faculty and the social work program faculty is strong and provides a seamless integration of liberal arts content for social work students."

That liberal arts foundation also allows Calvin social work majors to choose from a variety of minors. Brandsen notes that social work majors will minor in everything from Spanish to political science to missions, depending on what their career goals are after graduation.

Also, she says, all majors are required to do a 400-hour practicum, or internship, their senior year which further allows them to explore plans for their future and gain experience as generalist social work practitioners.

That internship includes a senior seminar in which what students are seeing in the field is integrated with what they have learned in the classroom.

"Here the social work program," says Brandsen, "is indebted to its large network of social service agencies in west Michigan, in Chicago and in Washington, D.C., who graciously provide sites for students to work in and top-notch social work supervision."