Description
The students in our undergraduate and graduate social work programs acquire essential skills aimed at supporting individuals and communities in overcoming barriers such as poverty, housing and food insecurity, racial injustice, and intergenerational trauma, ultimately fostering positive societal change. They also learn how to design and implement research that aims to understand the root causes of these social dilemmas. Your contribution allows promising BSW and MSW students to attend trainings that further build their skills, fund their self-designed research or projects, and attend conferences where they can collaborate and network with other social work leaders. Indeed, we all benefit when we shoulder the burden of these future change agents.
How will donations be used?
Many opportunities that potentially launch social work students’ careers are expensive. Donations would provide awards to those students who may otherwise be excluded from these opportunities. Through a competitive application and review process, students will be awarded money to cover professional development-related expenses such as:
- certification/recertification
- trainings/workshops
- conference fees and travel
- research expenses
Awards will range from $250-$1000, depending on the student’s need.
Social Work Student Research Fund: Investing in Tomorrow's Leaders
Our social work students ask driving questions about how to provide high-quality services, allocate limited resources, and develop policies that change families’ lives in the North State. We encourage students to attend and present at conferences to learn more about how social workers across the country are addressing these challenges, and to bring back innovative ideas to their practice and our region. Students are also taught the ethics of compensating participants in their research, but they lack the funding to do that. Often our students need just a small amount of money to attend a conference with their peers and/or faculty mentors, or to provide incentives to their research participants. We understand that students who engage in additional professional development activities are better able to connect key concepts and questions with early and active involvement in positive change, thus becoming the social work leaders of tomorrow.
Why are donations necessary?
In Social Work, we are committed to actively engaging our students in professional development opportunities that empower them to ask critical questions that drive meaningful change as they embark on their careers. A contribution to the campaign will support our diverse and engaged students in their overall educational experience and will also contribute to solutions to the many challenges we face as a society. They are without a doubt the leaders of the future.