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Fall 2024 On-Campus MSW Application Main Deadline: April 1, 2024

News Archive

  • The USC School of Social Work and USC Rossier School of Education, in collaboration with Peking University's Institute of Population Research, organized the first international conference on evidence-based practice and policymaking for the social sciences in Beijing.

    More than 100 Chinese scholars and government officials attended the two-day conference and workshop March 17-18, which represented the initial step of providing a framework for establishing a Chinese center on evidence-based practice in the social sciences at Peking University, the first of its kind in Asia.

  • The USC School of Social Work brought its largest-ever contingent of students to the annual National Association of Social Workers Lobby Days in Sacramento, Calif., in March. The two-day event convened more than 100 students who met with state legislators and professional lobbyists, experiencing the political process in action and learning how to organize on issues of importance to social workers.

  • Public mental healthcare faces several, often interrelated challenges, from inadequate funding and insurance coverage to paperwork overload and crippling stigma. One of the more remarkable hurdles, however, is simply getting veterans in the field to employ new academic findings in order to be more effective with clients. As it is now, studies show there is a two-decade lag between research and its day-to-day application.

  • Annalisa Enrile, clinical assistant professor at the USC School of Social Work, has been designated a "Vagina Warrior" for her efforts to stop violence against women. She was one of six honorees to receive the award from the Fiipino Women's Network and V-Day, a movement started by The Vagina Monologues playwright Eve Ensler to raise awareness and funds to benefit female victims of violence and sexual abuse.

  • Kristin Ferguson, an assistant professor in the USC School of Social Work, has been awarded a faculty fellowship of $12,000 by the John Randolph Haynes Foundation, a leading supporter of social science research in Southern California.

    "These awards are extremely competitive, and it is a great honor for a faculty member in our school to receive this kind of recognition," Dean Marilyn Flynn said.

  • The National Institutes of Health has presented Anjanette Wells, a Ph.D. candidate in the USC School of Social Work, a $31,000 Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award.

    The pre-doctoral fellowship, which is given to doctoral students working with an advisor in the field of cancer research, will help fund the study she is conducting alongside social work professor Kathleen Ell on retention of low-income and minority cancer patients in depression treatment programs.

  • The Gabe W. Miller Memorial Foundation presented $2,500 scholarships to second-year master of social work students Audrey Tousant and Carlos Moran, which the USC School of Work matched via a tuition credit.

    Established in memory of aspiring social work graduate student Gabe Miller who attended the University of Denver at the time of his death in January 2005, the foundation provides financial support for social service students, professionals and organizations that share Miller's passion of improving the lives of the disabled, disadvantaged and dispirited.

  • The USC School of Social Work will offer two new study-abroad opportunities in Israel and China this summer for students who want to explore another culture and different models of social service in an international setting.

    The Israel program, convening over a three-week period in June, will focus on social conflict and creative problem-solving, highlighting expressive practice skills. The China course, also a three-week program in May and June, emphasizes Eastern approaches to successful aging in the areas of health, family and social engagement.

  • Monica Paz, a graduate student at the USC School of Social Work, has been awarded a $3,000 Consuelo W. Gosnell Scholarship from the National Association of Social Workers.

    The scholarship is awarded each academic year to master's degree candidates in social work who have expressed an interest in working with American Indian/Alaska Native and Hispanic/Latino populations, or in public and voluntary nonprofit agency settings.

  • A teenage John Duran was convinced that it was Los Angeles that had done it to him. Raised in a devout Catholic family in the 1970s, it wasn't conceivable that he could actually be gay. So he skipped town for what he thought would be the straighter pastures of Orange County. He got a job at Disneyland, believing the family atmosphere would set him on the right path. Three weeks later, he was dating Peter Pan. He knew there was no more running away from it – he was gay.