Good day, SSW community!

It is wonderful to see the energy on campus as the first day of the fall semester is underway! I am looking forward to working together this semester as we start a critical academic year. A few updates and announcements to get us started! There is a lot going on and much to celebrate!

At the moment we have 1212 students enrolled for Fall 2025 - this is an almost 12% increase from this time last year (compared to a 2% increase for the university overall). This is truly remarkable and also overwhelming. We have had to open new sections of in-person courses and OSS, OFE, as well as our BSW and MSW teams, have been working overtime to get students enrolled, registered and placed in classes and field. As you begin teaching your classes, you may learn of some of the frustrations experienced by some of our students. I encourage you to listen compassionately and also affirm for them that we are doing everything we can to ensure the best educational experiences for all. We are all ambassadors of the SSW and let's be sure we lift each other and the SSW up while our school continues to experience growth and navigate transitions as well as extraordinary times and challenges. 

Speaking of extraordinary, I am thrilled to announce Jazmyn Porter as our permanent director of field education! Well done, Jazmyn! In addition, please help me welcome back Stephanie Walker, who will be joining us this month as our interim Director of Innovative Pedagogy and Learning Design. Stephanie will be providing teaching and instructional support, as well as help us further our excellence in the classroom. Welcome, Stephanie! Also, a search for our assistant dean for student affairs is underway and I hope we can move quickly to hire someone into this important position. More to come and please reach out if you have any questions!

As you may have seen, Geoff LoCicero has worked hard over the summer to develop an intranet for the SSW, which will become a go-to place for information, policy, meeting minutes, calendars, archival documents, and so on. Thank you, Geoff! This builds from the terrific work of Allison Bell, who put together our Canvas site. I know there will be lots of questions, which is great, and I ask for patience as this continues to evolve. 

Speaking of shout outs, we had our 2nd annual Teaching Institute last Thursday (about 80 participants in person and online!), our PhD breakfast and orientation on Friday, and our schoolwide student orientation on Friday as well. Thanks to our BSW, MSW and PhD programs, plus OSS and OFE, for these wonderful events. And, thanks to those faculty and staff who participated. Well done!

I also want you to know I have been approached by a group from MCV about the SSW possibly joining an effort to restart a VCU NoVA campus, which would include allied health programs plus a few others! I'm not sure if/where this will go, but I'm excited that we're being included. Our initiatives - macro, mental health, international - are beginning to get lots of terrific attention. I'll keep you posted! 

Speaking of initiatives, I couldn't be more pleased with where things are with our macro, international and mental health initiatives, as well as our child welfare program. I look forward to continuing to expand opportunities to engage students and our communities through this important work! I am working with our finance team and directors of these initiatives to develop policies regarding the use of funds associated with each. I ask for your patience as there is now money through a number of avenues to support you - professional development, international, growth mindset, office of research - some of which we previously did not have as a school just a short time ago. The point being, we are learning as we grow. Indeed, we are fortunate to have these resources available to us; however, at the end of the day, these are state funds that come with restrictions - local, state and federal - and we are working to develop clear and consistent policies for their use.  

For those of you who are interested in serving on university committees, there are two opportunities. We have need for a representative on University Council as well as a representative on University Graduate Council. Please let me know if you are interested in either. Also, apologies for the delays, but here are your committee assignments for this academic year. Let me know if you have any questions. We have had lots of transitions, as you know, so please let me know if something does not look right with your committee assignments. Thanks! 

And, finally, it's always nice to celebrate the accomplishments of our colleagues! Please join me in congratulating Kyeongmo Kim, who is being awarded GSA Fellow status by The Gerontological Society of America. Fellow status — the highest category of membership within the Society — is an acknowledgment of outstanding and continuing work in the field of gerontology. Way to go, Kyeongmo! 

Have a terrific evening, all! 

In community,

Gary  

Good afternoon, SSW community!

It's hard to believe it's the first day of August and fall semester will be starting in a matter of weeks! I have a few announcements and updates as summer comes to a close. 

As I stated last month, our hiring plan has been approved by the provost and we'll be moving forward with a number of searches, including term and tenure/tenure-track faculty. After thoughtful consideration and given both the growth of our programs and future needs of our school, I have separated academic and student affairs and created an assistant dean for student affairs. This position will be a term faculty position with a reduced teaching load and will manage our student success programs. In doing so, I eliminated Ieesha Ramsey's role as OSS director. Ieesha's last day with us was July 31st. We are working quickly to hire a number of new advisors and the search for an assistant dean for student affairs is underway. 

In the absence of an associate dean for academic affairs, Qasarah Bey Spencer and Stephanie Odera will be splitting many of the ADASA duties on an interim basis. Thanks, Stephanie and Qasarah!  And, much appreciation to Cassie DeSena-Jacobs who will be helping Qasarah and our MSW program by taking on  additional duties in the absence of an MSW program assistant director. I hope to make other important announcements about our Director of Field Education and additional support for teaching and pedagogy in the near future. Stay tuned!

Please continue to let me know about your publications, presentations, awards, and other accomplishments and activities each month. There's lots of terrific things happening here and the strength of our faculty, programs and initiatives are getting lots of attention as evidenced by what looks like a sizeable increase in our enrollment this fall. Indeed, we have had to open up a number of new courses for our on-campus MSW program to accommodate the demand! Well done, all! 

And, speaking of terrific news, join me in congratulating Yifan Lou, who received a one-year pilot research grant from the National Institute on Aging's Interdisciplinary Network on Rural Population Health and Aging (INRPHA). Well done, Yifan! 

Finally, in just a matter of weeks we will be kicking off the semester. Please join me on Monday, August 18th for an in-person semester kick-off event in room 3100 from 10:00 to 12:00 (coffee and lunch provided!). We'll have updates, program announcements, introductions of new faculty and staff, and connections with colleagues! Also, we will have IT and instructional design / course prep support available in the afternoon. I look forward to seeing you! 

Happy Friday and have a terrific weekend! 

Gary

Good afternoon, SSW community!

I hope everyone is doing well. A couple of updates and announcements for a Wednesday afternoon!

First, Sterling Murray will be moving from OSS to a new role as our Academic Events and Operations Manager. Sterling’s responsibilities will include a combination of front office management, master scheduling and support for events and initiatives. Congratulations, Sterling!

Speaking of congratulations, there’s a lot to celebrate!

Well done, Nicole, Maurice, Youngmi, and Denise for receiving Global Learning Program Development awards for FY26! Excellent work. Also, double well done to Maurice and his colleagues, who received a Global Partnership Impact Award, and to Youngmi and Kyeongmo, who also received a Global Partnership Impact Award. I hope I got that sorted out right!

And, well done, to Alex Wagaman, who was awarded grants from the Spencer Foundation and the W T Grant Foundation – well done, Alex! A twofer!

Congratulations to Miriam Kuttikat who is participating this week (June 29-July 6) as a fellow at the University of Oxford’s Harris Manchester College Summer Research Institute in London through a grant from VCU Global Education, and also to Adrienne Baldwin-White, who is featured in VCU News for the development of an interactive online game to provide more realistic and engaging training for college students around sexual violence. Read more

Keep up the great work in all of the areas we want to excel in - teaching, research and scholarship, student success and community engagement!   

As you may have read, things continue to be chaotic with federal research funding, as NIH has halted all grant terminations and a federal judge recently ordered the restoration of more than 1,000 biomedical research grants. This is good news, of course, and I encourage us all to keep pursuing funding for our programs of research!

Finally, the OVPRI’s office is looking to improve the onboarding process for new VCU research faculty. A group from the 2025 GEHLI Leadership Development Program is working to identify gaps in research resources with the goal of assembling efficient and effective tools to help faculty to launch their research careers. If you would like input, please respond to this brief survey by July 7 about your own onboarding experience.

Have a terrific weekend, all!

In community, 

Gary

Good morning, SSW community! 

I hope everyone had a good weekend. Just a few notes and updates here. 

Thanks to Humberto, Jazmyn, Stephanie O and Qasarah who met yesterday to get organized for our reaffirmation efforts. Way to go team! 

Thanks, to Geoff LoCicero, who is working on a new and improved intranet for the SSW. The idea here is to get all of our policies, calendars, information, etc. into one easy-to-navigate place. We hope for a soft launch later this summer. Stay tuned for that. 

And, join me in congratulating Kyeongmo Kim, Nicki Lee, and Kimberly Compton! 

Kyeongmo has been awarded a research leave for Fall 2025 and has developed an ambitious plan to further his program of research. Go, Kyeongmo!

I have appointed Kimberly Compton as Director of Macro Initiatives here at the SSW. Kimberly, along with Alex Wagaman, has worked hard over the last year to refresh our curriculum, develop a macro scholars program, and further our program to attract more students! This role is critical to increasing the visibility, vibrancy, and impact of our macro program within and beyond the SSW! 

Also, I have appointed Nicki Lee as Director of Data and Assessment. This is a much-needed role at the SSW and will provide strategic leadership regarding the planning and implementation of assessment activities throughout our programs and will help ensure our academic programs are consistent with CSWE accreditation requirements and teaching pedagogy. 

Way to go, Kyeongmo, Kimberly and Nicki!

Also, also, a shout out to Cassie DeSena- Jacobs who is convening our 2nd Mental Health First Aid training here at the SSW this morning. Last month, Cassie trained a number of faculty and staff from the School of Business. This morning a number of our own SSW faculty and staff will be participating. Well done, all!

Thanks, as well, to Stephanie Hart and our finance team who have worked hard to close out fiscal 25 and get us ready for fiscal 26! And, give yourselves a warm hug as we exceeded our enrollment and tuition targets last year, which resulted in an increase in our overall budget (I mentioned this last week as well). We're on track right now to exceed our enrollments from this time last Fall, which is terrific. 

And, many thanks to Annie Wade and our HR team for processing our new contracts and handling all of our personnel needs with a high degree of professionalism and excellence. Thanks, HR team!

Last, but certainly not least, we were active with publications and presentations over the last month - here's a list below. Please keep your submissions coming so we can share in your success! Great work, all! 

Have a terrific week and stay cool (the next several days will be hot!)!

In community, 

Gary

Good morning, SSW community! 

I hope everyone had a good weekend. Just a few updates here. 

We have been given the green light by the Provost's office to begin hiring (and in many cases restoring) positions that are much needed here at the SSW. There has been a soft freeze and a new process for reviewing hiring plans was recently implemented, but we're now ready to move forward. In no particular order, we have a number of needs, including: tenured/tenure-track faculty; term faculty; faculty/staff in our Office of Field Education; staff in our Office of Student Success; an assistant director for our MSW program, a director of online education, etc. Hiring plans for a number of these staff positions are underway and we'll get organized for searches for term and tenure/tenure track faculty positions soon. 

Also, I am pleased to report that, due to an overall tuition revenue increase, almost $100,000 was added to our permanent budget for FY26! This is great news! Thanks to Stephanie, Bennett, Allison and Jackie for their hard work on our budget and end-of-fiscal year processing. Overall, we're in good shape!

As you know, summer classes and field placements are well underway! Thank you faculty for all of your efforts to ensure high quality instruction; thank you program directors, assistant directors and coordinators for ensuring our classes run smoothly; thank you OSS for ensuring our students receive the advising and other supports they need; and thank you OFE for all that you do to ensure excellent field experiences for our students! Well done, all! 

James and his team (Dannita, Anna and Leetah) have had an excellent development year and easily met our FY25 goal! VCU will soon be launching its comprehensive campaign, which ends in 2030, and I look forward to working with everyone to exceed our fundraising targets. More to come! 

Our international, mental health, and macro initiatives, as well as our child welfare stipend program with all of its elements, are moving forward with lots of momentum! Thanks to all who are making it happen! 

I hope everyone has a terrific week! Go Rams!

In community, 

Gary