By Lea Caragata, Director of the School of Social Work
It is always an exciting opportunity to engage with our social work community!
Students, alumni, our adjunct and sessional instructors and our many community organizations and field placement sites all play such important roles in sustaining the UBC School of Social Work.
Faculty and Staff
We have welcomed two new faculty members and one new staff person to the School in the past year. I will leave it for each to introduce themselves more fully but we are so happy to be joined by Assistant Professor Jac Nobiss and Associate Professor Karun Karki. We have also been ever so fortunate in the hiring of Jack York as Coordinator of our Continuing Education Program. Some of you will know Jack as he has also been an adjunct instructor in the School.
We have two staff who have become new parents with all of the excitement (and demand) associated with a new baby in the house. Amit and Ritika will be great parents and we will be very happy to have Ritika return from her maternity leave next month.
On a sad staff note, Rita Amisano who has been the wonderful School Administrator for the past several years will be leaving us at the end of April. Although we are broken-hearted, we wish Rita well and are glad that she’ll still be within reach in the Faculty of Science at UBC. We are currently hiring for Rita’s replacement.
New Initiatives
As you will read in this issue of the Bridge, we have begun to deliver what we hope will be truly excellent continuing education programs. We have developed these – with more to come – to recognize the needs of the profession and more broadly to acknowledge the need for life long learning for all of those working in human services. We welcome your ideas for courses and your input about our course offerings. Stay tuned for our announcement of the launch of our certificate program in mental health and substance use. This will be an important contribution to ensuring that everyone who works with people experiencing these issues has the training necessary to respond in ways that build strength and reduce harm.
Program News
The Chair of our BSW Program Antoine Coulombe has begun to work on several important changes to our BSW program including a direct admission pathway and the research and framing for a full-scale program renewal.
Thanks to excellent work by Monty Montgomery, MSW Chair and Barbara Lee and their great crafting of our SW Self Study report, it was favourably received by the accreditation team of the Candain Association of Social Work Educators. We will be hosting two reviewers later this month and have invited members of the community to meet with the team.
Our PhD program will be welcoming a new and larger cohort in September. This intake will include more Indigenous students as we try hard to address our commitments to Indigenizing and decolonizing what we set out in our Indigenous Strategic Plan. Planning is easy and we hope that this coming year’s doctoral cohort will demonstrate that we are acting on our plan.
Budget News
As many will know, the federal government’s decision to reduce international student visas has had a quite devastating impact on universities across the country. At UBC the Faculty of Arts, of which we are a part has been badly impacted. We have had to make cuts in a number of areas but we are confident that we have not jeopardized the quality of our programs.
Jack Bell Social Work Building
If you drive down West Mall, you’ll note the steady progress on the complete renewal of our building. We are still on track to move back in late this year and for classes to resume there in January of 2026. Faculty and staff have coped fairly well in our ‘swing space’ locales but we know the absence of our own space has been hard on students and adjunct and sessional lecturers. We promise an appropriately exciting return to our own building where we can better engage with each other! Stay tuned.
Gifts and Awards
We have been very fortunate this year to have had several new gifts to the School. These will variously support students including a focus on Indigenous and graduate students. As I’m sure everyone knows, Vancouver’s prohibitive housing costs make attending UBC Vancouver a challenge. We are so very grateful to those who support our work and are of course always happy to discuss your interests in finding ways to support our work.
