BPD Update Online, Fall 2003
Reflections on the History of BPD (Cont)
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Paul H. Stuart
Professor and Chair, Ph.D. Program in Social Work
The University of Alabama

Chair, Archives and History Committee
Association of Baccalaureate Social Work Program Directors

As these musings suggest, I have found the history of BPD a stimulating and rewarding intellectual activity. I am deeply grateful for the opportunity afforded me to participate in writing the history. There have also been institutional results that will be important for the organization and the profession. BPD has created an Archives and History Committee. Under the leadership of Ann Myers, the committee began to transfer important records of the organization to the Social Welfare History Archives (SWHA) at the University of Minnesota. The SWHA is an excellent repository for BPD Records, since it also holds the records of NASW and CSWE and their predecessor organizations. GADE has also decided to deposit its records in the SWHA. Last year, I was honored to be appointed chair of the Archives and History Committee. Depositing the records in the SWHA will continue and the materials collected by Leslie Leigninger and I for the BPD history a decade ago will be deposited there as well.

Hopefully, the availability of the records of BPD, along with those of other social work education and professional organizations, will stimulate the production of histories of our profession. These will inform us of the issues and problems encountered in the past and hopefully provide guidance for the present. Increased interest in history is evident. Starting with its second volume, the Journal of Baccalaureate Social Work has had a special editor for history. Yolanda Burwell of East Carolina University fulfills this function admirably, and the journal has published a number of important history articles, including Burwell's paper on early economic empowerment among African Americans, profiles of social work education pioneers Millie Charles and Pauline Lang by Lorrie Greenhouse Gardella, Brad Sheafor's report card on the professionalization of baccalaureate social work education, and Wade Taylor's study of values in their historical context. The Archives and History Committee has begun to present sessions at BPD Conferences, including several on BPD History inspired by Peggy Munke of Murray State University. This year in Reno, the committee will present sessions on the development of the BPD ListServe and on the Shameless Blues Band. At least one study of the development of social work education programs in a single state (Arkansas) is underway and doctoral dissertations on aspects of the development of social work education have been completed. Hopefully, all of this activity will prove useful to undergraduate educators as they consider the challenges of the next half-century of social work education.

For further reading on the history of BPD:

Leighninger, Leslie, and Stuart, Paul H., "BPD is Launched: A History of the Association of Baccalaureate Social Work Program Directors, Part I," Journal of Baccalaureate Social Work 4, no. 2 (Spring 1999), pp. 37-59.

Sheafor, Bradford W., and Shank, Barbara W., Undergraduate Social Work Education: A Survivor in a Changing Profession, Social Work Education Monograph Series, No. 3. (Austin, Texas: University of Texas School of Social Work, 1986).

Stuart, Paul H., and Leighininger, Leslie, "BPD Matures: A History of the Association of Baccalaureate Social Work Program Directors, Part II," Journal of Baccalaureate Social Work 5, no. 2 (Spring 2000), pp. 127-143.

Stuart, Paul H., Leighininger, Leslie, and Donahoe, Jana Newton, Reviewing Our Past: A History of the Association of Baccalaureate Social Work Program Directors (Eau Claire, Wisconsin: BPD, 1993).

Other works cited:

Bucher, Rue, and Strauss, Anselm, "Professions in Process," American Journal of Sociology 66 (January 1961), pp. 137-158.

Burwell, N. Yolanda, "Shifting the Historical Lens: Early Economic Empowerment Among African Americans," Journal of Baccalaureate Social Work 1, no. 1 (October 1995), pp. 25-37.

Donahoe, Jana Newton, Advancing Doctoral Education in Social Work: The Development of Organizations of Doctoral Programs, 1948-1992 (Ph.D. Dissertation, The University of Alabama, 2000).

Gardella, Lorrie Greenhouse, "Millie Charles: Believing in the Dream," Journal of Baccalaureate Social Work 4, no. 2 (Spring 1999), pp. 19-35.

Gardella, Lorrie Greenhouse, "Prime Mover: Pauline Roney Lang," Journal of Baccalaureate Social Work 2, no. 2 (April 1997), pp. 22-42.

Leighninger, Leslie, Social Work: Search for Identity (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1987).

Sheafor, Bradford W., "Three Decades of Baccalaureate Social Work: A Grade Card on How the Professionalization of the BSW Has Played Out," Journal of Baccalaureate Social Work 6, no. 2 (Spring 2001), pp. 25-33.

Stuart, Paul, "School Social Work as a Professional Segment: Continuity in Transitional Times," Social Work in Education 8, no 3 (Spring 1986), pp. 141-153.

Tyler, Wade M., "Teaching Social Work Values within their Historical Context," Journal of Baccalaureate Social Work 7, no. 2 (Spring 2002), pp. 33-47.

An article on the History of Technology at BPD is on the next page...

Spiral, Horizontal Line Spinning

BPD Update Online, Volume 25, No. 3, Fall 2003

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