The Columbia University School of Social Work is the graduate school of social work of Columbia University in New York City. It is one of the oldest social work programs in the US, with roots extending back to 1898. It began awarding a Master of Science degree in 1940. As of 2018, it was one of the largest social work schools in the United States, with an enrollment of over 1,000 students.

History

1898—1999

In 1898, the New York Charity Organization Society established the first Summer School in Philanthropic Work, a six-week program, at 105 East 22nd Street in New York City. Twenty-five men and women attended the first classes. It is one of the oldest social work programs in the US. In 1904, it was expanded into the first full-time full-year course of graduate study in social work, and later a two-year course, at the newly renamed New York School of Philanthropy.

The name of the School was changed in 1919 to the New York School of Social Work. In 1931, the School moved to 122 East 22nd Street. In 1940, the School was affiliated with Columbia University as one of its graduate schools, and began awarding a Master of Science degree. In 1949, the School moved to the Andrew Carnegie Mansion at 2 East 91st Street, and later to 622 West 113th Street. The first doctoral degree was awarded in 1952.

In 1961, the School formed a coalition in support of President John F. Kennedy establishing the Peace Corps. In 1963 the name of the school was changed to Columbia University School of Social Work. In 1966, the School began a longitudinal study of foster children and their families. The first fully endowed professorship was set up in 1991, followed by the full endowment of the Kenworthy Chair and nine additional endowed professorships. In 1997, an agreement was concluded with the UN Economic and Social Council to provide new program support and a fellowship. In that year, the school's endowment surpassed $40 million.

In 1992, students of the school organized protests and teach-ins as part of a nationwide effort to protest welfare cuts. The organizers of the school's events called the welfare cuts an example of the demonization of people on welfare.

2000—present

In 2002, construction of the current School of Social Work building began on Amsterdam Avenue and West 121st Street, north of Columbia's campus. The building was completed in 2004 and first used by students and faculty during the 2004-05 academic year. In 2007, the School founded the Global Health Research Center of Central Asia to develop and advance evidence-based, sustainable solutions to emerging public health and social issues in the region, receiving funding from the National Institutes of Health.

In 2012, the School established the Fisher Cummings Washington Fellows Program with a major gift. The program funds select students for a semester-long internship in Washington, D.C., with an emphasis on working to promote social justice and the well-being of women, children, and families at the federal level. In 2014, the School opened its Online Campus for earning a Master's of Science in Social Work (MSSW) from various major cities across the United States.

In 2014, the "Beyond The Bars" conference was hosted by Columbia Center for Justice. This conference is hosted by students, faculty, and community leaders who have been impacted by incarceration.

Student body and faculty

As of 2023, the School had 1,093 students. It had 36 full-time faculty, and 233 part-time faculty. The School received $15 million of externally sponsored research expenditures in 2022. During their MSW, students have the choice between four different pathways: Advanced Clinical Practice (ACP), Integrated Practice and Programming (IPP), Policy Practice (PP), and Leadership Management and Entrepreneurship (LME).

Achievements, mission, and journal

The School has helped form the Urban League and the White House Conferences on Children and Youth. The School was one of the first to develop an ecological approach to social work. Members of the School faculty assisted Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins in writing and implementing the Social Security Act of 1935. During and after World War II, the School staff helped to extend the social work role into the military. The School's 1966 study on foster children and their parents has also had an impact on national policy.

In 2008, the School was ranked fourth in U.S. News & World Report rankings of "America's Best Graduate Best Social Work Programs." Between 1990 and 2004, the School ranked 19th out of 61 social work doctoral programs in admissions selectivity.

The School's mission focuses on the development of leaders in social work practice and research, the advancement of the social work profession, professional values, knowledge, and skills, and the enhancement of well-being and the promotion of human rights and social justice at the local, national, and global level through the creation of responsive social programs and policies.

In 2003, the School began publishing the Journal of Student Social Work The Journal is a scholarly publication featuring articles related to all aspects of the social work profession, including clinical practice, public policy, and administration. In 2010 The Journal was renamed the Columbia Social Work Review.

Notable alumni and faculty

• Mary van Kleeck (1883–1972), social scientist, taught at the school from 1914 to 1917.
• Mary Antoinette Cannon (1884-1962), president of the American Association of Hospital Social Workers (1922-1923)
• Winona Cargile Alexander (1893-1984), a founder of Delta Sigma Theta, was the first African American accepted to the New York School of Philanthropy in 1915. After graduation, she was the first black hired by the New York City and New York County Charities. She made most of her social work and civic contributions in Jacksonville, Florida.
• Charles H. Jordan (1908-1967), worked with the United Nations to support the needs of Burmese, Tibetan, Vietnamese, and Palestinian refugees. During the 1950s Jordan helped create the Swiss organization the Societé de Secours et d'Entreaide ("Relief and Mutual Aid Society") to provide a more official means to support Jewish refugees in Eastern Europe. In 1955, Jordan was appointed as the operations officer for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, and was appointed as the organization's head in 1965. He became the first senior leader of a Jewish organization to travel to Arab countries, where he negotiated on behalf of the minority Jewish communities.
• Vera Shlakman (1909-2017), was a distinguished professor emerita and leftist economist who overcame political persecution and Antisemitism to return to teaching at CSSW. She earned her doctorate in economics from Columbia, where she wrote her dissertation on female factory workers in the 1800s. She would expand her analysis in her influential book Economic History of a Factory Town (1935), which provided a touchstone in the study of workplace conditions, family life, and relations between capital and labor. She was best known for her firing by Queens College in 1952 for refusing to testify to the McCarran Committee on whether she was a card-carrying Communist, as well as for their apology and restitution she received in 1982.
• Shirley Zussman (1914–2021), sex therapist
• Herman D. Stein (1917-2009), taught at the school for 14 years, as well as at Smith, Harvard, and Case Western Reserve University, where he was dean of the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences during the 1960s.
• Alfred J. Kahn (1918-2009), received the school's first doctorate granted in the field of social welfare policy and served on the school's faculty for 57 years. He was critical of problems at the local and federal governmental level in providing services related to child development and family support, arguing that a comprehensive system of social welfare provision should be made available to all Americans comparable to similar systems offered in Western Europe.
• Helen Rehr (1919-2013), longtime director of social work at Mount Sinai Hospital
• Ethel Paley (1920-2019), advocate for nursing home patients; inducted into Columbia University School of Social Work Hall of Fame in 2014.
• Judith Wallerstein (1921-2012), received her MSW from the school in 1947 and became a leading psychologist who pioneered research on divorce. She created a 25-year study on the effects of divorce on the children involved, finding that the consequences of divorce cause pain for the children well into adulthood. Her research made her a polarizing figure among feminists, and sparked a national debate in regards to the rising divorce rate in America.
• Antonia Pantoja (1922-2002), received her MSW from the school in 1954. She was regarded by many in the Puerto Rican Latino community as one of the most important civil rights leaders in the United States. She founded ASPIRA and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Clinton in 1997.
• Ann Klein (1923–1986), politician who served in the New Jersey General Assembly and was the first woman to run for Governor of New Jersey.
• Yisrael Katz (1927–2010), Israeli scholar, civil servant, and politician was the first Israeli dean of the Paul Baerwald School of Social Work at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and served as Israeli Minister of Labor, Social Affairs, and Social Services.
• Ada Deer (1935–2023), Native American advocate and scholar, received her MSW from the school in 1961. She became the first woman to be appointed Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs, US Department of the Interior, the first Native American woman to run for Congress in Wisconsin, the first native American to lobby Congress successfully to restore tribal rights, and the first Chairwoman of her Menominee tribe.
• Robert Lee Barker (born 1937), received his Ph.D. from the school, and created The Social Work Dictionary, now the definitive reference resource in the profession throughout the world. He was an early advocate and systematizer for the case management approach to delivering social services, for private practice in social work, and for the emerging field of forensic social work.
• Michael Schwerner (1939–1964), civil rights activist; one of three Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) field workers killed in Mississippi by members of the Ku Klux Klan.
• Kathy Boudin (1943–2022), adjunct assistant professor and Director of the Criminal Justice Initiative. She is known for her association with the Weather Underground and was convicted in 1984 of felony murder for her participation in an armed robbery that resulted in the killing of two police officers and a security guard. She was released from prison in 2003. Boudin worked for the Center for Comprehensive Care, HIV AIDS Center, at Mount Sinai Morningside and was a consultant to the Osborne Association in the development of a Longtermers Responsibility Project.
• Adrienne Asch (1946–2013), bioethics scholar and founding director of the Center for Ethics at Yeshiva University.
• Sheila Oliver (1952–2023), New Jersey state legislator, 169th Speaker of the New Jersey General Assembly, and 2nd Lieutenant Governor of New Jersey.
• Jared Bernstein (born 1955), received his Ph.D. in Social Welfare from the school. He is a Senior Fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and former Chief Economist and Economic Adviser to then-Vice President Joseph Biden in the Obama Administration. His federal appointment represented a progressive perspective and provided a strong advocate for workers. His work focuses on federal, state and international economic policies, specifically the middle class squeeze, income inequality and mobility, trends in employment and earnings, low-wage labor markets, poverty, and international comparisons.
• Daniella Levine Cava (born 1955), lawyer, social worker, and politician who has served as the mayor of Miami-Dade County, Florida since 2020.
• Jaime Soto (born 1955), Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sacramento, known for advocating for the rights of the poor and defending immigrants.
• Monique Holsey-Hyman (born 1965), social worker and professor who serves on the Durham City Council
• Jane Waldfogel (M.Ed. Harvard '79), Compton Foundation Centennial Professor of Social Work for the Prevention of Children's and Youth Problems at the School. Her research focuses on work-family policies, improving the measurement of poverty, and understanding social mobility across countries and child welfare. She has published studies about the impact of public policies on child and family well-being.
• Jeanette Takamura (PhD Brandeis '85), first female Dean of the School. She was appointed by President Clinton as Assistant Secretary for Aging at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. She led the development and enactment of a modernized Older Americans Act and established the National Family Caregiver Support Program, the federal government's first formal recognition of the significant contributions and needs of family caregivers.
• Hyeouk Chris Hahm (MSW '95), health services professor and researcher.