Mary Edna Davidson Steps Down as Dean of the School of Social Work

September 27, 2004

Members of the Rutgers Faculty and Staff:

Dr. Mary Edna Davidson, Professor and Dean of the School of Social Work, has announced her intention to step down as Dean at the end of the current academic year. She will remain on the faculty and serve as Director of the Center for Children and Families on the New Brunswick/Piscataway Campus.

Dean Davidson came to Rutgers in October 1993, after having served as Director of the School of Social Work at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale from 1984 to 1993. She received her bachelor's degree from the University of San Francisco, where she was the first African American woman graduate, her Master of Social Work degree from the University of California at Berkeley, and her doctorate in social welfare policy, planning, and research from The Florence Heller School at Brandeis University.

Under her leadership, the School of Social Work twice achieved full accreditation status from the Council on Social Work Education for both its master's and its baccalaureate programs, a status it had not always achieved in the past. While she has been Dean, faculty publications in the most prestigious journals in the field increased dramatically, such that the School now ranks tenth in the nation in that regard, and most improved of those schools of social work offering doctoral programs. In addition, the School's external funding has increased dramatically over the past 10 years.

In keeping with Rutgers' land grant mission, Dean Davidson created a special initiative with the State of New Jersey that includes the use of Federal Title IVE funds to upgrade the educational preparation and public practice of social workers in the state's child welfare offices; over 130 employees of the state Division of Youth and Family Services have attained the MSW degree from Rutgers through this mechanism to date. The School's Continuing Education and Professional Development Program now serves more than 2,000 individuals on an annual basis, and has become the locus for lifelong learning for social workers and allied professionals all over the state.

In addition to her leadership in the profession of social work, Dean Davidson has a rich past in the civil rights movement in America. At the peak of its national prominence, she served as Coordinator of National Conventions for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). She also served for 10 years as the Principal Investigator and Lead Consultant for the Monitoring Commission on Desegregation Implementation for the Chicago Board of Education, and has worked with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office for Civil Rights to frame the original guidelines for the Federal Title VI civil rights monitoring of national child welfare services.

A national search for Dean Davidson's successor will be conducted. Dr. Ellen Idler, Chair of the FAS-New Brunswick Department of Sociology and an expert on issues regarding aging, has graciously agreed to chair the search committee to select the next Dean of the School of Social Work. Other members of the committee will include faculty and students from the School of Social Work, Deans and interested faculty from other units of the university, and representatives of the state's social services agencies. The composition of the committee will be announced as soon as it has been confirmed.

Please join me in thanking Dean Davidson for her leadership of the Rutgers School of Social Work for the past 11 years; we wish her every success and happiness as she prepares to begin her new professional role as Director of the Center for Children and Families.

Richard L. McCormick
President
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey