The SSW Bulletin is a monthly bulletin that includes all relevant notices and deadlines from SSW.

Students are welcome and encouraged to use the SSW Bulletin as a vehicle to post items that are relevant to their class or to the entire student body. See posting rules.

Need more updates? The Bulletin will now be updated on Thursdays as well. Deadline for Thursday's issue will be Wednesday night, 10:00pm.

August 4, 2011

Ongoing Meetings/Events

Announcements, Notices, Awards

MONDAY - August 1

Summer Lecture Series - The Pleasure of the Text: Seduction, Resistance and Narrative Inquiry

Catherine Kohler Riessman, M.S.W., Ph.D. - Brown Clinical Research Institute Lecturer

Monday, August 1, 7:30pm, Weinstein Auditorium

The interview has been conceptualized over time by social scientists as a data gathering method, as a conversation and as a relational encounter. Using a case study composed from a research interview, the presenter will explore visceral elements that reach beyond each of these ways of thinking about interviews. A man’s personal narrative and Dr. Riessman’s re-analysis of the text over time and the shifting contexts of its production suggest dimensions that can vitalize the narrative analysis of lives.

Attention A11 & BS12 - Skits productions

August 1
By this meeting individual skits need to have a full cast and must have already rehearsed at least once. The length of the skit needs to be determined so that the performance timeline can be established.

August 8
Groups need to be ready to roll. Schedules for a full run-through will be established, props and costumes gathered, and final details ironed out.

Tuesday - August 2

Wednesday - August 3

Cross-Racial, Cross-Cultural Dialogues

Wednesdays, August 3 and August 10, 7:00-9:00pm, Seelye 110

Victoria Winbush, Senior Bertha Reynolds Fellow, will be conducting cross-racial, cross cultural dialogues.

Each two-hour interactive session will use dialogue as a framework for building conceptual and affective understanding of the dynamics of cross-racial and cross-cultural interactions. Individual reflections, one-on-one interactions along with small and large group discussions will be used to create an environment for learning, exploring and skill building.

There will be three evenings of dialogues, one for each M.S.W. class year:

Class of 2013: July 27
Class of 2012: August 3
Class of 2011: August 10

Thursday - august 4

Field Work Panel for 1st Year Students

Thursday, August 4, 5:30-7:00pm, Cutter Living Room

Co-class representatives Cindy Lys and Emily Lusenhop will be hosting a Field Work Panel and Information Session for 1st year students. A panel of second and third year students will be there to answer any questions and address any concerns that pertain to the field work experience. Please join us for this informational event - we look forward to seeing you there!

Sexual Assault and What WE Can Do About It: A Bystander Empowerment Approach - NEW

Thursday, August 4, 5:45-6:45pm, Ziskind Living Room

This program focuses on stopping sexual assault before it happens through a bystander intervention approach. This is a great program to replicate and bring into your field placements! Ideal for college students.

Presented by Katherine Driscoll, John Reardon, Morgan Stone, and Sarah Williams.
Sponsored by Men at Smith.

Friday - august 5

Dean's Conversation

Friday, August 5, 3:45-5:15pm, Cutter Living Room

Paul Mintzer will lead a meditation session. A long time meditator, Paul became interested in Tibetan Buddhism and Dzogchen in the mid 90's. He is a founding member of the Putney meditation group in Vermont.

Shabbat Dinner

Friday, August 5, 6:00-8:00pm, Ziskind Living Room

Jewish Student Alliance is hosting a Shabbat Dinner potluck! Whether you identify as religious, cultural, spiritual, or none of the above, join us as we mindfully take a break from the week and restore our collective energies. Bring a vegetarian dish to share. Students, faculty, staff, and friends are all welcome!

Saturday - august 6

NASW Licensing Preparation Workshop

Saturday, August 6, 9:00am - 4:00pm, Seelye 106

The Massachusetts chapter of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) is offering a test preparation workshop for licensing at the LCSW or LICSW levels. This test prep workshop can be taken, no matter which state you plan to be licensed in.

The cost for early bird registration is $100 for NASW members and $155 for nonmembers.

Healing Trauma Through Yoga: An Experiential Workshop

Saturday, August 6, 1:00-3:30pm, Chase Lounge

Interactive yoga workshop and free yoga class followed by discussion. Learn about the use of yoga poses in healing trauma. Learn about the chakras and how emotions and memories are stored in the body. This workshop is appropriate for all ability levels and accommodations are available for people with injuries and limited mobility. Please bring a yoga mat if you have one, but a limited number will be available.

Presenter: Karoun Charkoudian is the owner of Karoun Yoga Studio, which offers gentle yoga classes to a wide diversity of people. In addition to studio classes, Karoun works with Dare Family Services teaching yoga weekly to kids and teens in the foster system. She also works with the Recovery Learning Community, in which her community based classes include many who have been through emotional trauma. Karoun has completed her teacher trainings in Qi Gong as well as Vinyasa Flow yoga.

Contact Ali Kimmell to RSVP and with any questions about the workshop.

Sunday - august 7

After august 7

CPP Meetup for First Year Students - NEW

Monday, August 8, 6:00-7:00pm, Cutter/Ziskind

Share concerns and hopes, find people to collaborate with, and make plans to share your progress throughout the year! Social Welfare Action Alliance (SWAA) invites you to an open forum to meet with other first years who share the same CPP topic. Volunteer facilitators will be there to support the conversation, but we need YOU to be there to shape the conversation.

Meeting rooms and facilitators
Immigration: Cutter Head Resident Suite, Bronwyn Shiffer
LGBTQI: Cutter Beau Parlor, Jessica Rotem
Mental Health: Ziskind Beau Parlor, Deepa Ranganathan and Liz Hammond

Slanty Eyed Mama Performance - NEW

Tuesday, August 9, 8:30pm, Weinstein Auditorium

We are Julliard-trained classical artists who have taken on issues of race and gender by subverting stereotypes and discussing the misconceptions about Asian American women through spoken word, music and comedy. We take on multiculturalism through this Asian lens but are really talking about the marginalization of the "other" through language and myths about culture, hence the name "Slanty Eyed Mama." It is a subversive political act which empowers women through the knowledge about cross cultural issues, mother culture and the intersection of classical arts training with the language of hip hop and popular culture. We have been artists in residence at the Smithsonian Institute for two consecutive years during Asian heritage month, at the conference for women in performance, and at many international women's conferences. We spark conversation and advance the feminist rhetoric into the post-colonial discussion.

Baccalaureate

Sunday, August 14, 6:00pm, Helen Hills Hills Chapel

Administrative Announcements

Power Shutdown in Dorms

As part of the construction project in Northrup and Gillett there will be a power shutdown for Chase, Duckett, Albright and Talbot on:

Wednesday, August 3, 5:00-5:30am
Wednesday, August 10, 5:00-6:00am

Emergency generator-powered lights will be on during these times, but any electric items in your room such as clock radios, computers, printers, etc. will not be operational, so please plan accordingly.

Commencement Reception Tickets

On Monday, August 5, 5 graduation tickets for the commencement reception will be in your campus mailboxes. These tickets are required for you and your guest to attend the reception at the Campus Center. Please do not lose these - we cannot replace them.

You may purchase extra tickets at Lilly Hall 101 from August 1 through August 12. Additional tickets are $10.00 per person.

Mandatory Course Evaluations

Student evaluation of courses is a program requirement (see Master's Program Handbook, section 200.7C). Failure to complete a course evaluation by the deadline will result in:

grade/transcript hold
registration hold
diploma hold

The deadline for Term 2 course evaluations is Friday, August 19, 2011 at 11:00pm. Instructions can be found here.

End of Summer Deadlines

By now you should have received via Smith email an important notice listing dates, deadlines, and responsibilities for the end of the summer. We urge you to read these materials soon. Thank you!

Exit Interview Materials

Final Summer students: Exit interview materials for all final summer students will be at the campus post office by the end of this week. You will get a postcard in your mailbox telling you to pick up a packet from the campus post office. Please read it carefully and complete as directed. This is a requirement for you to get your diploma at graduation.

Winter Directory Information

Below is a link to our Winter Directory Information form. Please complete all portions of this form to give us your most updated information. Once you have finished filling it out please make sure to press the submit button, located on the bottom left of the form. This information is critical for school-related business and for helpful connections during the internship period. We may contact you about school business and publications; information from alumni placement area coordinators; and alumni-sponsored events in your area. We will continue to use Smith email for the bulk of our communications. Please send us your contact information via this form today. If we do not hear from you we will send all U.S. mail to your placement address. This form must be submitted by Monday, August 8. Thank you!

Writing Center Appointments

To all SSW writers: When you schedule an appointment with Debra Carney or Peter Sapira in the Writing Center, please consider the length of your paper and the time we need to read it. Second year master's students working on their proposals should schedule an hour, as should Ph.D. students with longer papers.

Term 2 Senior Bertha Reynolds Fellow

Victoria R. Winbush, MSSA, LICSW, MPH, Ph.D., is a graduate of the SSW doctoral program. Vikki recently served as the interim executive director of Gestalt Institute of Cleveland. Several years prior she served as the executive director of the Multicultural Training Institute, also in Cleveland, Ohio. She is an adjunct instructor, faculty field advisor and research advisor at SSW. Vikki has been an adjunct instructor for Cleveland State University's Diversity Management Program and for the Mandel School for Applied Social Sciences (MSASS) at Case Western Reserve University. Vikki's clinical and research interests are focused on parents' role in securing mental health treatment services for their distressed adolescents. She earned her bachelor's degree in sociology from Barnard College, her master's in social work from MSASS, and her master's in public health from the University of Michigan.

Office hours and location:

Monday	3:30 - 5:00pm
Wednesday	10:00am - 12:00 noon
Pierce 107

Anti-Racism Consultation Committee

The anti-racism consultation commmittee members are available to anyone who would like to have a discussion or dialogue about any concerns of a racialized nature on campus. Committee members can be contacted directly and they are: student reps - Maggie Matthew (A12) and Madeline Nussbaum (A11); council rep: Andrea Yoshida (A13); administrative staff: Idene Martin and Tonya Dixon; alumnae rep: Rani Varghese; faculty reps: Fred Newdom and Joyce Everett; and chair: Dennis Miehls.

Health Insurance Enroll or Waiver

For all students going into Field: Letters have been placed in your student mailboxes explaining how to sign up or waive out of the school's health insurance plan for the period of September 1, 2011 through August 31, 2012. All students entering field placement in September must complete either the waiver or the enrollment process online through the Gallagher Koster website before August 1, 2011, even if you completed this process in the spring. If you do not waive out of the insurance plan on the website, your student account will be billed $3,102 for the school's health insurance plan. You may direct questions to Michele Bala.

Counseling and Therapy Databases on Trial this Summer

Two databases of potential interest to social work students and faculty are currently on trial:

Counseling and Psychotherapy Transcripts, Client Narratives, and Reference Works

Counseling and Therapy in Video

The trials run through August 7, 2011. You may connect to these databases from this page: http://www.smith.edu/libraries/research/subject/trialdatabases.htm

We welcome your feedback; please use the feedback form on the Trial Databases page (see link above) or via this link: http://www.smith.edu/libraries/forms/trialdb.htm

Thesis Information

For the A12 & AS12 Classes: ITS Training Sessions for the New Thesis Template

Monday, August 8 or
Tuesday, August 9, 12:50-1:30pm, Stoddard Auditorium

Please join Liane Hartman, TechTraining Coordinator, ITS, for one of two scheduled training sessions as she demonstrates the new template for thesis formatting. Time will allow for questions and answers. You can attend either the August 8 or the August 9 session, each from 12:50 to 1:30pm, Stoddard Auditorium. Please feel free to bring your lunch.

Class of 2011 - Dissemination of Knowledge Deadline

For those who have completed their dissemination and have the required sign-offs, please forward the blue "Dissemination Confirmation" form or other appropriate documentation to Laurie Wyman. Pleae remember that the Dissemination of Knowledge deadline is Friday, August 5. Thank you.

Thesis Proposal Award

The Thesis Proposal Award will be given to one or two students to support thesis research related to the aging gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, queer population. Current students may submit a copy of their thesis proposal along with a cover letter stating the intent to apply by the school's thesis proposal deadline date of October 28, 2011. Send a copy of the thesis proposal and cover letter to Dean Carolyn Jacobs, 207 Lilly Hall, School for Social Work, Smith College, Northampton, MA 01063.

Please include the name of your thesis advisor in the cover letter. In order for your thesis proposal to be included in the selection process it must first pass the approval process completed by your thesis advisor (and the HSR committee if required). The Thesis Proposal Award(s) will be granted on or before February 3, 2012.

General Notices

New Student Org Leadership for 2011-2012!

Please see attachment (pdf).

First Year Class Representative Wanted for AFWSPC

Interested in becoming the first year class representative for the Academic and Field Work Performance Standing Committee (AFWSPC)?

Patty Kruglak (3rd year representative) and Laura Mackie (2nd year representative) will be visiting first year policy course sections to discuss the position and to answer students' questions. Those interested are asked to email Patty or Laura by August 1 with a statement of interest and/or to ask further questions. Students will be contacted to continue with the selection process, which includes a discussion of a theoretical case and an interview by other student representatives.

Research Assistant Needed

From Yoosun Park: I am looking for a research assistant for the next academic year to help me with a research project. The position will begin in mid-August at the end of the summer term 2011 and will conclude at the end of May, 2012. Work will be approximately 5 hours per week. Duties will be varied and will range from photocopying to conducting literature and archival research to producing literature reviews. If interested, please email me a CV and a letter detailing any relevant experience.

Ongoing Events

Anti-Racism Task Force

Tuesdays, 12:30-1:30pm, Dewey Common Room

Come be a part of the commitment to our Anti-Racism Mission. The Anti-Racism Task Force has been the engine for many of the changes brought about at Smith SSW as we have along with our anti-racism commitment. The Task Force has been a very collaborative effort and a place where all constituents of the school have had a chance to work together.

Faculty liaison: Fred Newdom

Council for Students of Color Member Meeting

Wednesdays, 5:45-6:45pm, Ziskind Living Room

Join us for our general meeting providing a space to be yourself for all students of color (both masters and doctoral levels). We are a support and advocacy group that wants to know how students of color are doing on campus. Feel free to bring your dinner and your kids. See you there!

Dean's Conversations

Fridays, 3:45-5:15pm, Cutter Living Room

The dean's conversation is an opportunity for any member of the SSW community to explore contemplative practices, as well as to bring forth issues and ideas of importance to our community.

Holistic Healing and Meditation Group

Mondays & Wednesdays, 7:30am, Chase Lounge
Fridays, 1:00pm, Chase Lounge

Come join the Holistic Healing and Meditation Group Mondays and Wednesdays at 7:30am and Fridays at 1:00pm for a 30-minute silent sitting meditation. We meet in Chase Lounge on the first floor. Beginners and experienced meditators welcome. Instruction provided upon request. Contact Ali or Eric with questions. Don't miss out on this important opportunity for self care!

Jewish Student Alliance (JSA) Weekly Meeting

Tuesdays, 12:45-1:30pm, Ziskind Living Room

Are you Jew-curious? come have lunch with the good folks of Jewish Students Alliance (JSA) and join in our continued curiosity and exploration of Judaism!

JSA embraces a full spectrum of Jewish experiences and identity, including those with a strong religious background, those for whom being Jewish is important culturally, those with little knowledge about being Jewish, and those students who wish to connect with an aspect of Judaism. The group's format is a weekly informal discussion on a topic related to being Jewish, and time set aside for planning events including speakers and community-building activities.

LGBTQQIF Alliance General Meeting

Tuesdays, 5:45-7:00pm, Ziskind Living Room

The Alliance is a welcoming space for the LGBTQ community and our allies at Smith SSW. All are welcome to join in as we build community, learn from one another and ourselves, and foster constructive action and dialogue. Feel free to bring your dinner!

Men at Smith

Wednesdays, 9:00-10:00pm, Ziskind Living Room

The Men at Smith Group is offered to support all self-identified men at Smith College SSW. It functions as an open and welcoming group. We meet every Wednesday.

Pedagogy and Diversity Seminars

Tuesdays, 7:00-9:00pm, Seelye 101

Norma Akamatsu and Joshua Miller

The Pedagogy and Diversity Seminar seeks to support all faculty teaching at SSW by creating a space where professor can discuss how issues of diversity, social identity and social oppression influence their teaching, the classroom environment, student interactions, and the overall campus culture and climate. Pedagogy and diversity is a major vehicle for furthering the SSW's anti-racism mission statement by deepening the capacity of faculty to explore and develop their awareness and skills to manage the inclusion of this content while also processing issues that arise in the classroom. The seminar will include a mixture of discussion, problem solving, presentations, and exercises that will be developed by participants and the facilitators. The minutes of each pedagogy and diversity session are posted on Moodle and distributed to all SSW faculty for information and resource sharing, comment and dialogue. All who are teaching at SSW are welcome.

CEUS are available for this seminar. Faculty attending four of the five sessions will receive 10 CEUs at the end of the summer (upon completing an evaluation). We are happy to offer this at no cost to our wonderful adjunct faculty.

SWAA - Social Welfare Action Alliance

Wednesdays, 12:30-1:30pm, Cutter-Ziskind

"The real choice before us as social workers is whether we are to be passive or active." - Bertha Capen Reynolds

Come be active with the SCSSW chapter of SWAA! Weekly meetings held in Cutter-Ziskind on Wednesdays at lunch.

Unlearning Racism Group

Wednesdays, 5:45-6:50pm, Ziskind Parlor

The foundational principles of the group are an emotional space, mutual support and accountability around issues of race and racism. This group is open to the entire student body and has historically been a space for white students to unpack, share, and reflect on privilege and embedded internal racism.