For Immediate Release
Contact:
Carrie Murdock deGuzman
1.703.519.2057, cmurdock@cswe.org
Seven New CSWE Board Members Starting July 1
June 8, 2009 – ALEXANDRIA, VA—The Council on Social Work Education welcomes seven new members to its Board of Directors on July 1. Bringing diverse and valuable experiences to CSWE’s leadership are President-Elect Mildred “Mit” Joyner; Vice President/Secretary Betty Garcia; and Harriet Cohen, Isabel Feliciano, Charles Flora, Anne “Ricky” Fortune, and Gerri Outlaw, who represent the BSW and MSW-level program and practitioner perspectives.
Board members are elected annually by CSWE members to replace those who have completed their 3-year terms of service. This year, votes for board members were tallied on May 29, after a 1-month electoral period. President-Elect Mit Joyner will shadow President Ira Colby for 1 year in accordance with CSWE’s bylaws. All newly elected board members will become active in their leadership roles on July 1.
President-Elect Mit Joyner is a professor and chairperson of West Chester University of Pennsylvania’s Undergraduate Social Work Department. Formerly president of the Association of Baccalaureate Social Work Program Directors, Joyner’s interest areas are gerontology, child abuse, and diversity. Vice-President/Secretary Betty Garcia of California State University, Fresno was recently chair of the National Association of Social Workers’ National Committee on Racial and Ethnic Diversity.
The two new board members representing undergraduate social work bring a wealth of experience. Harriet Cohen, a Hartford Faculty Scholar from 2006–2008, is an associate professor at Texas Christian University and has served on the CSWE Gero-Ed Center’s advisory board. Isabel Feliciano from the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras has worked with many population groups from inmates to delinquency youths.
Gerri Outlaw and Ricky Fortune bring a variety of knowledge to CSWE from the graduate perspective. Gerri Outlaw is social work department chair and MSW program director at Governor’s State University and is experienced in HIV/AIDS education and prevention in African American communities. Ricky Fortune is academic programs associate dean and Internships in Aging director at SUNY Albany and previously served as president of the Society for Social Work and Research.
Charles Flora, a Vietnam veteran, represents a new practitioner perspective. His career in social work began in individual and family counseling. He later joined the Department of Veteran’s Affairs Readjustment Counseling Service, which provides counseling and community services to combat veterans and their families. There, he is executive assistant to the chief officer.
Consisting of 23 CSWE members total, CSWE’s Board of Directors meets twice each year and oversees all organizational programs, plans, and budgets. It is responsible for the activities and accountability of all governance and program units and commissions, including final decisions to adopt or reject accreditation standards and educational policies prepared by CSWE’s Commission on Accreditation and the Commission on Curriculum and Educational Innovation. CSWE’s Board of Directors also undertakes new programs, reviews resolutions, shapes the affirmative action plan, establishes membership dues, conducts the executive director's annual performance evaluation review, and reports to the membership on its activities.
The Council on Social Work Education is a nonprofit national association representing more than 3,000 individual members as well as graduate and undergraduate programs of professional social work education. Founded in 1952, this partnership of educational and professional institutions, social welfare agencies, and private citizens is recognized by the Council on Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) as the sole accrediting agency for social work education in the United States.
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Visit the CSWE Elections Pages for more information about CSWE’s newly elected board members.