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Some of the changes became visible in the formal organization of
the MSW curriculum. During the 1980s two new specializations - health
and aging were added to the school's program, and the indirect services
program was revised, with organization, planning and administration
(OP/A) giving way to programs in social welfare planning and social
agency management (SAP and SAM which, in turn, were transformed
into a single consolidated program, management and planning (or
MAP) in 1989. In 1983, the current curriculum structure was also
put into effect, with specializations by methods and program/population
groups, foundation courses and delayed entry field work in the first
year, and a three semester research sequence.
Changes in the character of the program were felt beyond the formal
structure of the curriculum. The country, foundering in the uncertainty
of the Carter administration, was soon engulfed by conservative
administrations at both federal and state levels. The profession
appeared to be retreating from activism and public service, taking
refuge in the private practice of psychotherapy. The school, taking
stock of its own role, for the first time in its history adopted
a formal mission statement emphasizing social work training for
the public services.
The need to better prepare students for the public sector meant
a vastly expanded emphasis on skills and knowledge pertinent to
community service and disadvantaged populations. The school's community
mental health program, for example, refocused its field and class
work to concentrate on the severely mentally illl and the NIMH scholarships
were obtained for students pursuing careers in case management and
pyschosocial rehabilitation. The child and family program refocused
on child abuse, foster care, and the needs of the child protection
system.
Perhaps most dramatically, field education was reformulated to
ensure that every MSW student would have significant field training
in a public agency or in a private non-profit under contract to
a government agency. From the decade before, when field placements
in county agencies were a rarity, county child welfare and mental
health and health organizations became the principal sites of first
year field learning, a return to the thrust of the early 1940s when
all students had a year of field work in a public agency.
 Paralleling
the field program, a new body of coursework emerged to provide students
the knowledge base for public practice. Courses in direct practice
in each of the four curriculum specializations (health, aging, mental
health, children and families) were initiated and a series of new
diversity courses offered students skill training and policy content
appropriate to minority and disadvantaged populations. Gender concerns
were also highlighted, and by the early 1990s courses in women's
issues and clinical practice with women were regularly offered.
MSW research requirements were revised so that students were directed
to undertake projects related to their field work, a difficult task
requiring close collaboration between teachers, students, and field
agency staff.
The school took pride in a number of new programs and achievements.
In 1980 the American Indian Graduate Program began, a new effort
of recruitment, retention and curriculum development. The Guadalajara
Intercambio began in 1983, along with a joint MSW/MPH degree program.
In 1983 the school was ranked number on nationally for its faculty's
contribution to the professional literature of the field, a recognition
that was confirmed in a 1992 study. In 1984 the Monday afternoon
colloquia series was initiated, bringing to the school interesting
speakers in a variety of service and policy fields. In 1986; the
Haviland Library was entirely renovated restoring most of the original
John Galen Howard design, and in keeping with the computer revolution
of our era, a new third floor computer laboratory was opened. Two
new lecture series were inaugurated - the Gerald Seabury Lecture
in Public Social Services and the Walter Friedlander Lecture in
International Social Welfare. The Bay Area Social Services Consortium
was established in 1988 to better link the school with Bay Area
County Social Service Agencies. In 1992 CalSWEC, the California
Social Work Education Center, began providing four hundred $12,500-a
year fellowships for students statewide committed to working in
county child welfare agencies. Finally since 1989, five chairs have
been created, four of which are endowed to strengthen teaching and
research, giving the School of Social Welfare one of the highest
ratios of endowed chairs to faculty in the University.
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