School Updates
Dear alumni, colleagues, and friends:
It has been a busy and challenging year! One in which it has been truly wonderful to be surrounded by social work colleagues, collaborators, and professionals! People who know our nation’s (and our world’s) complex history, who exemplify social
work values, and who have the skills, passion, knowledge, and courage to work together to find our way forward. I hope that this issue of Bridges helps you to feel connected, supported, and inspired by what we can accomplish when we center service, community, human dignity, social justice, integrity, and competence!
Our cover story focuses on the workforce — our efforts to meet the expanding needs and gaps by preparing our students for complex, interprofessional, ever-changing contexts, and our ways of attuning our educational approaches and options to support social work professionals throughout their careers. We highlight our expanded focus on new options for learning (such as our online MSW), increased supports across the life course (through continuing education), celebration of intergenerational connections (as alumni mentor students, who become colleagues, who mentor students…), and enhanced supports for students to pursue their goals and find their purpose (via fellowships, paid practica, and scholarships). 
Please enjoy the following pages — as a walk down memory lane; a chance to learn about and reconnect with people, places, and programs that exemplify the best of what social work can be; and a collection of stories and snapshots that bring a smile to your face and a sense of hope in a world that desperately needs joy, community, and a better tomorrow.
There are multiple opportunities throughout the magazine to interact with us — to reconnect with the school, to share ideas, to nominate friends and colleagues for recognition, and to be part of our school’s vision to Transform: Our World, Our Future, Ourselves. Please stay in touch and keep making a difference, and remember that we are stronger, more powerful, and braver than the challenges around us!
Finally, many of you likely know that I have decided to step down as dean this coming summer. I am infinitely grateful for everything that I have been able to do in this role, everyone I’ve had the delight of meeting and working with, and the ways we’ve been able to grow, adapt, advance, and build on the school’s long-standing excellence and potential over the past eight years. The search for my successor has begun, and I am confident this process will bring exceptional leadership to guide our school into an exciting future.
Take care,
Elizabeth M.Z. “Betsy” Farmer
Dean, School of Social Work
University of Pittsburgh