The School of Social Welfare provides the education and experience necessary for a career in social work. By helping shape students’ capacity for anti-racist, anti-oppressive, and socially-just practice, the School prepares social workers to carry out the unique purposes of the profession — to develop human potential, to promote individual well-being, and to bring about a more just society.

Social work is a major professional discipline in the Social Sciences. The term social welfare denotes organized public or private social services pertaining to human needs: adequate nutrition and safe housing, health and mental health, education, economic security, social participation, dignity, and civil and political rights for disadvantaged people.

The undergraduate program prepares graduates for generalist social work practice. The program defines generalist practice as maintaining focus on practice and advocacy, based on ethical principles, scientific inquiry, and best practices at the interface between systems (i.e., individual, family, groups, organizations, and communities), with particular emphasis on:

The strengths inherent in these systems.
The need to understand the role of gender, age, race/ethnicity, class, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, disability, and culture in all phases of the social work process.
The promotion of human rights and social, economic, and environmental justice for those disenfranchised on the basis of the attributes listed above.
The assumption of a critical perspective regarding different ways of knowing.