2023 MSW Student Awards

Kristen Marie Thompson (MSW ’23), Edith M. Davis Award

The Davis Award recognizes the best paper focusing on a non-dominant racial or ethnic group or a person or persons of color. The award honors Professor Emerita Edith M. Davis, who was the founding director of the GSSW doctoral program. In her award-winning paper, “Disproportionate Outcomes for Minority Hospice and Palliative Care Patients,” Kristen Thompson delineated the disproportionate outcomes for hospice and palliative care patients who are low-income and people of color, including issues related to health care access and end-of-life decisions. Thompson also explored the role of hospice and provided advocacy steps for social workers to consider.

Katherine Connolly (MSW ’23), Tommi Frank Memorial Award

The Frank Memorial Award is named for the late Tommi Frank, MSW ’64. It recognizes the student judged by faculty to have submitted the most creative and imaginative paper or project in social work or social welfare. The award particularly values the creation of new concepts, arrangements of concepts and/or new ways of relating knowledge to practice, profoundness of thinking and the scholarly application of such thinking to the refinement of theory and/or practice and to applicability for use in practice. In her award-winning paper, Katherine Connolly theorized about how people recover from mental health struggles, suggesting that through the recovery process, people move from a place of constant suffering to one where they might find inner peace, purpose and connection. By integrating personal anecdotes, interview data, and citing scientific literature, Connolly argued that this healing happens in community, through being part of a greater whole, having a communal role and purpose, and by making meaning in life through connection with others. “The author creatively tackles key questions in mental health work (‘What does it mean to recover? How does this happen?’) while integrating evidence from personal experience, interview data and empirical literature,” faculty wrote in Connolly’s award nomination. “In addition to highlighting the importance of lived experience, this writer also shows how community can be a strength and asset in recovery work; these elements seem central to our work as social workers.”

Deanna Dixon (MSW ’23), Ina Mae Denham Award

The Denham Award is presented annually to the graduating student who writes the best clinical paper describing and analyzing their own actual case practice, including the rationale and application of appropriate interventions based on relevant theory and clinical literature. The Colorado Society for Clinical Social Work created the award, which includes a cash award and society membership. Denver Campus MSW student Deanna Dixon interned at The Blue Bench, metro Denver’s only comprehensive sexual assault prevention and survivor support center. The nomination committee wrote that Dixon’s case conceptualization paper “displayed a strength of clinical insight, application of both a thorough clinical assessment and application of cognitive behavioral theory, and critical self-reflection.”

Indy Anna Hall (MSW ’23), Dorothea C. Spellmann Award

The Spellmann Award honors a student whose paper or project best demonstrates understanding, creativity and competence in work with groups, including an understanding and appreciation of groups as a primary means of service with people. The award was named for Professor Emerita Dorothea Spellmann upon her retirement in 1972. In their award-winning paper, “Social Problem: Aging Out of Foster Care,” Indy Hall described how aging out of the foster care system without proper support or guidance is a significant social problem in the United States. The paper covers the issues that arise from aging out, the history of these problems, and what social workers can do to further support foster teens to decrease the negative impacts of aging out of the foster care system and improve the futures of current foster youth. Hall offered suggestions for what social workers should consider to support foster youth beyond their 18th birthdays.

Jessica Manzanillo (MSW ’23), William Bartholomew Memorial Award

The William Bartholomew Memorial Award was established in 2018 to honor the late William Bartholomew, MSW ’04, who devoted his professional life to empowering individuals to fulfill their potential and overcome barriers posed by factors such as trauma, addiction and oppression. The award honors students who embody principles of social justice, preservation of human dignity, and a commitment to facilitating healing of human suffering. Originally from Florida, Jessica Manzanillo relocated to Colorado for the Denver Campus MSW program, where she served as co-leader of the Shades of Brown Alliance and interned at Equity Labs. “I have always had a passion for social justice and equity work, so translating that into my career was something I know I needed to do,” says Manzanillo, whose concentration was Organizational Leadership & Policy Practice. Her award-winning paper included a reflection of self, beginning with identity and moving to the awareness about the role of a social worker. “I came into this program with the vision of wanting better for my community and future generations to come. I’m now leaving with an understanding that this work cannot be done alone, that this work is more emotionally taxing on the marginalized folx who are desperately needed within it, that this work is about service and not saviorism, that this work is abolition and mutual aid, that this work is necessary … and through all of those revelations, knowing that this work is what I’m meant to do,” Manzanillo wrote. “Will would admire her energy, hope and enthusiasm for change; he, too, believed that we can make the world better — more just,” says Tanya Bartholomew, who was William Bartholomew’s spouse. “He believed that education and opportunity encouraged change.”

Brett Boehman (MSW ’23), Dean Catherine F. Alter Merit Award

Named for Dean Emerita Catherine F. Alter, GSSW dean from 1996–2006, this award recognizes a graduating student from GSSW’s Western Colorado MSW Program who most closely epitomizes the best of professional social work: a keen intellect, a passionate dedication to empowering underserved populations, and a commitment to continuously improving practice. Brett Boehman is the recipient of this year’s Alter award. “Brett is an exemplary student and child welfare intern/employee with Pitkin County, has gone above and beyond to lead this cohort and has positively contributed to the families of the Roaring Fork Valley,” Western Colorado Assistant Director Erin Leazer wrote in Boehman’s nomination letter. Among his contributions, Boehman served as the Western Colorado Graduate Student Association representative, volunteered for prospective student information sessions and helped to organize a networking event with agencies and alumni.

Stephanie Bennett (MSW ’23), MSW@Denver Merit Award

This award recognizes a student from the MSW@Denver program who most closely epitomizes the best of professional social work: a keen intellect, a passionate dedication to empowering underserved populations, and a commitment to continuously improving practice. This year’s awardee is Stephanie Bennett, who interned at Craig Hospital, where Adjunct Professor Meagan Beard was her field placement supervisor. “Stephanie is a determined and dedicated social worker,” Beard wrote in Bennett’s nomination letter. “As an intern, she learned how to work on an interdisciplinary team, handle the many demands of a caseload, enhanced her communication skills through documentation and advocated to empower the lives of those who had just experienced a catastrophic life event.” For example, Bennett worked with a family that was struggling socially, financially and culturally with the health care system. Many of the family members were undocumented and did not qualify for additional assistance, and the family’s primary breadwinner had a traumatic brain injury. Although the patient owned the family’s home, they were living in poverty and were victims of predatory interest rates. Bennett assisted the family in numerous ways, including finding an appliance store to donate a new refrigerator to the family, which had been storing food in a camping cooler for months. In addition, Beard wrote, “As a student in my class, Stephanie was an active participant and showed a tremendous sense of humility and grace to her peers. There were many things discussed that I knew full well she had extensive knowledge due to her internship, and yet she lifted others up by asking follow-up questions and commenting on other people’s experiences and ideas with a genuine sense of interest.”

Max Kilby (MSW ’23), Dean Emil M. Sunley Award

The Sunley Merit Award was first presented in 1971 by Dean Emil M. Sunley, in whose honor the award was created. It recognizes a graduating Denver Campus MSW student for meritorious service to the school or the profession of social work. Max Kilby was a Mutual Aid Fellow in 2022–23 and completed their internship at Mutual Aid Monday, a grassroots mutual aid community that cares for neighbors who are unhoused. Kilby also co-authored a manuscript exploring mutual aid in queer/trans communities, which was published in April 2023, and supported a trans research project by facilitating therapeutic groups and assisting with data collection, analysis and manuscript writing. “Max is an exceptional student whose service, dedication and thoughtfulness shine beyond the classroom,” Assistant Professor Erin Harrop wrote in their nomination. “Max has consistently demonstrated service to community,” Harrop added. For example, when Kilby learned about warming shelters not opening before it was 10 degrees, they mobilized MSW students/faculty to spread awareness, sharing evidence that unhoused individuals can die in temperatures as cold as 40 degrees and highlighting how unhoused individuals had already died in Denver when temperatures were above 25 degrees. As a result, the City of Denver Safety, Housing, Education, & Homelessness Committee revisited their warming shelter policy.

Ashley Escobar (MSW ’22), Ruth Marx Stark Award for Excellence in Field

The Stark Award recognizes excellence in fieldwork, emphasizing innovation, creativity and commitment to social work practice. The award is named for Ruth Marx Stark, who attended the University of Denver in the mid-1930s then devoted many decades of her life to volunteering in Denver-area agencies, international development programs and political action organizations. Denver Campus MSW student Ashley Escobar completed her concentration-year internship with Civic Canopy, a community-based nonprofit that engages and connects diverse groups of people seeking change in their community and equips them with the tools to create meaningful and lasting impact. She was nominated by her supervisors for her significant and innovative contributions to the organization and for her commitment to the communities they serve. Specific accomplishments include transforming the organization’s project meetings by templatizing key resources, redesigning project evaluation and prioritizing team connection. Escobar, whose concentration was in Organizational Leadership and Policy Practice, has also been instrumental in a community coalition working to improve food access in Pueblo, Colorado. Her supervisors said her ability to consistently incorporate classroom learning into her internship experience, and her creative ideas, have transformed their organization for the better.