November 2025 Dean's Note

Fall has finally arrived and per usual, this has been a busy month. I was privileged to attend the DU Celebration of Scholarships and spend time with Gary and Leslie Howard, who you can read more about in this issue, and the recipient of their generous endowed scholarship. The event recognizes scholarship donors, honors our scholarship recipients and provides an opportunity for them to connect with each other.

I also hosted our first Dean’s Circle and Board of Advisors meetings. Both groups are new to GSSW and are comprised of individuals who are committed to the success of GSSW. In later issues you will get to know our members and hear why they have made GSSW a priority. The Dean’s Circle provides a forum for distinguished alumni, donors, former faculty, and community leaders to share insights about GSSW’s vision and strategy and strengthen GSSW’s impact in education, equity, and service through dialogue and collaboration. The Board of Advisors has been created with a strong network of community members who support and advance GSSW’s values, mission and goals. They are responsible for strengthening the GSSW community, elevating our visibility and actively identifying prospective donors and foundations capable of major gifts.

GSSW has long had a reputation for being engaged globally via research, partnerships and classes. New GSSW Associate Dean and Professor Colleen Fisher is continuing in that tradition and shares the outcomes of a unique community-engaged evaluation of a trauma intervention for children and adolescents in Zimbabwe. In addition, four GSSW faculty members have been included in the Stanford University/Elsevier list of top 2% of world scientists: Johnny Kim, Kimberly Bender, Jeffrey Jenson and Eugene Walls.

Unbeknownst to many, the GSSW community includes a large number of veterans, students who are active-duty servicemembers, and members of military families; thus, during November when we celebrate Veteran’s Day, we are sharing a few ways that GSSW engages with them. You will read about GSSW Associate Professor Anthony Fulginiti’s research, funded by the Army Research Office, as he shares some exciting new findings that could improve suicide prevention interventions for active servicemembers. I am excited for you to learn about Dom Harris, our former Assistant Program Director for our MSW@Denver Program and an Air Force veteran. Harris is a new GSSW PhD student conducting research on implicit curricula in social work higher education.

At GSSW, we have a mission of offering an education that anticipates and responds to the needs of the profession and the communities we serve and preparing social workers to lead social change. That includes offering MSW content tailored to the unique needs of social workers who serve veterans, active military personnel and their families. I hope you will enjoy reading about one of those courses, Advanced Clinical Skills for Working with Military Families, which is offered as part of our MSW@Denver online program, and about one of our field education partners, Comeback Yoga, which helps to train social workers for community and clinical practice with veteran and military populations.

GSSW’s Institute for Human–Animal Connection (IHAC) is conducting a unique study about the biological effects of service animals on veterans diagnosed with PTSD. As you may recall, Dr. Kevin Morris, IHAC’s executive director, research professor, and American Humane Endowed Chair, and his spouse, Kristin Des Marais, made a $1 million estate bequest to support the institute. In addition, IHAC received the first installment of The Barbara Kreisman Community Impact Fund. Both awards reflect IHAC’s consistent recognition as being on the cutting edge of research.

I hope you will be inspired by the stories shared in this issue. We at GSSW are quite fortunate to have repeat donors supporting our mission. This month we received a generous donation from a long-time donor, the Schramm Foundation, to update the technology for our Four Corners and Western Colorado MSW programs. We also received another generous investment in honor of the legacy of Marie Catherine Smith.

If you are inspired by work the work being done at GSSW, there are two ways you can support us. First, GSSW is hiring for two tenure-track assistant professors, so spread the word!

Second, please consider supporting the GSSW Center for Equity Research (C4ER) on Giving Tuesday (Dec. 2). Guided by Associate Professor and Executive Director Shetal Vohra-Gupta, C4ER is bridging research, policy and people, grounded in evidence and guided by community. Giving Tuesday proceeds will fuel the launch of a strategic C4ER project, COPE (Center for Oncology Psychology Excellence) Care, by developing an equity opportunity dashboard, a technology tool that will identify health equity opportunity gaps for the intersection of mental health and cancer. Thank you for your ongoing support of GSSW, the social work profession and the betterment of our world.

Henrika McCoy, MSW, MJ, PhD
Milton Morris Endowed Dean of Social Work and Professor