Where Are They Now?
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GSSW
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After retiring in 2008, Dean Emerita Catherine Alter is continuing an active life of service
For Dean Emerita Catherine Alter, retirement has not meant slowing down. The dynamo who ushered the University of Denver Graduate School of Social Work (GSSW) onto the national stage continues an active life of service.
Alter served as GSSW’s dean from 1996–2006 and retired in 2008. An expert in organizational theory and culture, Alter led GSSW’s transformation from a good regional school to a great national one. Known for injecting levity and humanity into the workplace, Alter wore a Dilbert mask to staff meetings to help “lighten the mood and get people to focus on the school’s mission.”
She recalls, “I knew I needed to put the school on the national map. We couldn’t continue to rely on the state and regional market — we couldn’t compete.”
Alter’s leadership approach worked and GSSW flourished. Highlights of her tenure as dean included founding of the Four Corners MSW Program; completion of the school’s first comprehensive strategic planning and budgeting process; establishment of certificates in trauma, Latino/a social work and animal-assisted social work; and creation of continuing education and outreach programs to alumni, community practitioners and human service agencies. Alter also expanded the size of GSSW’s staff and faculty and significantly increased student financial aid.
Read more about the history of the Four Corners MSW Program, which was established under Catherine Alter’s tenure.
Read MoreHowever, Alter may be best known for her fundraising success. When she became dean, GSSW was housed in a World War II-era campus apartment building with more bathtubs than offices. She describes the building as “atrocious.” Alter raised $11 million for the renovation and expansion of what is now Craig Hall, a state-of-the-art learning space and community hub.
After retirement, Alter moved to Asheville, North Carolina, where she quickly embedded herself into the community. Finally free from the constraints of college leadership, she began volunteering for Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign. The regional community organizing effort Alter helped to create was powerful and effective, so she and her fellow organizers decided to keep it going, turning their sights from presidential politics to social justice. They conducted a needs assessment and community meetings to determine where they could best serve, and as a result, Alter co-founded Read2Succeed Asheville/Buncombe, a nonprofit that provides evidence-based literacy programs designed to close the area’s race-based opportunity gaps in elementary schools.
A lifelong musician, Alter also discovered a new avocation in retirement: weaving. In 2012 she earned a diploma in fiber arts from the Haywood Community College Center for Creative Arts and established a small business weaving custom tallits (Jewish prayer shawls). Alter now lives with her daughter in Colorado. This fall, Alter retired her weaver’s shuttle and shipped several cases of equipment and materials to Haywood Community College, which is using Alter’s gift to make blankets as part of Asheville’s Hurricane Helene relief efforts.
Alter says, “I’m 86 and I’m still capable of doing brain work.” Today, she puts her vast professional experience to work as a grant writing consultant for nonprofits, including a YWCA in the Pacific Northwest, the Muslim American Youth Foundation, and Dallas Doing Good, which fills a North Texas news desert and provides journalism experience for justice-involved youth. Alter also serves on the faculty of Lifestyle Medicine University, an online academic institution where she helped to develop a doctoral program and curriculum, teaches a course in dissertation writing and coaches students through the process. “I love this work because I have students from all over the world, from Africa, Asia, Europe, and the U.S. and Canada,” Alter says, noting with pride that the first two doctoral students recently graduated from the program.
Although she no longer weaves textiles, Alter is still busy weaving a life of purpose.
An earlier version of this story misstated a fact about national rankings. We regret the error.
