I am delighted to announce the appointment of Dr. Jacqueline B. Mondros as Dean of the School of Social Work. Dr. Mondros is an experienced and able administrator who has been Professor and Vice Dean of the School of Social Work at the University of Southern California for the past four years. Prior to that, she served as Associate Dean of the School of Social Work at Barry University, and Assistant Dean at Columbia University where she was on the faculty for eleven years. Before entering academia, Dr. Mondros had a successful career in social work practice. She was director of clinical services at a school for disturbed girls and executive director of a settlement house in Philadelphia.

Dr. Mondros received her B.S.W. from Temple University in Philadelphia, and her M.S.W. and D.S.W. from University of Pennsylvania. Her research interests are in the study of urban neighborhoods and she has written extensively on community social services, community development, and community organization. Her co-authored text, Organizing for Power and Empowerment, has been widely used in schools of social work. In recent years she has focused her scholarship on social work pedagogy and is currently working on issues of transformational leadership within social work.

A dedicated teacher, Dr. Mondros has most recently taught an interdisciplinary course on neighborhoods with faculty from the schools of Education, Architecture, and Public Policy at USC. During her career, she has also taught courses in planning, community organization, administration, organizational change, and clinical social work practice.

Throughout her academic career, Dr. Mondros has remained active in human services. While in New York she worked with community groups in the Bronx and Yonkers to develop indigenous leadership to end housing segregation. In Miami, she founded the Academy for Better Communities, which raised more than $10 million for funded community partnerships. These projects engaged students and faculty in helping people face problems ranging from foster care, in-home health care and independent living for older adults, and moving low-income women into the workforce, to overseeing the rights and needs of persons who were wards of the state. Dr. Mondros has also worked extensively with major religious organizations, including the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, the Jewish Theological Seminary, and Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.

Dr. Mondros will assume her responsibilities as Dean in late August, 2006. We look forward to welcoming her at the College.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the superb team of Acting Dean Paul Kurzman and Acting Associate Dean Roberta Graziano for leading the School of Social Work so ably during this time of transition. Among their many accomplishments, they have hired seven outstanding new faculty and achieved the largest expansion in enrollment in the recent history of the School. They have also scheduled the first regular Saturday and Winter Session classes ever held at the School of Social Work, thereby increasing student access to courses.

While serving as acting deans, Paul and Roberta have stayed active in their profession. During the 2005-2006 academic year, Paul served as President of the 10,000-member New York City Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers, and co-authored a new text book on occupational social work field. Roberta co-edited a new book on group work and aging.

We look forward to celebrating the work of Acting Dean Paul Kurzman and Acting Associate Dean Roberta Graziano in the fall.

We are indebted to the members of the search committee who selected an outstanding group of candidates. We are particularly grateful for the leadership of Professor Ruth Sidel, who chaired the committee, and the work of the following committee members: Professors Irene Chung, Bernadette Hadden, Annette Mahoney, Robert Salmon, Andrea Savage, Darrell Wheeler, and Helen Rehr (retired); Cyril Jacobs, chairman of the HCSSW Alumni Association Board; and students Jack Harari, Jacqueline Davis, and Kimberly Krno. The committee was fortunate to have the assistance of Margarett Silva from the Office of the Provost.