University of Pittsburgh School of Social Work - History

History

The School of Social work has its origins in the School of Arts and Sciences' Department of Sociology that was established in 1926. Courses in Social Work were first offered at the university in 1929 when the Family Welfare Society of Pittsburgh requested classes for its workers. The following year, 17 other social agencies joined in sponsoring the courses which were overseen by Dr. M. C. Elmer, head of the university's Department of Sociology's and director of the department's Division of Social Work. The formation of a school received a jumpstart in 1931 when a grant from the Buhl Foundation helped subsidize the establishment of new courses to study and supply the need for social training in the community and offer undergraduate and graduate courses needed for prerequisites for any form of social work training. The Division of Social Work received professional ranking and a further grant from the Buhl Foundation in 1934. In September 1938, the School of Applied Social Sciences was established as a separate graduate professional school within the university, taking over the Division of Social Work from the Department of Sociology. Wilbur L. Newstetter, who would become the president of the American Association of Schools of Social Work, was installed as the school's first dean. In 1940, another Buhl Foundation grant, this one of $194,740, made it possible for the school, which had already become one of the four largest of its type in the United States, to strengthen its program and build the Buhl Library of Social Work, which is now housed as a collection of the first floor of Hillman Library. In 1948, the school established a doctoral program Social Work, which is the second oldest social work doctoral program in the United States. Today, the School of Social Work offers undergraduate degree, masters, and doctorate programs in Social Work, and is led by Dean Larry E. Davis.