It is an exciting summer of change at SP2!
July proved to be a month of welcomes. We were delighted to
welcome Dr. John L. Jackson, who began
his tenure as Dean on July 1st. Although Dr. Jackson is new to SP2, he is not
new to the University of Pennsylvania. Dean Jackson joined Penn in 2006 as the
first University Professor of the Penn Integrates Knowledge (PIK) program. This
program recruits preeminent faculty who have appointments in more than one Penn
school and who utilize knowledge and expertise from different disciplines and
professional viewpoints to address complex social problems. As many of you know, SP2 is an
interdisciplinary school; as such, we are honored to welcome such an eminent
scholar, who has written and taught on issues that include—but are not limited
to—theories of racism’s social impact, urban conflict and change in the digital
age, visual culture and forms of scholarly filmmaking, the anthropology of
urban religion, and critical approaches to ethnographic research methods. The Admissions Office looks forward to continuing
to work closely with Dean Jackson as the 2014-2015 school year unfolds.
We also welcomed our largest Advanced Standing Master of
Social Work cohort in July, when 30 exceptional students formally joined the
SP2 community. Our Advanced Standing students come from 10 states and from 23 Bachelor
of Social Work (BSW) programs. After taking classes and beginning their field
placements this summer, they will join the rest of SP2’s Advanced Year students
in the fall and will graduate in May.
Five exchange students from Beijing Normal University also
joined us in July. These students will be at SP2 until mid-August to attend one
summer class and five special seminars given by SP2 faculty and staff and to
make weekly field visits to local social service agencies. In addition to
learning about social work and social policy in the United States, our Chinese
exchange students have experienced local culture, visited neighboring cities
and national sites, and made friends with the SP2 students. Their experiences,
knowledge and thoughts about social policy and social work from the
international perspective have also benefited SP2 students in and out of class.
As we prepare for the fall recruiting season, we are
finalizing plans for our dynamic website
redesign, which will go live in late August.
Hopefully, you will find this vibrant new site informative and easy to
navigate on your mobile devices.
On a different technological front, the SP2 Admissions team
is currently hard at work implementing a new online application system. In
keeping with the University’s interdisciplinary ethos, this new system will unite
the applications for most of Penn’s graduate schools into one University-wide
form, which will hopefully simplify the application process for our prospective
students. We expect to open applications to all of SP2’s programs in
mid-September; if you would like to receive more information in the meantime, you
are more than welcome to keep an eye on our website, join our Prospective Student
Listserv, or reach out to the Admissions team at apply@sp2.upenn.edu.
As this exciting and busy summer winds down, we look forward
to our upcoming recruitment season. It
is our hope that we will have the opportunity to meet many of you at one of our
onsite or online information sessions as well as while we are on the road.
Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions about the
admissions process.
Mary Mazzola, MSW, EdD
Associate Dean for
Enrollment Management and Global Outreachmmazzola@sp2.upenn.edu
Associate Director, Admissions and Recruitment
adiza@sp2.upenn.edu
Admissions Specialist, Admissions and Recruitment
glib@sp2.upenn.edu
Recruitment Coordinator, Admissions and Recruitment
laurabal@sp2.upenn.edu
Global Initiatives Coordinator, International Recruitment and Global Initiatives
yuyuanl@sp2.upenn.edu
