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Department of Social Work to offer Master of Social Work degree in fall 2007

First in MnSCU

Minnesota State Mankato is the first MnSCU institution approved to offer a Master of Social Work degree. The new degree program will start in the fall of 2007.

2006-08-17

Minnesota State Mankato is the first MnSCU institution approved to offer a Master of Social Work degree.

The new degree program, expected to start in the fall of 2007, will prepare students for advanced generalist social work practice, providing specialized skills in clinical practice and administration. The program will emphasize practice in rural and small communities.

The Master of Social Work degree will be offered by the Department of Social Work in the College of Social & Behavioral Sciences. Under the leadership of department chair William Anderson, the program was approved by Minnesota State Mankato in May and by the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities in July. In late July it was granted pre-accreditation status by the Council on Social Work Education, the accrediting body for all undergraduate and graduate social work programs.

"This month we submitted our first report to the Council," said Nancy Fitzsimons, director of the new MSW program. "We have received notification that our materials are complete, and we are preparing for our first CSWE Commissioner visit. We anticipate that the program will be fully accredited in 2010."

The new program will provide two ways to complete the MSW degree:

• A 60-credit-hour, Traditional 2-Year program will include 40 credit hours of coursework and 20 credit hours of field experience.
• A 32-credit-hour, Advanced Standing program will start in summer 2008 and will require 22 hours of coursework and 10 hours of field education. The Advanced Standing Program will be available only to students with a bachelor's degree in social work from a CSWE-accredited program.

The full-time MSW program will operate year-round. To accommodate working students, courses will be offered one evening during the week, late Friday afternoons and evenings, and Saturday mornings.

"We anticipate admitting 20 students into both the Traditional 2-Year and the Advanced Standing programs on an annual basis," Fitzsimons said. "We will begin reviewing applications for the Traditional 2-Year Program in February 2007, and will begin selecting students for our first cohort of Advanced Standing MSW students in early spring of 2008."

In addition to Fitzsimons, other MSW program faculty members are Annelies Hagemeister, who serves as MSW admissions coordinator, and Robin Wingo, who serves as field director and will develop practicum placements for MSW candidates. The department plans to hire two more faculty members by fall 2007, and two more faculty will be added in fall 2008, bringing the Department of Social Work faculty total to 12.

Those who want more information about the MSW program may contact Fitzsimons at nancy.fitzsimons@mnsu.edu or 507-389-1287, or Hagemeister at annelies.hagemeister@mnus.edu or 389-5078. Additional information is available on the program website at http://sbs.mnsu.edu/socialwork/graduate/

Minnesota State Mankato is one of 32 state universities and community and technical colleges that comprise the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system. The system serves about 240,000 students per year in credit-based courses and an additional 130,000 students in non-credit courses.

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