To the Editor:
Re “What Is Happening at the Columbia School of Social Work?,” by Pamela Paul (column, Dec. 18):
I’m outraged by Ms. Paul’s column. I don’t know what is going on on the Columbia College of Social Work, but when engagement round problems with social justice and racism have been getting into the curriculum solely lately, it could be a really uncommon social work faculty.
The equally famend Smith Faculty College for Social Work, from which I acquired an M.S.W. 32 years in the past, recognized itself as an “anti-racist establishment” shortly after my cohort graduated, and a essential understanding of race and racism is central to the whole lot that’s taught (and hopefully realized) there. It’s exhausting to think about that Columbia is lagging far behind.
My expertise has been that — opposite to the stereotypes that abound in Ms. Paul’s essay — social employees at our greatest are compassionate, courageous and radical, alert to the oppressive situations that hurt our shoppers and our communities and lively in working to vary these situations.
The National Association of Social Workers’ Code of Ethics identifies social justice as a core worth of our career and certainly one of our elementary moral ideas: “Social employees problem social injustice. Social employees pursue social change, significantly with and on behalf of susceptible and oppressed people and teams of individuals. These actions search to advertise sensitivity to and information about oppression and cultural and ethnic variety.”
Whereas Ms. Paul could also be right that many Columbia M.S.W. graduates finally enter personal observe, that’s in all probability not the best solution to repay faculty loans. That objective could also be higher served by working within the public or nonprofit sectors, the place the using company might assist repay the loans or the loans might finally be forgiven.
Victoria Rhodin
Montpelier, Vt.
To the Editor:
I graduated from Columbia’s College of Social Work in 2010. Columbia had not but devolved into the bastion of inconsiderate ideology that it’s at the moment, however it was already on its means after I left there.
Since then, many within the discipline of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, together with some coaching institutes, have gone in the identical path, fracturing the concentrate on our widespread humanity into 1,000,000 tiny, reactionary items.
Constance Morrill
New York
To the Editor:
I graduated from the Columbia College of Social Work in 1966 and am nonetheless working at the moment.
I used to be shocked and enormously saddened after studying Pamela Paul’s description of what had previously been my particular place. I’ve at all times credited the Columbia College of Social Work with its emphasis on tolerance, empathy and inclusiveness as liable for my lengthy, rewarding profession by which I’ve been in a position to perceive and improve the lives of individuals of all ages, races and backgrounds.
I’m painfully conscious that the present divisive environment within the faculty will neither assist college students create significant, satisfying work nor enhance the difficult world that we reside in at the moment.
Barbara Bessin Zucker
New York
To the Editor:
Pamela Paul expresses issues about an ideological shift in social work schooling, suggesting that an elevated concentrate on social justice would possibly negatively have an effect on psychological well being care supplied by social employees.
As a social employee and an educator, I discover it essential to deal with these assertions. Not all social work graduates pursue psychological well being observe; many contribute to nonprofits, mutual assist teams and authorities businesses, all benefiting from a basis in social justice and neighborhood consciousness.
Ms. Paul oversimplifies the connection between faculty curriculum and direct scientific observe, overlooking state laws and the intensive scientific coaching and supervision required for full licensure for social employees on that path.
Christopher Ferraris
New York
The author is an adjunct lecturer on the Columbia College of Social Work. His views are his personal.
Rooming Homes as a Answer to Homelessness
To the Editor:
Re “The Old New Way to Provide Cheap Housing,” by Nicholas Kristof (column, Dec. 10):
I used to be happy to learn Mr. Kristof’s column in regards to the optimistic impact that single-room occupancy (S.R.O.) housing can have on communities combating elevated homelessness. I agree that “there’s nobody reply to America’s housing disaster” and that native governments have a job to play. Anybody who works on this area will let you know that the largest obstacle to getting housing for everybody is zoning.
Given at the moment’s housing and affordability disaster and the numerous advances in privateness and safety know-how, a brand new, upgraded model of S.R.O.s referred to as multi-tenant housing items (MTHU) provides all the advantages for assembly at the moment’s housing challenges going through low-income residents with none of the safety or privateness issues of the previous.
MTHUs have been adopted in Toronto. There are additionally types of rooming homes in San Jose, Calif.; Houston; and the state of Massachusetts.
With correct laws, MTHUs are one piece to fixing the affordable-housing puzzle. Offering clear, secure and inexpensive housing for people incomes as little as $18,000 yearly is an efficient factor, and cities can be smart to try this mannequin.
Kurt Jetta
Delray Seaside, Fla.
The author is president of the Florida Housing Improvements Council.
To the Editor:
Nicholas Kristof hits on one of many completely viable options to homelessness. The boardinghouse or Airbnb mannequin might go a good distance towards placing roofs over individuals’s heads. One wants solely a room and a shared kitchen and toilet to really feel secure, heat and sheltered.
I do know. I moved to Switzerland in 2020 and used Airbnbs and different sorts of room leases for 2 years earlier than discovering my very own condo. These lodging weren’t solely completely appropriate and inexpensive but in addition enjoyable. I made associates of hosts and different residents and, actually, sharing a range and a rest room isn’t any hardship.
One in all my hosts was a pastry guru, and coming into the kitchen to a contemporary fruit pie with a “Assist your self, Sue” word on the counter was a perk I’ll always remember. A boardinghouse needn’t be ceaselessly; additional affordable-housing fashions are wanted for long-term options. However as a transition, it’s a incredible possibility.
Susan Wunder
Therwil, Switzerland
My Household’s Story
To the Editor:
I’m a first-generation American. My mom fled Nazi Germany in 1936 along with her mom, father and brother. My father fled in 1939, alone and really late within the terrors the Nazis have been inflicting on German Jews.
My father had handed the German regulation bar and was taking postgraduate programs to enter the German diplomatic corps. When he fled to the U.S. his German regulation diploma was ineffective. So he began sweeping flooring in a manufacturing unit and labored his means as much as sorting bolts of fabric within the manufacturing unit.
Finally he was in a position to return to school at evening within the U.S., after marrying and having me as a toddler at dwelling. He obtained his bachelor’s diploma in economics.
Once I requested him why he didn’t pursue a regulation diploma right here as he had in Germany, he stated, “If I ever needed to flee this nation I didn’t need to have one other ineffective regulation diploma.”
I stated, “Dad, you’d by no means must flee the U.S.!”
And he replied, “That’s what I assumed in Germany.”
Jeff Lynn
Burlington, N.C.
