News

Kristine E. Nelson has been named dean of Portland State University’s Graduate School of Social Work; she had served as interim dean of the School during the national search to replace former dean James H. Ward.

“After a national search that produced a very strong pool of candidates, we were pleased to find that our first choice, Dr. Kristi Nelson, was right here among us,” said PSU Provost Roy Koch. ”I am delighted that she has agreed to assume this important leadership position. She brings a breadth of experiences as an active scholar, practitioner, instructor and administrator to the position. In addition, she has the strong support of the faculty and has vital connections in the Portland metro area community.”

Nelson has served on the faculty of Portland State’s Graduate School of Social Work since 1993 and in 2001 she was named associate dean of the School. Prior to joining PSU, she served on the Social Work faculty at the University of Iowa, where in 1989 she was the acting director of the University’s National Resource Center on Family Based Services. In the early 1980s, Nelson was a visiting professor at Polytechnic of North London, and prior to that worked at the University of Texas, Austin and Southwest Texas State University. Nelson holds a B.A. in history from Stanford University, a MSW from Sacramento State University and a DSW from the University of California at Berkeley.

Portland State’s Graduate School of Social Work ranks in the top quarter of accredited graduate schools in the United States and offers the only accredited graduate social work education program in Oregon. Faculty rank in the top 25 percent for publications in major social work journals and the School generates over $7 million in external funding for research and training each year. In 1992, the School added the Ph.D. program in social work and social research, which educates students for teaching, scholarly research and leadership roles in the social work profession; and in 1997 the School became the first in the country to offer a statewide Master of Social Work delivered entirely in a distance education format.

The Graduate School of Social Work is home to Reclaiming Futures, Building Community Solutions to Substance Abuse and Delinquency, a $21 million nationwide initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; and the Child Welfare Partnership, a unique national model that combines graduate education, research and training to improve services to Oregon’s children. The work of the national Research and Training Center on Family Support and Children’s Mental Health has also grown in stature and has attained national and international recognition.

For additional information, please contact Jeanie-Marie Price at 503-725-3773.

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Source:
Donna Bergh (503-725-5256)
Office of Academic Affairs

For Immediate Release (#05-097)