Gary Smith, Central Oregon Site Coordinator and PSU MSW alum '74, has retired after 13 years. The School of Social Work wants to acknowledge and applaud Gary’s dedicated and impactful contributions to the Field Education Program, community partners, and, most importantly, to the many students he has had the honor to work with since 2009. Thank you Gary!
As is often the case, we know and work with people for many years without truly knowing their journey to social work. Please take a few moments to read Gary’s personal reflection about his path from first generation college student, to social worker, to Assistant Professor of Practice for the PSU School of Social Work.
Attending the commencement ceremony in Portland and then local celebration in Bend, provide a poignant exclamation mark for my retirement on June 15, 2022– the day I’m sitting down to reflect on my career and my impact through PSU. My current graduating cohort is the fifth I've been a part of since starting with the School of Social Work thirteen years ago.
As I try to write this, I really don't know how to begin it and, perhaps more importantly, how to end it. I have a flood of memories about my life growing up in Portland and about the work I've done both in Portland and in every region of the state. I was born to a father who didn't graduate from high school and spent time at Saint Mary's Home for Boys and a mother who did finish high school. My dad's parents were immigrants from Lithuania and my mom's parents’ lineage can be traced back to colonial days. Quite a contrast.
I was a first generation college student. My brother has autism which fueled a lot of my passion for de-institutionalization during my career because professionals in those days automatically recommended institutionalizing people like my brother. I vividly remember my parents' refusal to let that happen and how they sat in our living room with future Governor Barbara Roberts (who herself has a son with autism) drafting legislation for Oregon's first mandatory public education law that would bar excluding persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities from public schools. I always thought of and admired my parents as ferocious social advocates though I'm sure they never saw themselves as such.
Ironically, I'm haunted these days by the unintended consequences of that passion. The money saved from operating the institutions I played a role in closing, which was promised by the state and Federal government, was never delivered to provide necessary community based housing and support services. Today, Oregon is one of most poorly funded states in America for behavioral health services. I can't help but believe some of what we are seeing these days on the streets of Portland, Bend, and many other cities in Oregon can be traced to that money that never materialized.
I earned both of my degrees from PSU– my BSW in Psychology in 1970 and my MSW in 1974. Gordon Hearn was the Dean then and the school was located in two quaint old homes simply named “Social Work I” and “Social Work II”. I was on a waiting list for a year before I was admitted, mostly due to my lack of social services experience. This resulted from my focus in those days on going into law enforcement, one of my minors in college. Had it not been a "failed" psychological test (imagine that!) I would have become a Multnomah County Deputy Sheriff. At that time, that department was the first in the U.S. that required a college degree and was known to be working toward community policing and law enforcement reform even that far back. It often doesn't seem that much progress has been made in that regard over the past almost fifty years. The better news is that I was admitted to the SSW the same day I got a rejection letter from the Sheriff. Was that a fateful day, or what? Certainly a fortuitous day as things turned out.
I began my social work career at a small community mental health program in St. Helens, OR. My two years there and the following two years working for child welfare in Clackamas County taught me that direct client services weren't what I was cut out for. I wanted to work in policy, advocacy, and middle and upper level management where I felt I could make a bigger difference than helping one client or one family at a time. Plus, I was frustrated by the management practices that I was seeing and felt I could do a better job; I'll let others be the judge of whether I was right about that. What I can say with certainty that my management philosophy was and still is that every management decision must be made first, and foremost, with the welfare of those affected by those decisions as the most important factor. Needless to say, that philosophy frequently brought me into conflict with some of the elected leaders I worked for and with some of my colleagues in the behavioral health sphere. I'll spare you the details of my management career beyond saying that I have been the community mental health program (CMHP) director and social services director for Multnomah County and the CMHP director for Tillamook and Deschutes counties. Two of the programs I directed along the way were not for profits and the others were operated by counties. The pros and cons of privatization have always fascinated me and I've written on the subject.
By now you must be saying "figure out how to end this". At least I am. So, let's shift to the last chapter of my career which is working for the SSW. I'd always had in the back of my mind that it would be cool to work for the school and to teach. I'd been a field instructor a few times and a member of Dean Ward's curriculum advisory committee as both a community member and former student. Some of the things I learned about higher education frightened me back then, to be honest, given that I always wanted to focus on student welfare not faculty politics. Lo and behold, thanks to Mindy Holliday who was at the time the creator and director of the Distance Option Program, in 2009 I was offered the position of Site Coordinator for the Central Oregon site. I think it's highly unlikely that I'd be hired today for that position, so I'm doubly grateful that I have had the opportunity to work and live in Central Oregon for a program that I truly love.
One of the things that I often think about and share with my students is that it's easy once one graduates with an MSW to forget about our social work roots because so often job titles do not have the words "social worker" in them. Coming to work for the SSW brought me back to my roots as a social worker. Working with many students over the past thirteen years has deepened my appreciation for our code of ethics and the values that our profession embraces. The school's emphasis on social justice, inclusion, and anti-racism work has been so necessary and exciting. I've been in awe of the sacrifices that my students and their families have had to make in order to attend and graduate from our program. It is gratifying to see so many of our graduates working across Central Oregon, the rest of Oregon, out of state, and even out of this country. They are in almost every field of practice you can imagine, and some of them have started their own non-profit agencies while others have gone into management. The majority have stayed in the field doing direct client practice of one sort or another. I deeply value the Distance Option Program which provides in person social work education across more rural parts of Oregon. "Grow your own" is a phrase often said by folks in Central and Eastern Oregon because it's often best to produce social workers from the communities they live in rather than trying to recruit social workers from out of the area. This philosophy has proven to be even more valid given the workforce crisis facing social service agencies across the state.
In closing, I want to appreciate and thank all of my colleagues at the SSW and especially recognize the field team for its camaraderie and for how much it accomplishes with a pretty lean crew. I have worked most closely with this team during my time at the school and value each and every one on the team and the leadership and support that Julie Kates provides. I also want to acknowledge and thank campus based faculty who have traveled to Bend to teach over the years. I know it's not the easiest thing to do but please know how much our students and community and I appreciate you! I should also thank our growing team of locally based teaching adjuncts as well as so many of our graduates who have come forward to give back to the program and our profession via serving as field instructors. Thank you one and all! What an honor to be part of the PSU School of Social Work.
Gary
--
Gary W. Smith, MSW
Assistant Professor of Practice
Portland State University
School of Social Work
MSW Central Oregon Site Coordinator, retired as of 6/15/2022