THE MSW CURRICULUM
Graduate Application and Handbook
Overview of Curriculum Coherence and Integration
The MSW curriculum is designed to integrate all curricular areas mandated by the Council on Social Work Education. This design incorporates an integrated foundation curriculum, focusing on micro-, mezzo- and macro-practice, human behavior in the social environment, a historic and contemporary understanding of social policy and the profession of social work with a foundation field experience.
The foundation curriculum also introduces MSW students to research through a focus on evidence-based social work practice and evidence supporting theories incorporated in biology, psychology, sociology and social policy, and permits students to take electives that help them strengthen their ability to serve clients dealing with specific social problems (e.g, victimization, substance abuse), address macro social problems (e.g, poverty, social marginalization) and assist them in selecting their advanced year concentration. All foundation experiences incorporate a combined focus on services to families and an understanding of rural, Appalachian culture.
The advanced curriculum of the MSW program builds upon foundation content, integrating a focus on clinical or administrative practice with an advanced field placement commensurate with the clinical or administrative concentration. In addition to their concentration courses, all advanced students jointly take a three-course research sequence, a course bridging clinical and administrative practice in agency settings, and a final, integrative seminar. These courses not only create further curriculum integration, but enable students in each concentration to learn about the other, and how it clinical and administrative practice integrate. The three-quarter research sequence requires that all students conduct a significant research project to assess an aspect of clinical or administrative field practice, based upon practice, human behavior, policy and administrative theory and prior research as appropriate, using qualitative and/or quantitative statistical software to analyze their data. SW 600: The Rural Social Agency integrates knowledge about clinical and administrative field practice with a rural focus. The integrative seminar, SW 694, requires that students, in groups made up of a combination of clinically- and administratively-focused students, develop a significant project incorporating research-based biological, behavioral and social aspects of a significant practice issue, as well as how it is affected by social policy. Students present their results orally, graphically and textually, incorporating technology as appropriate.
Students are prepared to conduct this integrative assignment not only by the curriculum of the program, but by assignments in other MSWs course that require oral, textual and graphical presentations (such as case studies, community analyses, grant proposals and research) based on their field assignments, and incorporating and reflecting technology as appropriate. Graduate student presentations are attended by field instructors and community members as well as faculty from a variety of disciplines represented on campus. This is one of the ways that students demonstrate, to the wider campus and community as well as to their instructors, how effectively they have integrated the various aspects of their coursework with each other and with the field curriculum.
Double-Listed Electives
The Department of Social Work offers several double-listed electives. These can be recognized because they carry both an undergraduate (300 or 400 level) and a graduate (500 level) course number. Graduate students must register for the 500 level course to earn graduate credit for it. Graduate students who have taken a double-listed course at the undergraduate level cannot retake it for graduate credit.
Independent Study
Independent Study courses are courses individually designed by a student and faculty member to meet educational needs not met by core curriculum or elective courses in a department. Students must meet with faculty members to negotiate an Independent Study during the quarter prior to the quarter when it will be taken. No faculty member is ever obligated to offer an Independent Study.
Independent Study courses must incorporate assessments of knowledge in the form of examinations or comprehensive papers. Typically, an Independent Study includes regular meetings with the faculty member, readings and reflections on readings during those meetings and written assignments, and may include projects, community service and other learning activities. Students may be required to develop a course syllabus or bibliography of readings as a first step of the Independent Study process.
Students may fulfill any or all of their elective credits by taking Independent Studies. Like all elective credits, Independent Studies may be taken in any department with any faculty member. Each department has its own Independent Study requirements, that social work students must follow. Tuition for Independent Study courses is the same per credit cost as a traditional course, and must adhere to the same quarterly deadlines for grading.
Please note that underenrollment in any departmental elective may cause it to revert to an Independent Study format. This is the only case in which an existing course can be taught as an Independent Study.