The Brown School is the graduate school for social work and public health of Washington University in St. Louis. Located on Washington University's Danforth Campus, adjacent to Forest Park, the school is recognized by the Council on Social Work Education and the Council on Education for Public Health. It is also a member of the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health.
The Brown School originated from the Department of Social Work at Washington University, which was founded in 1925. It was endowed in 1945 by Bettie Bofinger Brown, who named the school after her husband, George Warren Brown, a St. Louis philanthropist and co-founder of the Brown Shoe Company. The school was the first at Washington University to admit Black students, and the first in the United States to have a building dedicated to social work education.
History
Formation: 1925-1945
In 1925, an academic social work program was introduced at Washington University under the leadership of the social scholar Frank J. Bruno. The program was initially called the Washington University Training Course for Social Workers and belonged to the Department of Sociology in the College of Liberal Arts.
In the following year, the program transferred to the School of Commerce and Finance, which was then renamed the School of Business and Public Administration. In 1928, the Department of Social Work was established with money from the estate of George Warren Brown, a prominent St. Louis shoe manufacturer, at the bequest of his wife, Betty Hood Bofinger Brown.
The Department of Social Work expanded over the next ten years to employ nine full-time and 15 part-time faculty members teaching 65 courses. In response to its size, Washington University dedicated Brown Hall to the Department in 1937. This was unprecedented at the time, as no other North American university had constructed a building solely for social work education.
As Bruno planned his retirement, he drafted an ordinance to graduate the social work program from an academic department to a degree-granting school. Then University Chancellor, George Throop, resisted this proposal for several years. When Throop resigned in 1944, the Department appealed to the Board of Directors, establishing the George Warren Brown School of Social Work in the following year.
Bruno was instrumental in boosting the public welfare administrator Benjamin E. Youngdahl to the deanship of the new school, although his candidacy had been challenged due to his perceived lack of academic training. Knowing this, Bruno continued to interview candidates from an interim leadership position until he could appeal to the interim Chancellor, Harry Brookings Wallace. Bruno succeeded, and Youngdahl became the inaugural Dean of the Brown School in 1945.
Early Years: 1945-1962
A ten-year development plan was presented by Youngdahl to Chancellor Arthur H. Compton in January 1947. The Brown School began recruiting faculty for a program in "economic well-being and the deeper source of happiness that is self-realization". This included focuses on social work with groups and psychiatric social work (clinical social work), the latter of which garnered significant grant funding from the American Association of Schools of Social Work thanks to the efforts of early faculty member Margaret Williams.
From 1946-1947, Youngdahl, Stuart Queen, and the faculty vigorously petitioned Compton to admit Black students to the Brown School. They succeeded, and a cohort of eight Black women matriculated as graduate students in 1948. By 1952, the School had awarded 520 graduate degrees in its first seven years.
By the end of Youngdahl's deanship in 1962, the Brown School conferred 757 Master of Social Work degrees and 12 Doctor of Social Work degrees.
Curriculum Reform: 1962-1972
Wayne Vasey was chosen as the new dean in 1961. He began advocating for a series of curricular reforms introducing courses in social policy and economic development to address criticisms of social work in the United States at the time. Existing faculty resisted these changes, and implementation was further slowed by a controversial, year-long leave of absence taken by Vasey in 1964 to lead the St. Louis Human Development Corporation, a newly-formed, local anti-poverty organization.
In November 1966, the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) visited to conduct an accreditation review. While the School passed, the CSWE criticized what it perceived as unresponsiveness to larger changes in social work education as well as Vasey's involvement in national politics. Despite vigorous defense from the faculty, Vasey resigned to teach at the University of Michigan following a series of critical letters from Chancellor Thomas H. Eliot.
Ralph Garber was chosen as dean in 1968. The School convened a series of working groups that resulted in an increased number of elective courses, the conversion of the DSW degree into a PhD program, and a commitment to increase Black student enrollment. While Garber's tenure resulted in institutional change, dissent among faculty continued. The Brown School also began operating in a financial deficit, with a majority of its monies coming from federal grant funding.
Garber resigned in January 1973. Chancellor William Danforth, concerned about the state of the Brown School amid what faculty member Ralph Pumphrey described as "the verge of disintegration" with "standing committees ground to a halt", appointed Ronald Feldman as acting dean with the task of finding new leadership to stabilize its reputation.
Growth in Profile: 1974-1993
Shanti Khinduka, the Assistant Dean of Social Work at Saint Louis University accepted the deanship in 1974. During his tenure, Khinduka convened faculty and students to instate a competency-based curriculum, building off of Nancy Carroll's critique of the School's decades of individualized, elective-heavy design. After an accreditation review that prompted an extensive community outreach effort in 1977, the CSWE approved the Brown School.
Despite federal disinvestment from social programs under the Reagan Administration, the 1980s saw the Brown School financially stabilize, and by 1995, it had increased more than sevenfold from $5 million to $36 million. Khinduka also made efforts to attract new interest from international students and promote faculty producing research. This resulted in the Brown School becoming recognized in 1991 as the most published faculty body in the country between 1977-1987, as well as the origin of "evidence-based practice" as a central theme in national social work discourse.
School Expansion: 1993-2015
The 1990s saw the opening of several research centers at the Brown School. This included the Center for Mental Health Services Research, the Center for Social Development, and the Kathryn M. Buder Center for American Indian Studies, the first academic research center dedicated to American Indian health in the United States.
In 1998, the Brown School and Washington University dedicated Alvin Goldfarb Hall, a four-story building that doubled the capacity of the school. Following multiple years of financial and faculty growth, Khinduka retired in 2004 after 30 years as dean.
The University acquired Edward F. Lawlor, the dean of the University of Chicago's Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice in 2004. During his deanship, Lawlor oversaw the creation of Hillman Hall, which again doubled the Brown School's space on the Washington University campus. The School also established partnerships with Fudan University in Shanghai.
Throughout this time, Lawlor and the Brown School played a critical role in the creation of Washington University's Institute for Public Health. Accordingly, the School's Master of Public Health program enrolled its first class in 2009. Lawlor concluded his tenure in 2016 and was succeeded by Mary McKernan McKay from New York University.
Following Dean McKay's transition to the Washington University Office of the Provost as Vice Provost of Interdisciplinary Initiatives, the Brown School underwent a transitional period with the installation of two interim Co-Deans, Rodrigo Reis and Tonya Edmond, who served in those roles from late 2021 to summer 2023. Following a national search, Dorian Traube succeeded as the Neidorff Family and Centene Corporation Dean of the Brown School in August 2023, arriving from the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work.
Educational Programs The School offers professional programs in Master of Social Work (MSW), Master of Public Health (MPH), and Master of Social Policy (MSP) degrees. It also provides PhD programs in Social Work and Public Health Sciences. Optionally, graduate students can enroll in one a series of dual degree programs with other graduate schools at Washington University.
In October 2023, Washington University in St. Louis announced its intent to form an independent School of Public Health as part of a 10-year strategic plan entitled "Here and Next". This plan will eventually relocate the university's public health academic programs to the School of Public Health.
Research Centers The Brown School includes faculty conducting research in the disciplines of social work, public health, and social policy. Similarly, its research centers represent scientific study across a number of areas.
+ Brown School Research Centers Center name MissionBlack Families, Racism, and Resilience LabExamines the impact of culturally positive resources on the well-being of Black children, youth, and families. Research focuses on the evolution of attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors over time. Aims to assist educators, practitioners, and scholars in comprehending how policies, laws, and everyday interactions shape the attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors of Black Americans. Objective is to provide culturally responsive and empowering solutions that strengthen Black American communities. Centene Center for Health Transformation The Centene Center for Health Transformation is a unique academic-industry collaboration between the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, the Center for Advanced Hindsight at Duke University, and Centene Corporation. The center is a Community-Corporate-Academic Health Care Partnership that advances life-centric health research to improve lives so communities can thrive. Center for Diabetes Translation Research Aims to eliminate disparities in Type 2 diabetes by translating evidence-based interventions to high-risk populations. The NIH-funded research center is a collaboration between the Brown School and the Medical School and was formed to address health literacy and health communication; dissemination and implementation; health economics and health policy; and community-based participatory research and cultural competency.Center for Health Economics & PolicyThe Center for Health Economics & Policy promotes the advancement of evidence-based research with a focus on enhancing health outcomes. It actively shares this research with policymakers and various stakeholders.Center for Innovation in Child Maltreatment Policy, Research and Training The Center for Innovation in Child Maltreatment Policy, Research, and Training advances scientific knowledge to prevent child maltreatment and promote positive outcomes through effective interventions. It emphasizes the interconnection of research, practice, and training, ensuring that policy and practice align with the latest scientific findings.