To the Editor:
Re “What Is Occurring on the Columbia Faculty 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 Faculty of Social Work, but when engagement round problems with social justice and racism had been getting into the curriculum solely in recent times, it could be a really uncommon social work college.
The equally famend Smith School Faculty for Social Work, from which I obtained 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 every part that’s taught (and hopefully discovered) 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 staff at our greatest are compassionate, courageous and radical, alert to the oppressive circumstances that hurt our shoppers and our communities and lively in working to alter these circumstances.
The Nationwide Affiliation of Social Employees’ Code of Ethics identifies social justice as a core worth of our career and one among our basic moral rules: “Social staff problem social injustice. Social staff 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 data about oppression and cultural and ethnic variety.”
Whereas Ms. Paul could also be appropriate that many Columbia M.S.W. graduates ultimately enter non-public follow, that’s in all probability not the simplest method to repay college loans. That aim could also be higher served by working within the public or nonprofit sectors, the place the using company could assist repay the loans or the loans could ultimately be forgiven.
Victoria Rhodin
Montpelier, Vt.
To the Editor:
I graduated from Columbia’s Faculty of Social Work in 2010. Columbia had not but devolved into the bastion of inconsiderate ideology that it’s at present, but it surely was already on its means after I left there.
Since then, many within the area of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, together with some coaching institutes, have gone in the identical path, fracturing the concentrate on our frequent humanity into 1,000,000 tiny, reactionary items.
Constance Morrill
New York
To the Editor:
I graduated from the Columbia Faculty of Social Work in 1966 and am nonetheless working at present.
I used to be shocked and enormously saddened after studying Pamela Paul’s description of what had previously been my particular place. I’ve all the time credited the Columbia Faculty of Social Work with its emphasis on tolerance, empathy and inclusiveness as accountable for my lengthy, rewarding profession through 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 ambiance within the college will neither assist college students create significant, satisfying work nor enhance the difficult world that we stay in at present.
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 staff.
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 follow; many contribute to nonprofits, mutual support teams and authorities companies, all benefiting from a basis in social justice and group consciousness.
Ms. Paul oversimplifies the connection between college curriculum and direct scientific follow, overlooking state laws and the intensive scientific coaching and supervision required for full licensure for social staff on that path.
Christopher Ferraris
New York
The author is an adjunct lecturer on the Columbia Faculty of Social Work. His views are his personal.
Rooming Homes as a Resolution to Homelessness
To the Editor:
Re “The Previous New Strategy to Present Low cost 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 inform you that the largest obstacle to getting housing for everybody is zoning.
Given at present’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 models (MTHU) presents the entire advantages for assembly at present’s housing challenges dealing with 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, protected and reasonably priced housing for people incomes as little as $18,000 yearly is an effective factor, and cities can be smart to check out 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 may 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 protected, heat and sheltered.
I do know. I moved to Switzerland in 2020 and used Airbnbs and different forms of room leases for 2 years earlier than discovering my very own condo. These lodging weren’t solely completely appropriate and reasonably priced 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 among my hosts was a pastry guru, and coming into the kitchen to a recent fruit pie with a “Assist your self, Sue” notice on the counter was a perk I’ll always remember. A boardinghouse needn’t be endlessly; additional affordable-housing fashions are wanted for long-term options. However as a transition, it’s a improbable 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 had been inflicting on German Jews.
My father had handed the German legislation bar and was taking postgraduate programs to enter the German diplomatic corps. When he fled to the U.S. his German legislation diploma was ineffective. So he began sweeping flooring in a manufacturing unit and labored his means as much as sorting bolts of material within the manufacturing unit.
Finally he was in a position to return to varsity at evening within the U.S., after marrying and having me as a toddler at residence. He obtained his bachelor’s diploma in economics.
After I requested him why he didn’t pursue a legislation 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 legislation diploma.”
I stated, “Dad, you’d by no means should flee the U.S.!”
And he replied, “That’s what I believed in Germany.”
Jeff Lynn
Burlington, N.C.
