RETIREMENTS
Fond Farewells R U T H FR E E DM AN earned her MSW and PhD from the Florence Heller School for Advanced Studies in Social Welfare at Brandeis University. She joined the Boston University School of Social Work (BUSSW) in 1985. As a professor, Freedman focused her efforts on intellectual and developmental disabilities, health and mental health, community support, family caregiving and ethics—issues about which she is profoundly passionate. Freedman has been active and engaged around these issues within the Boston area, serving on the Advisory Board for the Stars of David Club (a program for Jewish young adults with special needs) in Newton, MA for over 20 years, and with the ARC of Massachusetts since 1988. In 2009, Freedman was appointed to the Massachusetts Governor’s Commission on Intellectual Disabilities. In addition to numerous publications, presentations, book chapters, and book reviews around issues of disability, Freedman was the co-author of three books, including Progress Tests for the Developmentally Disabled and Coming Back: The Community Experiences of Deinstitutionalized Mentally Retarded People. Freedman was an Editorial Board Member for the Journal of Gerontological Social Work from 1998-2010. She has been the Consulting Editor for Mental Retardation for 20 years. Since 2003, Freedman served as the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at BUSSW. She served on the Council on Social Work Education’s (CSWE) Commission on Education Policy, as well as CSWE’s Accreditation Environmental Trends and E-Learning Subcommittees from 2011-2013. Freedman continued to serve the BUSSW community, participating—over the years—on the Macro Practice Committee, the Program Assessment Committee, the Academic Support Team, and the Executive Committee. She received the Outstanding Contributions to the School of Social Work Award in 2011 from the School’s Alumni Association.
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LEE STA PLES joined the Boston University School of Social Work (BUSSW) in 1977. He earned an MSW from the University of California and earned his PhD in sociology and social work from Boston University. Staples educated and inspired generations of BUSSW students as social activists and community builders. In addition to serving as a clinical professor, Staples has directed the BRIDGE (Building Refugee & Immigrant Degrees for Graduate Education) program at BUSSW—a program designed to open up access to graduate social work education for refugees and immigrants—since 2000. For over 15 years, Staples worked across southeastern Europe to help rebuild countries plagued by war, ethnic strife, and struggling economies. Staples also visited Kampala, Uganda, where he developed connections with leaders at the Makere University Department of Social Work and Social Administration, the first and largest such department in the country. Throughout his career at Boston University, Staples published articles on immigration, community engagement, and social justice. He co-wrote Youth-Led Community Organization: Theory and Action with Professor Melvin Delgado, published by Oxford University Press in 2008. He is also the author of Roots to Power: A Manual for Grassroots Organizing. Staples’s work and teaching has repeatedly been honored. In 1994, he received the BUSSW Alumni Association Outstanding Contributions to the School of Social Work Award. In 2002, he received the Teaching Excellence Award. The National Association of Social Workers gave Staples the Beverly Ross Fliegel Award for Social Policy and Change in 2010, and in 2011 he was honored by the Association for Community Organization and Social Administration.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY ADAM CRUFT