Bernice Harper MSW ‘48

Bernice Catherine Harper greatly influenced health care policy and the development of hospice services in the United States and overseas. She was instrumental in creating long-term health care programs for continuity-of-care, including community, institutional and psychosocial components. As chief social worker at City of Hope Medical Center in California, Harper’s work with leukemia patients and their families inspired her to improve services available to those with chronic and long-term illness. She developed one of the nation’s first oncology social work programs, and in 1970 was elected president of the American Society of Hospital Social Work Directors.

Her book, “Death: The Coping Mechanism of the Health Professional,” is widely considered the definitive work on the needs of health care workers in coping with their job-related stress, and advanced-thinking when published in 1977. Harper identified specific stages of coping relevant to those in the health care field as they go through the end-of-life process with patients and clients. It earned her a Better Life Award from the American Health Care Association.

For more than 30 years, Harper was a Medicare and Medicaid advisor for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and a major accomplishment was the addition of hospice benefits into Medicare coverage. In the 1990s Harper launched a hospice foundation in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly for AIDS patients. This became Global Partners in Care with nearly 100 hospices in 15 countries throughout Africa today.

Harper’s honors include induction into the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, the Knee/Wittman Outstanding Achievement Award from the National Association of Social Workers, and the Distinguished Service Award from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Nancy A. Humphreys founded the Institute for the Advancement of Political Social Work Practice (IAPSWP) at the University of Connecticut School of Social Work. Her vision included two goals: increase the number of social workers who hold elected office, and explore ways for direct service workers to help clients increase their political power. Humphreys believed that social workers should seek elected political office and that political social work practice should be a legitimate specialization in the profession, accomplished through education and training programs, research and service. IAPSWP has trained hundreds of social workers to become involved in campaign politics.

As dean of the University of Connecticut School of Social Work, Humphreys directed the policy practice concentration, and taught courses on political social work practice, macro foundation practice, social environment and women’s issues. She also served as dean of the Michigan State University School of Social Work, and associate dean at Rutgers University School of Social Work.

Humphreys was appointed by President Jimmy Carter to his National Advisory Committee on Women’s Issues, where she co-authored the human service chapter of the committee’s final report, Voices for Women. In New Jersey, she was appointed by the chief justice of the State Supreme Court of as a public member of the court’s committee on professional legal ethics. In Michigan, she was appointed by the governor to a Blue Ribbon Committee on welfare reform and elected chair of the Michigan Department of Social Services Advisory Council.

She was only the second woman elected president of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) from 1979 to 1981, and received the NASW Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003.