by Jeff Bendix

Herman Stein, the John Reynolds Harkness Professor Emeritus of Social Administration at the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, is well known at CWRU as a former dean of the Mandel School, two-time provost of the University and holder of the title University professor.

But before coming to CWRU in the mid-1960s, Stein enjoyed an equally distinguished reputation as a social work practitioner, teacher and researcher, pioneering several fields of social work study and practice.

Stein's impact on the field of social work is apparent in a newly published book, Challenges and Change in Social Work Education: Toward a World View (Council on Social Work Education: 2003), consisting of 17 of his essays and lectures.

The book is divided into five parts covering "Social Work: The Profession," "Social Work Education," "Social Work Practice," "Organizations" and "International Social Work: Toward a World View." Together they form a comprehensive history of the issues the social work profession has wrestled with during the second half of the 20th century.
The idea for the book originated with Darlyne Bailey, former dean of the Mandel School, and was supported by the current dean, Grover C. Gilmore.

"This was an important opportunity to review the timeless themes that are in Professor Stein's essays," Gilmore said.

The project gained steam when Katherine Kendall, former executive director of the Council on Social Work Education and considered the leading authority on the history of social work education, learned of it and agreed to write the preface.

"While I was appreciative of the recognition, I was skeptical about the merits of producing a book concerned with issues that were of concern to the profession decades ago," said Stein.

He was reassured, however, by colleagues who encouraged the undertaking. Pearl Whitman, an emeritus associate professor of the Mandel School told him, "There will be more interest than you think, because the issues have not gone away."

In her preface, Kendall explains that the book serves as a guide to the changes that have taken place in the social work profession in the period it covers, as well as an explanation of why many of the changes came about.

"Historical material of this nature is of immense value in producing a better understanding and appreciation of how challenges met in the past shape the present and constitute building blocks for future development of the profession," she wrote.

Although the selections in the book cover a broad range of topics, a theme running through many of them is the longstanding debate over the primacy of social change concerns, on the one hand, and providing help to individuals, families and communities, on the other. Stein holds that the field can encompass both, but said "my emphasis has always been on making sure that the practitioner base is not ignored, and that progress in the field, including in matters of social research, social policy and social change, comes best through utilizing the practice experience of the social worker."

Much of the work of selecting which of Stein's writings and speeches to include from the scores he authored fell to Nina Aronoff, a doctoral student at the Mandel School and a special assistant to the dean. Now a clinical practitioner and faculty member at Wheelock College in Massachusetts, Aronoff said her goal in making the selection was to represent the range of Stein's work.

"It was quite a challenge because his work covers such a broad expanse of topics, particularly the international field, an area that Dr. Stein greatly stressed," she said.
Being chosen to work on the book was "a great gift," Aronoff added. "It allowed me to build a relationship with Herman Stein and to appreciate what a visionary he was for the profession. He was emphasizing the importance of socio-cultural factors in social work practice at a time when the profession was focused on the psychoanalytic perspective. He advocated that in direct practice, in organizations and in the direction he felt social work education needed to take.

"The original motivation for this book was right on," she continued. "This work really needs to be recognized."

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