As part of Shaw University’s Social Work Program’s application process for the Council on Social Work Education accreditation, the Social Work Program faculty refined or developed a program mission statement, goals and objectives as stated below along with the University’s mission statement.

Shaw University, founded in 1865, is the oldest historically black college of the south. Shaw is a private, coeducational liberal arts university affiliated with the Baptist Church. The University awards degrees at the undergraduate and graduate level.

Shaw University is committed to providing educational opportunities for a diverse population who otherwise might not have the opportunity for a baccalaureate education.

The primary mission of the University is teaching with the commitment to maintain excellence in research and academic programs that foster intellectual enhancement and technological skills. Additionally, the University stresses character development, which includes religious, cultural, social, and ethical values. Ultimately, Shaw University endeavors to graduate students with demonstrated competencies in their chosen fields of study.

The University‘s desire to seek expanded educational programs and opportunities is set forth in the following goal statement "Expansion of academic programs, including the graduate level, to address technological, scientific, and societal demands." The Social Work Program is fully aligned with the University’s overall mission and the above goal statement, in that it also seeks to provide a new educational opportunity for a diverse student population. Shaw University is developing its Social Work Program with a focus on preparation for service and affecting societal changes toward improving the lives of those experiencing a range of life circumstances and conditions that impede optimal social functioning.

The University places a great emphasis on teaching and practicing ethical values and behavior as stated in its Institutional Goal Statement 12, "Incorporation of a comprehensive focus on ethics and values." Social work’s core values and its Code of Ethics are consistent with Shaw’s strong emphasis on cultural, social and ethical values. As part of the University’s core curriculum, regular day students are required to take nine hours of ethics, and students are expected to adhere to strong ethical values and principles and conduct themselves according to these principles. The Social Work Program faculty also views its’ students from a holistic as well as a strengths perspective with the expectation that students come to Shaw University with varying strengths, regardless of their previous circumstances. The Shaw University Social Work Program believes students have the potential to build on their strengths and to grow, change, and acquire knowledge and skills to improve their own lives and serve others.

Social Work Program Mission

The mission of the Shaw University’s baccalaureate Social Work Program is to prepare and graduate competent and principled social work majors at the generalist practice, entry level of the profession for service, advocacy, leadership, and to prepare students for successful graduate education.

Grounded in a general liberal arts background, the Shaw University Social Work Program intends to equip students with a solid and integrated education with a foundation in social work theories, knowledge, ethics, values, and skills and to provide students with a supervised, direct field practice experience. The Shaw University Social Work Program graduates work within a wide variety of social work and social welfare agencies and settings and with systems at all levels.

As an integral part of one of the oldest historically black colleges and universities (HBCU) in the United States, the Shaw University Social Work Program is particularly interested in developing competent baccalaureate social workers with skills for making contributions to address such areas as social and economic justice, societal barriers and disparities, and to improve the quality of life for all people with a focus on specialized, oppressed and disadvantaged persons. The University’s Social Work Program’s areas of emphasis include self, client, and community empowerment; personal and societal, responsibility; understanding, recognition, respect for persons of all orientations, cultures, racial, and ethnic groups. The Shaw University Social Work Program expects its students to acquire the skills to be effective client advocates and to advance social and economic justice particularly among traditionally recognized populations-at-risk, as well as recently identified populations such as Spanish speaking persons new to the United States and especially North Carolina. The Shaw University Social Work Program believes that all persons have the potential to change and improve their lives individually and to collectively contribute to societal improvements across a continuum, from local to global communities. To this end, the Shaw University Social Work Program expects its students to exercise skills across a range of professional social work roles to bring about planned change.

Goal Statement

As a baccalaureate program in an HBCU, located in an ever changing ethnically diverse urban area surrounded by many rural communities, the Shaw University Social Work Program’s goals reflect our student and community demographics and needs. The Shaw University Social Work Program serves students from various socioeconomic environments, many from rural communities.

The University’s goals for the Social Work Program reflect and are sensitive to its students’ socioeconomic backgrounds, needs, and goals in their preparation for serving people with whom they are likely to work.

The Shaw University Social Work Program has identified five major goals that support our mission of baccalaureate social work education at Shaw University.

Goal One: Graduates will reflect the diversity of the student population that is maximally effective in serving client systems with respect, dignity, integrity, and competence through collaboration, empowerment, cooperation, and advocacy.

Goal Two: Graduates are well prepared for entry into the social work profession and competently, ethically, and effectively serve their clients and society, particularly those communities from which its students came to Shaw University.

Goal Three: The Shaw University Social Work Program graduates will seek and obtain leadership positions in their chosen field of practice and in positions of leadership in the profession, communities, and society. They will effectively advocate for societal, systems, and economic changes that improve the lives of those experiencing a range of life circumstances and conditions that impede optimal societal functioning.

Goal Four: Building on their baccalaureate social work education, graduates will be life-long learners. This includes attending social work graduate schools to help chart the direction of the profession, policies, and societal changes; and to increase social work knowledge and practice skills, and to provide greater services to client systems based on research skills.

Goal Five: The Shaw University Social Work Program graduates will be prepared to work for social and economic justice to assist all people, with a special focus on oppressed and disadvantaged populations, in order to improve their quality of life and achieve acceptance, tolerance, and full participation in society. By example, our graduates will be role models in advocating for acceptance, tolerance, equality, and eliminating discrimination.

Objectives

Objectives, Goal One:

To prepare graduates who are maximally effective in serving diverse individuals and communities through skillful application of social work knowledge concerning human diversity, collaboration, and empowerment with client systems, societal agencies, and other systems.

To provide social work majors with an ethnically sensitive curriculum stressing cultural competence and respect for all people.

To equip social work majors with the knowledge of social work values, ethical principles, and standards.

To equip social work majors with the knowledge, skills, and practice experience for problem solving, intervention, and advocacy at the micro, mezzo, and macro practice levels.

Objectives, Goal Two:

To know, incorporate, and apply the core values of the social work profession as the basis of all professional activities, encounters, and interventions.

To know "the forms and mechanisms of oppression and discrimination" and to understand and appreciate the importance of human diversity and the value, dignity, worth, and potential of every person.

To prepare students to optimally apply their knowledge and skills to assist any client system without discrimination at all practice levels.

Objectives, Goal Three:

To teach students to use critical thinking and analytical skills in their approach and interventions as problem solvers and change agents.

To create a challenging learning environment that instills and inspires confidence, competence and personal responsibility for bringing about change.

To instill in students an appreciation of the importance of the history of the profession, its historical roots and social workers in the forefront as initiators of social and economic changes throughout our history.

To ensure students value their own worth, abilities, and strengths and accept their ethical and professional responsibilities to address societal issues.

Objectives, Goal Four:

To recognize the necessity for and incorporate life-long learning and preparation as the mark of a professional through a variety of learning and professional growth opportunities such as graduate school in order to more effectively address social and economic injustices.

To foster student confidence and the desire to add to social work practice and knowledge through a curriculum that emphasizes responsibility to the profession.

To emphasize across the baccalaureate social work curriculum that knowledge and research are necessary for demonstrating practice effectiveness, evaluating interventions, and applying critical and analytical thinking.

To emphasize the importance of accountability to client systems, the profession and society.

To encourage and support students in making application to graduate school.

Objectives, Goal Five:

To equip students with the history, appreciation and understanding of the social welfare system programs and policies in the United States.

To provide a course in human diversity and infuse human diversity content in all undergraduate courses with a special focus on populations-at-risk, people who are on the margins of society and those who have been victims of discrimination and oppression.

To have students recognize, respect, and appreciate cultural differences in clients within a strengths-based approach.

To assist students in recognizing the need for life-long learning about human diversity as multidimensional phenomena in social work practice in order to increase their practice competency and effectiveness.

To equip students with models, frameworks, and perspectives to advance social and economic justice.

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