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Lecture Series
Dean Jack Otis Social Problem and Social Policy Lecture
The purpose of the Social Problem and Social Policy Lecture is to present, analyze, and clarify a continuing and important social problem such as poverty, white collar crime, global warming, and the like. Based on the analysis, more effective policies and programs are to be recommended and to be evaluated once tried.
- 2008 Lecture: "Hate in America: What Can Be Done?"
Mark A. Potok, Director of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project and Editor of Intelligence Report magazine - 2007 Inaugural Lecture: "Can America End Its Drug War Addiction?"
Jack A. Cole, Executive Director, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), Medford, Massachusetts
About Dean Jack Otis
Sponsor of the lecture series is Dr. Jack Otis, former dean (1965-1977) and professor (1978-1993) at the School of Social Work, the University of Texas at Austin. During his tenure as dean, the baccalaureate and doctoral degree programs and research and training centers were established and the master's degree was revised to include an emphasis on community organization and social policy.Dr. Otis was instrumental in establishing national standards for the accreditation of undergraduate social work education and served for several years as a site visitor and member of the Council on Social Work Education Commission on Accreditation. In addition to presenting and publishing numerous social policy papers and articles, he coauthored Corporate Society and Education, The University of Michigan Press (1961), and was a Fulbright research scholar (1977-78). From 1961-65, Dr. Otis served as a consultant to the President's Committee on Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Crime chaired by U.S. Attorney-General Robert Kennedy and as Deputy Director of the Office of Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Development.
Distinguished Scholar Lecture
- 2009 Lecture, July 29th: "The Vulnerability for Alcoholism - Bad genes? Bad environment? Bad luck?" (PDF)
Victor Hesselbrock, Ph.D., Dept. of Psychiatry, University of Connecticut School of Medicine - 2008 Inaugural Lecture: "Self-Change: Findings and Implications for the Treatment of Addictive Behaviors" (PDF)
Dr. Linda Carter Sobell, ABPP, Professor and Associate Director of Clinical Training, Center for Psychological Studies, Nova Southeastern University, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
Sue Fairbanks Lecture in Psychoanalytic Knowledge
The Sue Fairbanks Lecture Series is made possible by the Sue Fairbanks Endowment for Excellence in the Application of Psychoanalytic Knowledge in Social Work established in 2007. This permanent endowment is dedicated to educational programs in psychoanalytic knowledge and to promoting excellence in clinical practice.
- Upcoming 2009 Inaugural Lecture, Fri., Sept. 18, 1:00 p.m., UTOPIA Theatre: "Psychoanalytic Theory in a New Key: Implications for Contemporary Social Work Practice" (PDF)
Carol Tosone, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Silver School of Social Work, New York University
About Sue Fairbanks
Sponsor of the lecture series is Sue Fairbanks, a 1981 graduate of the MSSW program at The University of Texas at Austin School of Social Work. Since 1986, she has maintained a full-time private practice in Austin with adults in individual and couples therapy and provided clinical consultation and supervision. Ms. Fairbanks began her professional career as an airline stewardess in the 1960s. During those years, she explored much of the external world and had a lifelong passion, nourished by her years with the airlines, about discovering the deeper inner world of the human psyche.
After graduating from the MSSW program, Ms. Fairbanks completed training to become a Certified Bioenergetic Analyst. Over the years, she trained and developed expertise in post-traumatic stress disorder, sexual abuse, dissociative disorders, gerontology and adoption. The thread that brought Ms. Fairbank's different trainings together, along with her concurrent inner search, came about when she entered her own analysis. Ms. Fairbanks had the time and space to deeply reflect on her life as she has lived it. The exploratory and reflective nature of psychoanalytic thought knit together her inner search and different trainings into a complex ever-expanding whole. Ms. Fairbanks wishes to introduce psychoanalytic knowledge, in its many faceted forms, to students and the helping community so they, too, can have access to the rich knowledge base out of which so many subsequent psychological therapies have been formulated.