School of Social Work faculty explore possible collaboration with Peking University Nov. 10, 2008 - “Daunting” and “exciting” are two words Margaret Adamek uses to describe a potential collaboration between the Indiana University School of Social Work and the Health Sciences Center at Peking University.
Adamek, the Director of the School’s doctoral program and the School’s Associate Dean, Virginia Majewski, spent a week in Beijing, China last month meeting with Peking University officials to see what if any role the School of Social Work could play in creating a MSW program in China.
Adamek and Majewski will discuss their trip on Thursday, Nov. 13th from 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. in Room 4130 in the School of Social Work.
The overture from Peking University comes as Indiana University is preparing to sign a formal affiliation agreement of cooperation between the two universities.
Under Communism, little need was seen for social
 |
| Dr. Virginia Majewski stops along the Great Wall of China. | workers as the government saw itself as the caretaker of peoples’ needs. But there has been a change in attitude about a need for social workers.
After recent earthquakes there was an outpouring of volunteers who wanted to help, but the country didn’t have the mechanisms to organize such help, Adamek said. The good news was lots of people wanted to help, the bad news was they didn’t have the infrastructure, like community organizations, to harness the offers to help, she noted.
In recent years though, social work education programs have gained support of the government and there are now about 200 programs in the country, mostly at the undergraduate level.
Adamek said it was her understanding about 10,000 social work students graduate a year, but only about 10 percent can find actual social work jobs. The Chinese society is still coming to terms with what social workers are and the jobs they can do, she explained.
During their visit from Oct 13-19, Majewski and Adamek met with Ji Tong Liu, an associate professor at the Department of Health Policy and Management, who is interested in establishing a MSW program focused on medical and mental health issues.
They visited a psychiatric hospital, the Chinese Red Cross, and a community-based organization that serves adults with developmental disabilities.
The trip allowed them to gain a better understanding of potential collaboration possibilities and served as a good-will mission to explore collaboration possibilities.
“We live in a global society,” Adamek said of the importance of forging links around the world. “I think it heightens our status among schools of Social Work, among potential students and faculty and alumni, to show that we are involved internationally and that we are helping develop social work education programs.”
At the meeting on Thursday, Adamek and Majeswski intend to share details about their visit, discuss what the possibilities are and see what kind of interest people have in working with Peking University.
“It’s a matter of figuring out are we going to do something and if we are, what are we going to do and where are we going to start,” Adamek said.
| 
Dr. Margaret Adamek took time during trip to Beijing to visit the Great Wall
| 
