Educating social workers

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1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, community studies, consumer and applied sciences, family studies, gender studies, home science, Invercargill, social work, sociology, university extension

Social work students working through a scenario in their practice suite, 2010. Photo courtesy of the Department of Sociology, Gender and Social Work.

Because much social work provision comes out of the community sector, the formal education of social workers has been debated vigorously over the years. Otago’s first venture into this field came in 1959, when it offered short courses for social workers at the request of the recently-formed Otago Association of Social Workers and its Southland counterpart. Staff from New Zealand’s first tertiary social work course, which began at Victoria University of Wellington in 1950, visited Dunedin and Invercargill to lead these seminars. Otago’s university extension department continued to offer seminars and lecture courses for social workers through the 1960s, varying topics from year to year so returning students could obtain broad coverage of the discipline.

In the early 1970s the Department of Preventive and Social Medicine proposed a one-year diploma course in medical social work, but this never eventuated because of a lack of support from social workers, probably concerned that the course was too narrow and, worse, controlled by the powerful medical profession. Meanwhile, other professional social work courses got off the ground at Massey, Canterbury and Auckland. Otago decided to carry on with social work education through its extension service. In 1974 a new two-year part-time course for a Certificate in Theory and Practice of Social Work began. Local social welfare agencies provided support for the course, with the ‘work which over-burdened social workers are prepared to undertake to assist the University … a mark of the very great need that they see to have educational and training facilities in social work in the southern part of New Zealand upgraded’. In 1976 Patrick Shannon – destined for a long career at Otago – took on the Department of University Extension’s new role of Lecturer in Social and Community Studies, becoming responsible for the social work course. The course was ‘not a professional qualification’ and received no accreditation from the New Zealand Social Work Training Council, but had ‘a recognised place and value in the education of social workers, and provides a base for entry to further study’. It was popular and enrolments had to be limited.

Meanwhile, there were related developments in the Faculty of Home Science. The faculty had always kept its main focus on the sciences, but there was an element of the social as well. In 1977 the long-standing paper in ‘home management’ became ‘management for family living’ and in 1981 ‘family studies’, incorporating teaching on ‘the inter-relationship of the family and the community’ and ‘community health and welfare’. In 1987 David Buisson, the new dean, created a Community and Family Studies Development Unit ‘to give the impetus for developments in the social science and social policy areas’ in his restructuring of what now became the Faculty of Consumer and Applied Sciences. Over the next two years stage two and three courses in community and family studies replaced the old one-level family studies. The new curriculum covered ‘families in society’, ‘family resource management’, ‘crises in family and community development’ and ‘consumer issues’.

There were obvious common areas of interest between the new unit and the Department of University Extension’s Community Studies Centre. Late in 1988 they merged, bringing the popular Certificate in Social Work into the ambit of Consumer and Applied Sciences. In 1990, majors were introduced to the Bachelor of Consumer and Applied Sciences degree and students could now major in community and family studies. Other curriculum changes offered increasing options for those with an interest in social work. In 1993 the old certificate course evolved into the Diploma in Social and Community Work and in 1994 a new Postgraduate Diploma in Social Services was developed for those who had majored in community and family studies (or had equivalent qualifications or experience); both courses included fieldwork in addition to their theoretical component.

In 2001 community and family studies became an independent department and moved to the humanities division. The new department received a boost a couple of years later when its two social work programmes were the first to be approved under the Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Social Workers’ new certification process. ‘We got incredibly good ratings and there was nothing that had to be improved’, commented Raylee Kane, the Director of Professional Programmes; ‘we’ve set the benchmark and it’s really high’. A variety of new postgraduate programmes – mostly available part-time by distance teaching – added new options. A university review of the department in 2003 particularly commended both Kane and the long-serving head of social work, Pat Shannon, a ‘dedicated and exemplary’ leader. From 2005 a new name – the Department of Social Work and Community Development – reflected better its work, while the 2007 appointment of Amanda Barusch as the university’s first professor of social work boosted its research focus.

The introduction of social worker registration in 2003 presented challenges to Otago’s programmes. Registration was voluntary but some employers required it; clearly qualifications needed to fit into the new framework. In 2007 Otago commenced a new four-year undergraduate qualification, the Bachelor of Social and Community Work (from 2011 the Bachelor of Social Work), to fit the Social Workers Registration Board’s minimum requirement of a bachelor-level degree. Two years of ‘pre-professional’ study was followed by two years of professional education. Registration requirements saw the downfall of the old undergraduate diploma, along with another popular Otago qualification, the Postgraduate Diploma in Social and Community Work.

Shayne Walker teaching students on a block course, 2010. Photo courtesy of the Department of Sociology, Gender and Social Work.

In 2011 the department merged with two other small social science programmes to create the new Department of Sociology, Gender and Social Work – it has been a happy alliance thanks to excellent leadership and motivated staff. Indeed, through all its changes Otago’s social work programme has been fortunate to attract inspirational staff, frequently retaining them for long careers. In addition to helping shape future generations of social workers, staff have played important roles in advising government, and others, on social policy. Their commitment is epitomised in Shayne Walker, whose journey took him from being a child in care to a youth worker and foster parent dedicated to improving the lives of young Maori, long-time lecturer in social work, and now Chair of the Social Workers Registration Board.

Do you have any stories to share of Otago’s social worker education? I’d love to hear some personal anecdotes!

Nourishing science

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1880s, 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, consumer and applied sciences, food, food science, home science, human nutrition, medicine, physiology, public health, Wellington, women

One of Otago’s best known nutrition researchers, Dr Muriel Bell. Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, Margaret Madill papers, r.6653, S14-589c.

Otago’s Department of Human Nutrition is the largest such university department in the Southern Hemisphere, and boasts an enviable international reputation. Its staff are often called on for their expertise in this country and beyond – two of the fifteen members of the World Health Organization’s Nutrition Guidance Expert Advisory Group are Otago human nutrition professors, Jim Mann and Murray Skeaff. Otago’s history in nutrition research goes back over a century, long predating the creation of a specialist department. It involves the story of some remarkable people, including several pioneering women scientists.

It could be argued that the university’s first nutrition researcher was Frederic Truby King, appointed Lecturer on Mental Diseases at the medical school in 1889 to complement his role as Superintendent of Seacliff Lunatic Asylum. Among many other things, he was interested in the role of diet in mental health. This later evolved into his famous work on infant nutrition and the founding of the Plunket Society, which promoted infant health and welfare.

The arrival of John Malcolm as Otago’s first Professor of Physiology (previously combined with anatomy) in 1905 marked a new step in research into nutrition at the university. Malcolm, a Scot, researched the nutritional values of various New Zealand foods, most notably local fish. His introduction of vitamin assays to this country led to practical advice on diets. This benefited animals as well as humans, with the diet he devised ensuring the survival of the dogs on Admiral Byrd’s 1928 Antarctic expedition.

One of Malcolm’s students, Muriel Bell, became a well-known nutritionist and long-serving member of the Department of Physiology. She graduated in medicine in 1922, then lectured in physiology while completing a doctorate on goitre. After some years working overseas, she returned to the department in 1935. As her entry in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography notes, her “forte was applied research into subjects of practical everyday importance, such as the vitamin content of New Zealand fruit, vegetables, fish and cereals.” She was a public health campaigner as well as a research scientist, and the Department of Health employed her part-time as a nutritionist for many years. She provided advice on war and post-war food rationing, and famously published a recipe for rosehip syrup to provide 1940s youngsters with adequate Vitamin C.

These three significant nutrition researchers were part of the Otago Medical School, but in 1911 another location for nutrition research arrived with the establishment of Otago’s School of Home Science. Food was a key topic within the home science syllabus, though this involved, in addition to nutrition, the study of food preparation and science, including the development of new food products. These were the origins of today’s two separate departments, human nutrition and food science. A Master of Home Science degree, introduced in 1926, brought a new focus on research to the school, with nutrition by far the most popular topic for dissertations.

Elizabeth Gregory, another well-known Otago nutrition expert. Image courtesy of the Alexander Turnbull Library, reference 1/2-C-024999-F.

One early master’s graduate of the Home Science School, Elizabeth Gregory, went on to further postgraduate study in nutrition. She completed a PhD – A study of fat metabolism, with special reference to nutrition on diets devoid of fat – at University College, London, before returning to Otago as lecturer in chemistry and nutrition in 1932. She was Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Home Science from 1941 to 1961. Like her physiology colleague Muriel Bell, with whom she often consulted, Gregory was frequently looked to for her expertise in public health issues relating to nutrition.

Among the 1940s home science students taught by Gregory was a woman who became a world-leading nutrition researcher: Marion Robinson. After completing a master’s degree at Otago she went on to further study at Cambridge. In 1958 she returned to Otago’s Faculty of Home Science, where she worked for the next thirty years. In a new laboratory set up in an old shed, Robinson studied the metabolism of various trace elements, becoming famous for her work on selenium. Meanwhile, Robinson also developed the teaching programme in human nutrition further, and it became available as a subject for BSc, including an honours programme, in the 1970s, as well as remaining a significant part of the home science degree.

The arrival of Jim Mann from Oxford as the new Professor of Human Nutrition in 1987 marked a new phase of nutrition teaching and research. In particular, it increased the links with the health sciences, for Mann is a medical doctor who was also appointed professor in the Department of Medicine and clinical endocrinologist for the health board. Human nutrition soon split out from its longstanding home in home science (which had by then become the Faculty of Consumer and Applied Sciences) and became an autonomous department within the Faculty of Science.

Research in the department also branched out from the previous work on micronutrients to new work on macronutrients and chronic diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer. With changes in society, over-nutrition had joined under-nutrition as a major concern. Of course, under-nutrition remained a big problem in the developing world, and as the department grew the 1996 appointment of Rosalind Gibson brought in new international expertise in the study of micronutrients, especially zinc and iron deficiency.

After World War II rationing was over, the only future health professionals to take nutrition very seriously were those studying home science in preparation for their postgraduate training as dietitians. More recently, that has changed, with nutrition widely recognised as highly significant for human health and included more extensively as part of health science programmes. And research is no longer confined to the Department of Human Nutrition, with some health science departments – Otago’s Department of Public Health in Wellington for instance – active in research into nutrition and health. In true interdisciplinary fashion, the university’s Edgar Diabetes and Obesity Research Centre brings together researchers from the departments of anatomy, biochemistry, medicine (in both Dunedin and Wellington), public health (Wellington), social and preventive medicine and human nutrition.

Do you have any stories to share from Otago’s long history of nutrition research? Any suggestions as to what Muriel Bell is investigating in the wonderful photograph taken in her laboratory? Some of that equipment looks intriguing!

 

 

 

 

The food science mystery

Tags

1990s, consumer and applied sciences, food science, home science

Image from the archives of the Association of Home Science Alumnae of NZ, Hocken Collections, MS-1516/082, S13-556c.

This week’s post is another photograph identification challenge. These two images come from the archives of the Association of Home Science Alumnae of New Zealand, held at the Hocken Collections. They are from a series of large format photos, mounted for use in a display. Unfortunately they have no details attached, but I’m guessing from the hairstyles that they date from the 1990s (I’m willing to be corrected on that though!). Are you able to name any of the women in these images? They seem to be in the food science lab, but what exactly are they doing? Judging by the look on the face of the woman in the centre with plate and spoon, if she’s tasting something it’s not especially appealing.

Food science was an integral part of the home science degree and diploma courses from their beginning in 1911. Early foods courses involved practical cookery skills, becoming more demanding as students advanced. For instance, in 1937 the Foods II course of “experimental cookery” was “designed to standardize methods of cookery on the basis of the composition of Foods” and students had to complete Applied Chemistry I alongside or before this course. Later advanced courses were more explicitly about science rather than cookery. In the 1953 Chemistry of Foods paper students learned about “Proteins, carbohydrates, fats, mineral matter; the fundamental principles and practice in gravimetric and volumetric analysis as used in food chemistry; determination of moisture, protein, fat, sugar, ash in common food materials; determination of more important fat constants; detection of food preservatives and adulterations.” They spent 3.3 hours in the lab each week, conducting experiments using milk, butter, cereals, yeast, vinegar and baking powders.

By the 1980s food science had two streams – food science, and consumer food science, which dealt with food market acceptance and product development. Research interests of the department in 1988 ranged from flavour changes during storage of frozen stone fruit to the development of surimi. Like the Department of Human Nutrition, the Department of Food Science emerged from the umbrella of home science to become an important department in its own right within the Division of Sciences.

Can you help name these mystery scientists? Or do you have any memories of the food science lab to share?

Image from the archives of the Association of Home Science Alumnae of NZ, Hocken Collections, MS-1516/082, S13-556b.

 

Fashion for the great outdoors

Tags

1920s, clothing, consumer and applied sciences, food science, home science, human nutrition, recreation

Image from the records of the Association of the Home Science Alumnae of New Zealand, MS-1516/074, S13-559a, Hocken Collections, University of Otago.

The lovely Alison Finigan, head of alumni relations, once suggested that this blog includes photos from the decades that fashion forgot – so how could I resist putting up this wonderful image! The three women are, from left to right, Neige Todhunter, Winifred Stenhouse and M. Wilkinson. They were all home science students, enjoying a weekend of outdoor recreation in Karitane in 1927. Clothing was one of the subjects in the home science faculty, with a stage one course in garment construction and a stage two course in dress. The dress course, according to the University Calendar, investigated the “historic, artistic, economic and social aspects of dress as applied to the University girl’s wardrobe.” It seems highly likely that these women made, and perhaps also designed, their outfits.

The University of Otago School of Home Science opened in 1911. As the national “special school” it attracted students – all women for its first decades – from throughout New Zealand. Students could complete a three-year diploma or a four-year degree. In addition to clothing, subjects of study in the 1920s included chemistry; applied chemistry (food, household chemistry, laundry); physics; biology; physiology; nutrition and dietetics; bacteriology, sanitary science and hygiene; house planning, home administration and mothercraft; household and social economics; education; and foods (technology, housekeeping and experimental cookery). “Home science” later evolved into “consumer and applied sciences,” incorporating various other applied science subjects. Several of the original constituent specialist subjects of home science have survived into the 21st century: human nutrition and food science are now major departments in their own right within the Sciences Division, while design and clothing and textile sciences are now part of the applied sciences department.

Qualifications from the School of Home Science could take women of the 1920s a long way. Neige Todhunter, whose unusual name (French for snow) derived from her birth during a Christchurch snow storm, was a particularly distinguished graduate. After graduating with Otago’s first master’s degree in home science in 1928 she headed to the USA for further study, completing a PhD at Columbia University in 1933 with a thesis on Vitamin A. She taught in Washington State for a while and then for many years at the University of Alabama, where she established a human nutrition laboratory and became Dean of the School of Home Economics. After ‘retirement’ she had a long association with Vanderbilt University in Nashville, where she pursued an interest in the history of nutrition. Throughout her career she was involved in various high-level advisory committees on nutrition, as well as professional organisations. Some of her historical publications sound intriguing: I’d like to read her article “Dietetics in the Shakespearean plays”, which reflected her love of literature!

A long obituary of Todhunter, who died in 1991, makes no mention of her dress style. I wonder if the Otago undergraduate course on the “artistic” aspect of dress had any long-lasting impact?