Nov 23, 2024  
2015-2016 General Catalog 
    
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2015-2016 General Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

Social Work, BSW

Florida A&M University offers a professional program leading to the Bachelor of Social Work (BSW) in the Department of Social Work. The Bachelor of Social Work Program is accredited by the Council on Social Work Education and prepares students for generalist social work practice. The professional curriculum consists of sixty (60) credit hours including twelve (12) hours of field placement. Certain courses in the curriculum are open to non-majors and offer exposure to current issues in service delivery. Program graduates may be eligible for advanced standing in many schools offering the Master of Social Work (MSW) Degree.

Admissions

Following are the admission procedures for first-time-in-college and transfer students wishing to enter the Department of Social Work:
Freshmen- First-time-in-college freshmen students applying for admissions to the University and wishing to major in social work should simply indicate social work as their chosen major. An academic advisor will be assigned to students in order to guide them through the appropriate liberal arts courses and to prepare them for the upper division and full admittance to the BSW program. Students should meet with their advisors a minimum of once per semester to register for the following semester.

At this point, students should call or email their advisor to set up a time to complete a course evaluation form. Note: Students transferring to FAMU with an AA degree from a Florida state college, community college or university, will not be required to meet any additional liberal arts requirements shown below. They will complete only the 60 hours of upper division social work courses.

Students who do not hold an AA degree are required to complete the general liberal arts curriculum and social work prerequisites prior to beginning the junior level social work courses. The following describes the social work courses and the required liberal arts prerequisites for the undergraduate social work foundation courses.

Program Administration

Chairperson: Jenny Jones, PhD
Program Director: Glenn Hodges, MSW, M.Div.
Field Coordinator: Dr. Winnifred Whittaker

Curriculum

The social work curriculum does not formally begin until the student’s junior year because it is considered an upper-division professional program. However, students need to begin taking the required general education courses for the major as freshmen (as pre-social work majors). Social work majors are required to complete 60 hours of general education courses and social work prerequisite courses and 60 hours of upper-division professional social work courses for a total of 120 hours. The upper-division 60 hours are taken in the junior and senior years and include 14 required social work courses (42 credit hours), two social work electives (6 credit hours), and a field practicum (12 credit hours).

  1. Complete the general education curriculum
  2. Complete the BSW Application Process
  3. Have an overall GPA of at least 2.0.

General Education Requirements (Freshman and Sophomore Years)

All BSW applicants are required to complete a general education curriculum which covers two years of liberal arts coursework.

  • All BSW applicants for admission to the social work program core curriculum must submit an undergraduate transcript as part of their application packet which is evaluated by the BSW Program Director and the BSW Admissions Committee to ensure that specific liberal arts courses have been successfully completed with a grade of “C” or better.

The curriculum design highlights the importance of a liberal arts perspective in the development of a generalist practitioner. The liberal arts perspective focuses on critical thinking which increases the student’s ability to understand and appreciate the complexity of the person-in-environment context.
Before entering upper division or core courses of the BSW program, student applications are reviewed to ensure that she or he has achieved the required liberal arts education grounded in:

  • Science/Math (12 hours) [e.g., Biology, Natural Science, Math (2)]
  • Social Sciences (18 hours) [e.g., History, Psychology, Sociology, Economics, etc.]
  • Communication (9hours) [English, Computer Applications, etc.]
  • Humanities (3 hours) [e.g., Philosophy, Religion, etc.)]To ensure that all BSW students have developed a liberal arts perspective, the program has developed the following procedures for admission to the as social work program.
  • Electives (12 hours) [e.g. Public Speaking, Health]
  • Social Work majors are required to complete 60 semester hours of lower division courses. The liberal arts curriculum is divided into (5) major areas and includes the specific liberal arts prerequisites for the major.

Required Liberal Arts - 24 hours

General Elective - 12 hours

Florida law requires all students in the State University System (SUS) to complete two units of foreign language at the high school or college level.

*This is a state common prerequisite. Substitutes indicated in the State Common Prerequisite Manual at www.facts.org will be accepted.

Upper Division Requirements

Junior Year

Fall Semester

Spring Semester

Senior Year

Fall Semester

Spring Semester

Total: 60

Pre-requisite and co-requisite requirements are as follows: