Greetings from Dean Michael A. Lindsey
It is with great excitement that I greet you as the 10th Dean of the NYU Silver School of Social Work. Whether you are a prospective student, faculty or staff member, donor, or community partner, I welcome your interest in our vibrant academic community dedicated to equity, accessibility, responsiveness, and impact.
Social work is a calling and social workers have a pivotal role to play in these challenging times, as we seek to create a new normal that is healthy, equitable, and socially just. As a scholar, I have focused on child and adolescent mental health, particularly among youth of color and those from poor and marginalized communities. With funding from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), I am currently studying an innovative intervention to promote access to and use of mental health services among depressed and traumatized teens in schools. In a separate NIMH funded study, I am testing a system of care for Black youth presenting at NYC hospital emergency departments that combines suicide risk screening with an intervention to help connect at-risk youth to quality mental health services. My research has also been used to affect policy. I led the working group of experts supporting the Congressional Black Caucus Emergency Taskforce on Black Youth Suicide and Mental Health, which created the report Ring the Alarm: The Crisis of Black Youth Suicide in America. That, in turn, led to the introduction in Congress of the bipartisan Pursuing Equity in Mental Health Act, which passed in the House of Representatives.
A sense of mission also fuels my passion to provide NYU Silver students the best possible education so they can go out and make a difference in the world. As NYU Silver’s Dean, I aim to ensure our school always remains a top destination for students who want to become innovative scholars and practitioners, prepared to work at the micro, mezzo, and macro levels. Our faculty is composed of top clinicians, researchers, and scholars, who are tackling some of society’s most intractable problems. Cutting-edge teaching undergirds our student experience and that teaching is informed by the transformative and grounded research being done by our faculty and doctoral students, with strong connections to policy and practice.
Today, more people than ever are vulnerable to challenges related to trauma and social inequities, and our profession has the tools to help both individuals and systems to address these challenges. NYU Silver is already working on the ground to help society move forward through civic and government partnerships, rigorous education, research, community engagement, and advocacy.
I encourage you to explore our website and learn more about the social work education, scholarship, and practice being done across NYU Silver and by our alumni to elevate lives throughout the world. Then, I hope you’ll be inspired to join us.
Sincerely,
Michael A. Lindsey
Dean and Paulette Goddard Professor of Social Work