From the Editor—Academic Freedom: Considerations for Social Work Academic Twitter

We are living through a difficult time, with many difficult, yet important conversations within and outside of our profession. It has been more than two years experiencing COVID-19 and the blatant racism and systemic disparities our society has laid bare. We are tired, grieving, and perhaps a little frustrated with the circumstances of our current world, including the disheartening war in Ukraine. Now, more than ever, our society needs the academy to communicate and think clearly, rationally, and respectfully as it generates and disseminates knowledge and solutions for our world’s challenges.

Fortunately, during this time of deep political division in the United States, academic freedom has mostly continued to insulate universities from various political entities, with the free speech of scholars protected within the university. An egregious and widely known exception was the tenure case of Nikole Hanna-Jones at the University of North Carolina based on her work on the “1619 Project” (Thomason, 2021). To ensure a healthy democracy, it is important that academic institutions and faculty within these institutions are protected by free speech and discourse to preserve the understanding of truth and knowledge independent of and unhindered by outside social or political influences. The current importance of this is clear within our profession, as conservative political entities are attacking many of the causes and populations for which our profession seeks to serve, study, and advocate—from lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and other sexual and gender minorities (LGBTQ+) rights and healthcare equity to reproductive rights to reducing societal and systematic racism and health disparities. Even within our own profession, there are spirited discussions centered on the abolition of child welfare, police, or criminal justice systems (Barth et al., 2021; Drake & Hodge, 2022; Raz et al., 2021; Rubin, 2022). It is essential that we protect and uphold the principles of academic freedom while engaging in the critical examination and discourse of all of our professional ideas as we build our knowledge base.

Yet, during a time of so much political unrest and misinformation, as well as social media that broadly engages the public, these external academic conversations can quickly devolve away from respectful open, intellectual exchanges. Based on my own observations on Twitter and conversations with other academics, exchanges between social work academics have not consistently reflected what we would expect in the academy. For example, some academics have Twitter blocked other academics that disagree, thereby precluding the free exchange of ideas in public settings. Other posts and exchanges reflect ideology-driven slogans or over simplistic dichotomizing viewpoints over critical discourse, while those who disagree are attacked with ad hominem arguments or “othered.” In some cases, I have witnessed very accomplished, respected senior scholars engaging in honest public discourse on Twitter accused of “trolling” or called “intentionally delusional and/or plain ignorant” by other social work academics. This is deeply disappointing, not reflective of the spirit of critical thought and openness to other ideas, and extremely disrespectful. With the rapid emergence of social media and the well-intentioned desire to move research findings more quickly to the public, it seems we have failed to consider the full consequences of our own external speech. In 1940, for example, the American Association of University Professors defined academic freedom as expanding to external speech:

College and university teachers are citizens, members of a learned profession, and officers of an educational institution. When they speak or write as citizens, they should be free from institutional censorship or discipline, but their special position in the community imposes special obligations. As scholars and educational officers, they should remember that the public may judge their profession and their institution by their utterances. Hence they should at all times be accurate, should exercise appropriate restraint, should show respect for the opinions of others, and should make every effort to indicate that they are not speaking for the institution. (p. 14)

This special position held within an educational university or college, especially in the use of public social media accounts, engenders a level of community and public trust that information shared will accurately reflect current knowledge. While all users of social media are typically advised to indicate that their account and posts do not represent their institution, the use of these accounts still reflects on the reputation of the individual, their institution, and the larger profession. Therefore, as educators who may use Twitter or other public social media accounts, it is essential that we model professional and ethical behavior for our profession and emerging new generations of social work academics. Moreover, if we are going to start these very public conversations, should we not engage in the same spirit of academic discourse as in a traditional academic setting with our peers? I would much rather see a spirited discourse between my peers than a one-sided “fans only“ conversation. Those using Twitter or other public accounts should also be prepared to engage with a variety of public responses—from those who agree to those who disagree with your work or position. Finally, as an academic that mostly reads Twitter posts, I have witnessed all kinds of faux pas from academics and doctoral student trainees who seem not to realize how widely their posts are being read and discussed in broader academic circles. This online discourse is just as important as the professionalism we would expect at a research conference from our doctoral students and faculty. People notice and it does seem to matter.

Additional considerations regarding academic discourse on Twitter are raised in an interview with David Bromwich for The Review with Len Gutkin (2022):

To me, this [Twitter] simply goes against the vocation of being a scholar. Let’s not be too high or mighty, but still—we are understood as people who deliberate, who take some time to get at what we believe to be the truth. The whole ethic of snap reactions goes against that. In the long run, it’s going to reduce the prestige of professors. It makes us more like everyone else, which a lot of academics have wanted to be all along. That’s part of the problem—the idea that we should try to erase the distinctions that separate university life, academic life, from society. (Para. 3)

In essence, erasing these distinctions may also erase the reputations of the very institutions designed to protect academic freedom. In a time when tenure remains up for attack from mostly conservative politicians— note the very recent political attacks on tenure in Georgia, South Carolina, Texas, and Wisconsin—it seems important to be wise about the short- and long-term consequences of external public engagement on social media (Flaherty, 2022; McGee, 2022).

In this issue

In line with this issue’s editorial, this issue starts with Young’s article, “#SocialWorkEducation: A Computational Analysis of Social Work Programs on Twitter.” This article—which explores how social work programs engage with Twitter followers—discusses the broader use of Twitter for social work education and among social work programs to market their programs and engage students. Interested readers may want to see who were identified as the top 10 social work programs on Twitter and the kinds of tweets that characterized schools of social work. The next two articles focus on doctoral education. Francis, Klein, Thomas, Kainz, and Blank Wilson report on a systematic review of holistic admissions processes in “Holistic Admissions and Racial/Ethnic Diversity: A Systematic Review and Implications for Social Work Doctoral Education.” They narrow down and report on 16 articles that discuss varying holistic admissions processes for increasing racial and ethnic diversity. In “Critical Reflections From Doctoral Students Engaging in Local and Transnational Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) Approaches to Health Promotion,” Tang Yan, Johnson, Kwesele, Araujo Brinkerhoff, and Sprague Martinez present four social work doctoral students’ efforts to design and engage community and youth in CBPR under the supervision and training of their faculty mentors. Implications from these training experiences are discussed.

In “A Survey of Trauma Education in Social Work Programs in the United States and Canada,” Boel-Studt, Vasquez, Randolf, and Dowdy-Hazlett report on an online survey of social work educators in the United States and Canada regarding the delivery of trauma education. While most programs are offering trauma content, the authors highlight a need for future research that seeks to better understand the specific trauma content being taught. Benton, Feinman, Gonzalez, Rosen, and Anderson report on a mixed-methods evaluation of a Behavioral Health Workforce Education and Training program in “Outcomes of a Bundled Intervention Approach: Analyzing an Enhanced MSW Training Project for Integrated-Care Settings.” In “‘It Makes You a Healthier Professional’: The Impact of Reflective Practice on Emerging Clinicians’ Self-Care,” Curry and Epley report on the results of focus groups with 55 social work and child development graduate students and alumni to better understand how reflective practice may have affected emerging clinicians’ self-care. Their findings suggest reflective practice may be promising for improving both client and self-care. Also, in line with the concept of self-care, DeMarchis, Friedman, and Eyrich Garg argue that self-care is an ethical responsibility and Bachelor of Social Work programs should therefore integrate this content into the curriculum in “An Ethical Responsibility to Instill, Cultivate, and Reinforce Self-Care Skills.”

Next, Ostrander and Kelly report on an exploratory study of the professionalization of 23 clinical social workers in “Fulfilling the Ethical Obligation to Political Participation: Clinical Social Workers and Professional Socialization.” The findings indicate clinical social workers tend to identify more closely with clinical roles in social work than as social workers invested in justice-oriented activities. Implications for social work education are discussed. In “Macro Practice Supervision by Social Work Field Instructors,” Castillo, Hendrix, Nguyen, and Riquino report on an exploratory survey of 102 graduate and undergraduate field instructors to assess the amount and ways in which they were integrating macro practice into supervision with students. The findings revealed minimal time was being spent in weekly supervision, and implications for social work education and research are discussed. Wang, Chui, Jordan, and Chan report on a study of the effectiveness of an experiential learning-based integrated policy advocacy model in “An Experiential Learning-Based Integrated Policy Advocacy Education Model in Hong Kong: What Works in a Non-Western and Partial Democratic Context?” This mixed-methods study with 144 students suggested improvement in areas of advocacy and political action, among other outcomes.

In “Innovating an Undergraduate Social Work Diversity Course: A Mixed-Methods Evaluation,” Paceley, Ramirez, and Wright evaluate and report promising findings with regard to student perceptions and the effect of new teaching methods and assignments for a new undergraduate social work diversity course. Next, Barsky describes the use of accurate and respectful genograms when working with clients and families that include members of diverse genders and sexual orientations in “Sexuality- and Gender-Inclusive Genograms: Avoiding Heteronormativity and Cisnormativity.” Giesler then describes the Human Library dialog approach and the results of a qualitative case study assessing the perceptions of participants of this approach in “Humanizing Oppression: The Value of the Human Library Experience in Social Work Education.”

This issue wraps up with an article by Skrzypek, Diebold, Kim, and Krause that establishes a student–alumni mentoring program in “Formalizing Alumni Mentoring in Social Work Education: Lessons Learned From a Three-Year Program Evaluation.” This analysis from participants over 3 years suggested benefits for both students and alumni. Finally, Stahl, Elkins, Topple, and DeCelle describe and share lessons learned from a capstone course that integrated a Decision Case Method Approach with the Theater of the Oppressed in “Teaching Note—Lessons From Designing and Teaching an Antioppression Capstone Course.”