Our Mission

The mission of the School of Social Work derives from the vision, ethics, values, and purposes of the social work profession. Tulane’s School of Social Work seeks to educate social work professionals who are able to enhance the caring capacity of society and to:

• effectively serve those persons most vulnerable to the effects of poverty and discriminatory social conditions that may deprive them of access to economic, social, and psychological resources;
• develop and expand recourses with and for those in need;
• advocate for social and economic justices;
• work in partnership with coalitions to engender hope, motivate change and building community and civic responsibility;
• work to enhance personal and collective resourcefulness;
• engage in research for practice that addresses the myriad and complex problems of modern society; and
• embrace the positive values of lifelong learning and excellence in practice.

Our Past

The Southern School of Social Sciences and Public Services was the first training program for social workers in the deep South. Under the sponsorship of the Kingsley Settlement House, a group of Tulane social science faculty offered the first classes in social welfare in 1914. Sponsored by grants from the American Red Cross, a formal one-year program was implemented in 1921.

By 1927, with funding from a Rockefeller grant, the school became a separate program with a two-year curriculum qualifying students for the Master of Arts. In 1935, the University established the degree of Master of Social Work. The School has awarded the Master of Social Work degree to more than 4,700 students from all 50 of the United States and over 30 other countries.

Since 1927, the first year of national accreditation for social work education, the School of Social Work has maintained full accreditation status. It is a charter member of the Council on Social Work Education, which is the standard-setting and accreditation body in the field of social work education. Tulane School of Social Work is accredited by the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE). TSSW was recently awarded accreditation of the Master of Social Work Degree program for the full eight-year cycle with no contingencies.