Mission & Vision

Our mission is both professional and academic. By grounding our teaching and learning with hands-on experience and rigorous scholarship, we prepare students for an effective and meaningful practice of social work and we foster the attainment of social justice.

By providing a professional framework that promotes individual dignity, respects diversity, and seeks distributive justice in the Catholic, Jesuit tradition, we instill in social workers the knowledge, values, and skills:

• To initiate and sustain change
• To provide visionary leadership

Academically, we cultivate an atmosphere of intellectual discipline and innovative faculty and student scholarship and research that:

• Contributes to the knowledge base of the profession
• Improves society's understanding of the systems in which individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities thrive

Our curriculum is sharply focused to meet the needs of a changing society. We remain an international leader in shaping the education of professional social workers.

GSSW Mission and Goals (PDF)