Lynn Videka Named New Dean Of Silver School of Social Work

       Lynn Videka has been appointed as dean of NYU’s Silver School of Social Work, effective Sept. 1. Videka, whose research interests include vulnerable children and families receiving child welfare and mental health services, is currently vice president for research at the State University of New York at Albany and a Distinguished Service Professor.
       Videka was dean of the School of Social Welfare at SUNY Albany from 1989 to 1999. Her tenure was notable for its many successes, including establishing dual degree programs in social work and sociology and social work and human development, a 400 percent increase in annual fund gifts, and a 200 percent increase in externally funded grants.
       “Of all the fields of study we encompass at this great research university, none immerses itself more fully in the contemplation of the role of the individual in community than our Silver School of Social Work,” says President John Sexton. “Each year, they send forth another cohort committed to helping others successfully cope with and overcome the many hurdles that life erects. We cherish public service at NYU; there is no school’s mission of which we are more proud. So, selecting the dean of the Silver School of Social Work is a task we take on with great conscientiousness, because much is at stake—not simply for our students or our faculty, but for those they will go on to help. That is why I am so pleased by the appointment of Lynn Videka as dean. She is superbly qualified—an outstanding scholar whose professional life has been devoted to seeing that those in need receive the best possible services—and her great accomplishments will add not merely to the luster of the school, but will translate into real care for real people.”
       Videka has been the vice president for research and a Distinguished Service Professor at Albany since 2006. She joined Albany’s School of Social Welfare as an assistant professor in 1981, was director of the Center for Human Services Research from 1995 to 2003, and was director of the Center for Research on Social Work Practice from 1986 to 1989. Prior to that, she had been project director of “Self-Help Groups and Urban Problems: Alternative Help Systems” at the University of Chicago’s Department of Behavioral Sciences.
       Videka is the recipient of many awards and honors, including being named a Distinguished Service Professor by the Trustees of the State University of New York; being named a visiting scholar to several institutions, including Hallym University in Chun Cheon, South Korea; and being the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship to Bulgaria, among others. She is a widely published author; among her publications are the first social work meta-analysis of mental health practice effectiveness (in 1986) with a subsequent book (Advances in Clinical Social Work Research) and several chapters and articles on the effectiveness of social work practice. She recently authored entries on “Child Neglect” and “Parenting Practices” in the Encyclopedia of Interpersonal Violence (2008), and an article, entitled, “Building Research Infrastructure in Schools of Social Work,” in the journal Social Work Research.
       She has held many leadership roles in her profession, including president of the National Association of Deans and Directors of Social Work and the Institute for the Advancement of Social Work Research, vice president of the Society for Social Work and Research, and commissioner of Accreditation and Treasurer of the Council on Social Work Education, among others.