The Council on Racial, Ethnic, and Cultural Diversity (CRECD) is a council of CSWE’s Commission for Diversity and Social and Economic Justice. CRECD promotes expanding the knowledge base for educators, students, and alumni through education and by disseminating and encouraging research about members of historically and emerging underrepresented groups.
CRECD also initiates new activities and programs related to these groups in social work education while (a) acknowledging the impact of the entrenched influences of power, privilege, and oppression on their experiences and the larger social, economic, and political structure; (b) fostering critical understanding of their experience through an empathic lens; and (c) emphasizing social change and achieving equality and nondiscrimination and political, civil, social, economic, and cultural rights.
The CRECD also has the following functions:
- To initiate new activities and programs relevant to historically underrepresented groups in social work education
- To prepare social work educators and students for teaching and practice that promotes human rights and social justice in which all individuals are treated with dignity and respect
- To disseminate and encourage research about members of historically and emerging underrepresented groups to be used by educators, students, and alumni
- To facilitate communication between the various historically and emerging underrepresented social work educator affiliated groups and the Council on Social Work Education
- To broaden how the larger membership, and thus the field, understands the dynamics and intersectionality of the experiences of historically and emerging underrepresented groups in social work education
- To provide recommendations for policies, consultation, and advice to the Commission for Diversity and Social and Economic Justice, Board of Directors, and the CSWE staff.
CRECD Award
The CRECD established this award to recognize doctoral students and junior faculty members with outstanding scholarship in the areas of racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity in social work education. Two awards will be given to doctoral students or junior faculty members (faculty members who have completed a doctorate within the last 7 years).
2-QTPOC Social Work Impact Award
Presented by CRECD and Council on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity and Expression (CSOGIE), the Two-Spirit, Queer, and Trans People of Color (2-QTPOC) Social Work Impact Award. This award recognizes and honors an outstanding midcareer or senior social work scholar who has made significant and outstanding contributions to the field of social work through research or education in the topical areas that affect two-spirit, queer, and trans people of color (2-QTPOC) communities.
CRECD Toolkit
The Council on Racial, Ethnic, and Cultural Diversity (CRECD) toolkit addresses best practices in recruiting students and faculty from oppressed and historically underrepresented groups. The social work profession has always experienced challenges in the recruitment and retention of faculty and doctoral students from oppressed and historically underrepresented groups.
In this regard, the toolkit is intended to serve as a resource as well as a reminder of the ongoing task to secure and maintain a diverse student body and faculty. The CRECD offers this toolkit not only as a useful resource for the entire social work community, but specifically as a point of reference for administrators, search committees and individual students and faculty interested in supporting the creation and maintenance of a diverse and viable faculty and doctoral student body.
We welcome and encourage comments and suggestions on the toolkit. We also would like to learn how you have used the toolkit and how it may have contributed to you having a successful recruitment and retention process within your programs. Our hope is that the toolkit will serve as a valued resource, continually improved over time.
Please email us your comments and suggestions on the CRECD toolkit at research@cswe.org.
The CRECD toolkit is divided into four sections:
- Recruitment and retention resources for oppressed and historically underrepresented faculty
- Recruitment and retention resources for oppressed and historically underrepresented doctoral students
- Common themes from CRECD Special Sessions on Recruitment and Retention of doctoral students and faculty from oppressed and historically underrepresented groups
- Bibliography including all mentioned sources. The first two sections each begin with a focus on diversity in general, followed by specific resources on the identified oppressed and historically underrepresented groups
Note: This toolkit is an ongoing, evolving project. Additionally, this search did not produce any specific resources for addressing the recruitment and retention needs of Asian students and faculty. We will continue to explore this area for available resources. Additionally, we contend that the generic nature of the toolkit is very adaptable to the needs of diverse groups.
Leadership & Members
Kendra M. Flores-Carter, DSW
Associate Professor and Co-Director of CBU Center for Community Engagement and Social Innovation at California Baptist University
Co-Chair
Mustapha Alhassan, PhD, MSW
BSW Program Director & Associate Professor at the Whitney M. Young, Jr., School of Social Work, Clark Atlanta University
Co-Chair
Adrianna Taylor, DSW, LCSW
Assistant Professor of Social Work at Metropolitan State University of Denver
Angelica Guillen, PhD, LCSW, MSW
Assistant Professor, Borra College of Health Sciences, School of Social Work at Dominican University
Bibiana Koh, PhD, MSW, MAT, MA, LCSW-C
Associate Professor, Social Work at Salisbury University
Brittany Hammonds, DSW, LCSW, LCAS, CCS
Lecturer, School of Social Work at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte
Brittany Lynch, DSW, LCSW, RYT
Assistant Professor and MSW Program Director at Iona University
Candice Sorapuru, LCSW-BACS
Adjunct Instructor at Tulane University
Georgianna Dolan-Reilly, PhD, LMSW
Adjunct Professor at Sacred Heart University
Hyunjin Noh, PhD, MSW
Associate Professor at the University of Alabama
Joyce Roberson-Steele, PhD, LMSW, CASA-T
Doctoral Lecturer at Medger Evers College
Kelli Rogers, PhD, LMSW
Assistant Professor of Practice at the University of Texas at Arlington
Mohit Prodhan, DSW, MSW
Assistant Professor of Social Work College of Nursing, Health, and Human Services at Texas A&M University, Texarkana
Raven Lynch, PhD, MSW, LSW
Assistant Clinical Professor at The Ohio State University
Sharon Parker, PhD, MSW, MS
Associate Professor, School of Social Work at the University of Georgia
Tawanda Hubbard, DSW, PhD, MSW, LCSW
Associate Professor of Professional Practice at Rutgers University
Tierra Emerson, LMSW-C, PMH-C, CCM
BHI Psychotherapist & Perinatal Psychotherapist, DSW Program at the University of Memphis