1. AGAINST ALL ODDS:
The founding of the PSU School
of Social Work
Professors Emeriti Nancy Koroloff & Norm
Wyers
October 23, 2013
Special thanks to Adair Law and Ian Timmons

2. 1946 - Vanport Extension Center
opens

3. 1952 – Creation
of Council on
Social Work
Education
CSWE appoints
Ernest Witte as
executive
1955 – Vanport
College
becomes
Portland State
College

4. 1955 – Seven
national social work
organizations merge
to form the
National
Association of
Social Workers

5. July 1956 – Oregon Chapter
NASW issues report on need
for graduate school of social
work in Oregon

7. Katherine Clark, Director of
Family Counseling Services
Helen Catlin,
Boys and Girls Aid Society
Against All Odds: Three Champions
Elizabeth Goddard, Director of Training,
Public Welfare Bureau

8. Born: Helen Maude Alexander
December 13, 1911 in California
Attends University of California,
Berkeley for two years
1935-1936 – Moves to Portland
and marries John Catlin, April 18,
1936
1945 – Becomes active in
Community Chest
1947 – Elected President of the
Oregon Prison Association
Helen Alexander Catlin
(Voice of Elizabeth Goddard)

9. Born: Katherine Clark, July 31, 1908 in
Penn, Kansas.
1929 – Receives her BA from University of
Kansas
1934 – Receives MS in Social Administration
from the Western Reserve School of Applied
Social Science in Cleveland, Ohio
1935-51 – Works as social worker, district
supervisor and secretary for Associated
Charities in Cleveland
1951– Clark comes to Portland as director of
the Family Counseling Service
Oregonian 5-21-1951

10. Born: Elizabeth Frances Goddard
October 3, 1902 in Portland,
Oregon.
1924 – Graduates from Mills
College in California, the first
female college this side of the
Rockies.
1930s – Secretary of the
Community Chest and Treasurer
of the Oregon Social Workers
1937 – Takes six-month leave to
attend graduate welfare school at
University of Chicago

11. Committee approaches OSSHE and is told to work through U
of O President O. Meredith Wilson
November 1957 – First meeting with President Wilson
Dr. Ernest Witte of the Council for Social Work Education
visits in 1957
(Voice of Elizabeth Goddard)

13. Voice of Herb Bisno
President Wilson recommends
to OSSHE that graduate
program be started in
Portland
July 1958 – OSSHE appoints
Sherburne committee

15. Proposal for
a Program of
Professional
Social Work
Training in
Portland
James
Caughlan,
December
17, 1958

16. Dean James W.
Sherburne
NASW-Lay Committee asks to meet
with Sherburne. Nothing happens
until September 25, 1958.

17. December 1958 – Sherburne asks
Jeanne Jewett to bring in Dr. Ernest
Witte
Witte writes to Elizabeth Goddard
about impending curriculum changes
February 1959–Dr. Witte visits to meet
with Sherburne Committee; Oregon
NASW pays expenses of $300
Oregonian,
2/20/1959

20. January 6, 1959.
Response to Witte letter

21. January 7, 1959–meeting of social workers with
legislators from Multnomah, Washington and
Clackamas counties. Senator Monroe
Sweetland asks for a memo in order to request
a bill be written.

22. “The availability of skilled personnel to provide services to children is
severely limited. Oregon should give careful consideration to
establishing a graduate program of social work, in connection with our
System of Higher Education, in order that the critical and costly
shortage of graduate trained social workers in Oregon can be
alleviated.”
Governor Mark Hatfield inaugural address, January 12, 1959

23. Monroe Sweetland
“As long as Portland State was sort of a
glorified Community college, in which
technical and mechanical training were the
major offerings, the University and Oregon
State, as far as I remember, didn't’t offer any
great resistance. But when I proposed….I had
first to be convinced. But then the social
workers kept telling me that the fact that
Oregon had no School of Social Work, and
they had to go to Washington State or
California or other places to get advanced
work, was to the detriment of the quality of the
social workers we got in Oregon, because the
good ones wanted to go on up and get through
their degree work, then go on to other places,
we’d lose them and never get them back. And
practical considerations like that persuaded
me, I didn’t have to be persuaded very much,
that we ought to have a graduate school of
social work. Then, that raised the question,
would they permit, under the state system of
higher education, whether they wanted to start
giving degrees, doctoral degrees, masters work
to Portland State University instead of Oregon
or Oregon State?”

24. April 16, 1959 Ways and Means
Committee
April 18, Senate Joint Resolution
36
April 23, Passes House (Jean
Lewis)
April 23, Receives final legislative
approval

26. Helen Catlin memo after phone call with Allan Hart, August 13, 1959
“Passage of the resolution at the legislative session has paved the way, but
certainly not lulled us into a false sense of security about the whole thing.”
“Our offerings are three, as I see it now: Recruiting, preparation of agencies to
provide field service including the financial support this involves, and creation
of scholarships so very important in the first years when most existing ones
cannot be employed before accreditation is earned….
“The Resolution went from the Senate Education Committee (with their
blessing) to Ways & Means because—when asked—Dean Sherburne said he
estimated that an expenditure of $25,000 during this biennium would be
necessary to have the school ready for operation by the fall of 1961. However,
in the Ways & Means subcommittee its chairman, Senator Lewis, related that
Mr. Richards had told her that no special appropriation would be needed, thus
implying money could be found during this biennium to make necessary steps
to be ready to open for students by the fall of 1961. …..so I gathered happily
that $25,000 was minor money and could be garnered. The bill sponsor,
Sweetland, and I believe, Ways & Means Chairman Corbett, as well,
understood that no special or additional appropriation was needed to support
the Resolution as introduced (and passed).”

28. In an after-meeting discussion with Allan Hart he [Dean Richards] was scornful
of my understanding of it.
He maintained that there is no money for such purpose as the Finance office
would not allow it. (I had understood that the Higher Education budget is NOT
a line budget.) Both the Sherburne Committee recommendations and the
carrying out of the resolution are impossible without money, he said. Next
spring when he brings budget materials before the Board for the 1961-63
biennium he planned to bring these needs and ask the board to
consider inclusion.
Mr. Hart reported that Jean Lewis was shocked, that Monroe Sweetland is
amazed, and he does not know Alfred Corbett’s reaction. Senator Sweetland
was in Ashland and did have a chat with Richards. This was after Allan Hart
had labored the point that these three legislators had misunderstood the
Chancellor regarding the need or lack of same for an appropriation this time.

29. Katherine Clark
Elizabeth Goddard

30. Helen Catlin’s notes on a telephone conversation with Dean Sherburne
August 24, 1959 wherein a question was asked if Sherburne had any
information Catlin could relate to the Graduate School committee.
“After meeting when he had given his brief report, Wilson of
University came up and said the report had recommended the
University structure-wise. Dean Sherburne told him that he had been
asked to omit location part, just to give a report on social work
education. He indicated that Wilson seemed most eager to have the
school, did talk of Portland as the setting…Sherburne said Hart asked
him in the meeting if he had committed Board Funds without
authority—before a legislative committee, that is. No, no, no, said
Sherburne. He said he had estimated amount of cost during this
biennium when asked. Jolly old Richards did bring out in the
meeting his gem that it would be foolish to go ahead with this
recommended plan and hire a Dean, other faculty, make plans and
run the risk that the 1961 legislature might refuse to appropriate
money to open that fall. In closing Sherburne mentioned that
Senators Corbett, Lewis and Sweetland were important to the System
and that the Chancey would not them to misunderstand….When I
asked, Sherburne said his committee had been dismissed. The
Chancey had written them all thank-you notes. All in all Dr.
Sherburne sounds as if the Jig was up for any timetable as envisioned
by the Resolution.”

31. April 1959 - Final report from Sherburne Committee
October 1959 - U of O Committee appointed – Herb
Bisno chair
June 1960 - OSSHE meeting, Bisno Committee
reports

32. June 1960–OSSHE meeting,
PSC asked to prepare
proposal by September
- Hoffman Committee
January 1961–Legislation
passes to authorize funding of
graduate school of social
work
George C. Hoffman

39. The End….
Against all odds, the PSU School of
Social Work taught its first classes in
September 1962.
It graduated its first class of 15 in June
1964