10th MLK Legacy Lecture: Dr. Alice Skirtz
July 10, 2014 | 1:00-2:45 pm
Holiday Inn Ballroom
1717 Airport Exchange Blvd. | Erlanger, Kentucky 41018
Union Institute & University’s Ph.D. program marks its 10th MLK Legacy Lecture with special guest speaker and alumna Dr. Alice Skirtz. This lecture is free and open to the public.
Dr. Skirtz, Ph.D., LISW-S, has more than 40 years of social work experience working with programs that serve the poor—homeless shelters, family services, emergency assistance, adult and child daycare, and teen parent residential services. She formerly served as the Director of Social Services for The Salvation Army (Cincinnati – SWONEKY Division) and was Case Work Supervisor for the Family Shelter Partnership Program, a Cincinnati/Hamilton County Continuum of Care (CoC) collaboration of five shelters serving homeless families. She is presently affiliated with Miami University Center for Community Engagement in Over-the-Rhine (OTR) working with undergraduate students during a semester of living and working in the OTR community.
Dr. Skirtz earned her master’s degree in Social Work from Ohio State University in 1973 and her Ph.D. from Union Institute & University in 2006. Her Ph.D. dissertation was titled The Place Known as Over-the-Rhine: A Self-reflective Study of a Twentieth Century Urban Community Marginalized by the “Problem of Poverty.”
She is a Licensed Independent Social Worker Supervisor (LISW-S), and a member of the Academy of Certified Social Workers (ACSW). As an active volunteer, she is a board member of Affordable Housing Advocates (AHA); a founding member of the Greater Cincinnati Homeless Coalition; a past chair of the City of Cincinnati Community Development Advisory Board (CDAB); and board member and past president of the Metropolitan Area Religious Coalition of Cincinnati (MARCC), a coalition convened to work on urban social justice issues. In 2012, she chaired the steering committee for the “Family Homelessness & Housing Stability Study” for the Greater Cincinnati Homeless Coalition.
Dr. Skirtz has authored works on urban issues and social justice including Econocide: Elimination of the Urban Poor published by the National Association of Social Workers Press in 2012. She also wrote “Whither the Social Workers? Why the Silence?” Social Work 53:(3) July 2008; “Walk the Talk” in Owens, R. (Ed) Faith in Children: Stories from Faith-based Children’s Centers, (2007); and, “Welfare Reform, the Northwest Ordinance, and Me.” Journal of Poverty, 3(2), Fall 1999.
She recently received the 2013 Lifetime Achievement Award presented by the National Association of Social Workers Ohio Chapter, and the 2012 Charles P. Taft Civic Gumption Award presented by The Charter Committee of Greater Cincinnati.
Learn more about Union Institute & University’s Ph.D. program.