Your officers for the 2005-2007 term

President: Susan Darien
Vice President: Tom Pacia
Secretary: Nancy Stevens-Kagan
Treasurer: Diane Hess
RUAF Representatives: Pat Nagle and Tom Pacia

Below is the schedule for the SSWAA Board meetings for the year 2005-2006. All meetings will be held on Mondays at 6:00PM in Winants Hall. Alumni are welcome to attend our meetings and become actively involved. If interested in attending, please contact:

M. Isabel Vecchio
Secretarial Assistant III
Alumni Relations
Winants Hall - 7 College Ave.
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1262
Ph. 732-932-7696
Email: vecchio@winants.rutgers.edu

September 12, 2005
November 14, 2005
December 5, 2005 (Holiday Gathering @ Rutgers Club)
January 9, 2006
March 13, 2006
May 8, 2006

Acting Governor Richard J. Codey recently signed legislation S-2334 which allows college graduates to forgo repaying as much as $20,000 in college loans if they take hard-to-fill social service jobs. Your SSWAA officially supported this legislation which was sponsored by NASW-NJ.

When the program takes effect in January, recent undergraduate and graduate social services' students will be able to eliminate $5000 in student loans each year for up to four years if they work at a state, county or state-contracted nonprofit mental health or developmental disability agency in New Jersey. Eligible applicants are required to be New Jersey residents and must reside in the State while taking part in the program. Students must have attained a bachelor or master's degree within one year prior to being hired as a full-time health care professional.

For more information, please see the NASW-NJ website.

The School of Social Work Alumni Association invites you to share interesting details of your professional careers with your fellow alumni. Or, if you wish to highlight some special Social Work activity or event, please email your story or information to tpacia@alumni.rutgers.edu. If your submission is selected, it will be showcased on the alumni website at http://socialwork.rutgers.edu/sswaa.html. Be sure to keep your submission brief and include your contact information. Submissions may be edited before they are posted.

Today's special feature highlights Gerald Amada, Ph.D. and his wife, Marcia. Both earned their MSWs from Rutgers SSW and married a few months after graduation.

Dr. Gerald Amada was one of the founders and a director of the Mental Health Program, City College of San Francisco and is now retired after a thirty-year career at that college. He currently serves on the Education Committee of the Marin County, California, Human Rights Commission. He has also recently retired from a 35-year private psychotherapy practice. He received B.A. and M.S.W. degrees from Rutgers University and a Ph.D. in social and clinical psychology at the Wright Institute, Berkeley, California. He has published 9 books and over 75 articles and book reviews on the subjects of mental health, psychotherapy, and student conduct issues. His latest books are The Mystified Fortune-Teller and other Tales from Psychotherapy, The Power of Negative Thinking (Madison Books),Coping with the Disruptive College Student: A Practical Model, Coping with Misconduct in the College Classroom: A Practical Model and Mental Health and Student Conduct Issues on the College Campus: A Reading (College Administration Publications). He has lectured at over one hundred colleges and universities throughout the United States and Canada on the subject of the disruptive college student for over the last 25 years.

Dr. Amada has been a book reviewer for the American Journal of Psychotherapy, University Press of America, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Journal of College Student Psychotherapy. He is a member of the editorial board and is the book review editor of the last-mentioned journal. He is the recipient of the 1984 Award of Excellence in the category of administrator, Post Secondary Education, conferred by the National Education Special Needs Personnel, Region 5, which comprises 18 states. Dr. Amada's first novel, Anker's Plight , will be published in January, 2006, by Archebooks (pronounced Ark-e). It is an autobiographical tale, told satirically, of a psychologist's struggle to permanently establish a mental health program on a college campus.

Dr. Amada's wife, Marcia, also received an M.S.W. from Rutgers University, New Brunswick. Dr. Amada and Marcia met at the School of Social Work and married a few months after graduation. Marcia worked for many years as a social worker at a local convalescent hospital where she did stellar work with patients and their families. In addition, she founded and did volunteer work for the Alzheimer's Association of Marin County, California. For her outstanding volunteer services, she three times received the Marin County Volunteer of the Year Award. The Amada's have four children and six grandchildren and a wonderfully cute dog by the name of Chatchke.

Donald R. Fell: Is Executive Director of the Wisconsin Paralyzed Veterans of America and Centennial President of the New Berlin Rotary Club. Daughter, Vanessa Fell Haluska, is a 1995 grad of Rutgers College. Both father and daughter are Phi Beta Kappa. Donald has 4 grandchildren and is an avid bicyclist at the National Veterans Wheelchair Games.

Rev. Marion A. Jackson: Received his Doctor of Ministry degree from Wesley Theological Seminary. Reverend Jackson is moving to First Methodist Church in Montclair, NJ.

Rev. Robert J. Clark: MSW, ACSW, class of 1977. Reverend Clark was appointed to the Board of Trustees at Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital. He retired from the Dept. of Veterans Affairs where he was Director of the Community Residential Program.

Rev. Melissa F. Pascale: Has been working 5 years in the field and plans on taking the Licensure test this Summer.

Rev. Margo C. Wenzel: Class of '95. Margo practices Social Work in a long-term care Nursing home at New Brunswick's F.E. Parker Memorial Home.

Alumni Support

The School of Social Work welcomes your support. If you would like to make a gift to the school, please contact the Rutgers University Foundation.