Past Work of the Gamble-Skogmo Chair
About the Former Gamble-Skogmo Land Grant Chair Holders
Susan J.
Wells has long focused on child welfare practice and policy with
special interests in risk assessment and screening, decision-making,
service coordination, and promoting research-based practice.
While Gamble-Skogmo Chair from 2001 to 2009, she developed a child welfare research
agenda to help guide policy and practice in Minnesota. She served as
principal investigator on studies of foster care placement stability and
reentry into foster care in Hennepin County, a study for Minnesota’s
African American Racial Disparities Committee and the Minnesota
Department of Human Services involving racial disparities in out-of-home
care, and with Ramsey County to
evaluate the implementation of the Children’s Bureau Comprehensive
Family Assessment Guidelines.
Dr Wells is a member of the editorial board of Children and
Youth Services Review and has served as an expert consultant on a
variety of national panels including the Child Trends advisory panel on
establishing child well-being measures for child welfare services. In
addition to consultation and presentations at national conferences, Dr.
Wells has numerous publications in the field of child welfare.
She currently holds a joint appointment as professor in
psychology and social work at the University of British Columbia
Okanagan.
Glenda
Dewberry Rooney's experience spans over twenty years in human
service and higher education organizations. She has been involved in
community based research and development projects, which included the
design, and development of the nationally recognized family
reunification and permanency program for African American youth,
and “Defining Neglect: A Community Perspective,” a project of the
Minneapolis Human Services Network. Dr Rooney has provided both clinical
and management consultation and training in the metro area, in Taiwan,
Ghana and The Netherlands. From 1999-2001, Dr. Rooney, on leave from
Augsburg College, was a Visiting Professor and the Interim Gamble-Skogmo
Land Grant Chair in Child Welfare and Youth Policy, School of Social
Work, University of Minnesota.
Currently, she is a professor at Augsburg College, the chair of
the board of Our Children, Our Future, and a spokesperson for the
Commission on Minnesota’s African American Children (COMAAC).
Michael
Baizerman is currently the Director of the Youth Studies program at
the University of Minnesota School of Social Work, which offers an
undergraduate major and minor. Dr.
Baizerman continues his research on youth involvement in civic issues
and in the philosophical and human sciences understandings of the idea
of “youth” including how it is represented, theorized and lived.
He served as the Acting Gamble-Skogmo
Land Grant Chair in Child Welfare and Youth Policy from 1997-1999.
Geraldine
Kearse Brookins has held prominent positions in major philanthropic
foundations, universities, and community organizations. In her capacity
as vice president for Youth and Education and Higher Education at the W.
K. Kellogg Foundation, she managed a professional and operational staff
of 40 individuals and supervised the distribution of more than $60
million for the unit's grants program. A recognized researcher and
authority in child development, Dr. Brookins' career as a university
professor required a comprehensive understanding of the management of
diverse public and private universities. Her most recent academic
position was the Gamble-Skogmo Land Grant Professor of Child Welfare and
Youth Policy at the University of Minnesota where she held appointments
in three schools: the School of Social Work, the Hubert H. Humphrey
Institute of Public Affairs, and the Institute of Child Development. At
Jackson State University (Jackson, MS), she was professor of psychology,
and she founded, raised significant funds for, and directed, the
Research Institute for Socio-Technical Problems.
