The Elizabeth Wisner Social Welfare Research Center for Families and Children at Tulane University

Dean Elizabeth Wisner

Tulane School of Social Work (TSSW) appointed Dr. Elizabeth Wisner as its director in 1933 and later as its first dean in 1937. Wisner was the first woman dean in Tulane’s history. The first decade of her tenure at Tulane is marked by the emergence of precedent setting federal social welfare legislation. Many of Wisner’s research endeavors focused on the implications of welfare policy on families and children as well as social work education. Until her retirement in 1958, Wisner put a strong emphasis on the role of research and community partners in the education and practice of social workers at various levels. Wisner’s contributions greatly influenced the development of the profession of social work and its educators. Under her leadership, more than 1,000 students graduated from TSSW, with many going on to become leaders in their communities and academic fields. At least six of her graduates eventually became deans at distinguished schools of social work. Wisner considered the achievements of her students her greatest contribution writing, “The rewards of teaching are sometimes intangible and unpredictable and must lie mainly in the subsequent contributions and achievements of former students and alumni. In this respect I feel richly rewarded.”

The Elizabeth Wisner Social Welfare Research Center for Families and Children

In 1982, TSSW established the Elizabeth Wisner Social Welfare Research Center for Families and Children continuing the educational and academic legacy of Elizabeth Wisner for years to come. The Wisner Center’s objective was to pursue research agendas that reflected Wisner’s particular interests in social work education and history, as well as social issues, policies, and services that impact families and children. TSSW Dean, Margaret Campbell, determined the specific research agenda to include cost-effective recruitment strategies for foster parents, effective approaches to adoption placements, and behavioral intervention methods for parents who neglect or abuse their children. As the only community-based research center in Louisiana, the initial agenda was later adapted to more adequately address the pressing needs of the surrounding community.

The primary purpose of the Wisner Center’s research projects was to create a body of knowledge that increased the effectiveness of social work practice and improved the lives of service recipients. Within the Wisner’s Center first 3 years, affiliated faculty, graduate students, and community partners collaborated to complete the following studies: A Study of Crisis Transportation Service, A Longitudinal Study of Cognitive Styles of Low-Income Black Children in the New Orleans Public School System, A Psychobiological Study of Mothers’ Recognition of Their Infants by Smell, A Needs Assessment Survey for The United Way, and A National Study of Aggressive and Destructive Behavior in Families of the Mentally Ill.

Organizational Structure

As a substructure of the TSSW, the Wisner Center does not require a structured organizational edifice. It maintains a director who manages a fluid structure of affiliated research faculty and graduate students contributing to stated research agendas and goals. The research goals of the center vary under the stewardship of each director, but all activity falls under the broad intellectual umbrella of children and families. Currently, and consistent with the stated values of Dean Elizabeth Wisner, Dr. Fred Buttell, intentionally directs funds toward the research projects of junior faculty and graduate students. Particularly, graduate students are assigned to junior faculty and are funded by the Wisner Center to work as research assistants on faculty projects. In this way, the Wisner Center functions as a platform promoting both the professional success of assistant faculty and graduate students and research endeavors purposed for improving social work practice, social work education, and policy change.

Funding Sources and Physical Resources

The Wisner Center is financially supported by an endowment fund bequeathed by Dr. Florence Sytz, a former TSSW faculty member who worked alongside Elizabeth Wisner in the development of social work curriculum and education. The endowment provides US$35,000–US$45,000 for research endeavors on an annual basis. Research funding is awarded at the discretion of the Wisner Center director. Depending on the fiscal demands of the project, two to seven projects may be funded per year.

After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Tulane University implemented a financial management plan termed Decentralized Management Centers (DMC). In cooperation with the DMC model, each individual school affiliated with the university is now independently responsible for its own revenues and expenditures. In addition, each school pays the university administration a tax allocated toward the monetary support of nonrevenue generating campus entities (e.g., libraries and Provost’s Office). Buttell and Devine (2014) draw attention to the impact of DMC on interdisciplinary programs noting that affiliated schools are independently responsible for any resources required for the success of these programs including faculty, office supplies, office space, and so on. Similarly, the TSSW independently contributes resources toward the continuing operation of the Wisner Center. Specifically, although the Wisner Center possesses independent funds allocated toward particular research projects, physical resources such as office space, technology, salaries, and other research tools are subsumed in the TSSW annual budget. As it pertains to Wisner Center staff, TSSW pays the director’s salary, provides resources to support the appointed faculty in his or her new directorial role, and assigns other faculty to those responsibilities the Wisner Center director may no longer be capable of overseeing within the School of Social Work. While funds pertaining to actual research projects remain sustainable, the adherence to the DCM model and TSSW’s budgetary limitations significantly bound the available resources and structural growth of the Wisner Center overall.

Completed Projects and Publications

Dr. Raymond Swan, the first director of the Wisner Center, worked closely with local agencies in the design of research agendas and projects. The goal of these collaborations was to conjointly produce knowledge helpful in developing effective social work practice and service delivery within agencies. The Wisner Center’s initial research study investigated the predictors of violence in families with a mentally handicapped relative (Swan & Lavitt, 1988). Swan and McGaha (1990) conducted a follow-up study exploring the coping techniques of caregivers of violent mentally ill relatives. In response to the discontinuation of Louisiana’s General Assistance Program in 1985, Marks and Swan (1987) conducted a research study determining the impact of cancelled benefits on welfare recipients. As the number of local agencies began to increase in the mid- to late 1980s, the Wisner Center funded a research project designed to evaluate the Information and Referral Systems utilized in local service agencies (Swan, Mills, & Seemann, 1988). Finally, piloted a research study examining client satisfaction among recipients of services provided by Louisiana Office of Community Services: Child Protection/Investigation, Family Services, and Services to Parents.

In 2008, the Wisner Center refined its research focus to address the pervasive issue of domestic violence and its impact on families and children. Newly appointed director Fred Buttell, PhD, worked with affiliated faculty to develop a strategic plan supporting research efforts directed at the complex issue of violence in families and communities. The purpose of this plan was to improve the lives of children and adults who are victims of domestic violence. The Wisner Center’s newly stated goals include the following: support research projects examining the causes and consequences of domestic violence, promote the development of new frameworks for understanding family violence, and utilize findings from research to inform interventions directed at reducing violence in families and communities. Action steps associated with the stated goals included the publication of articles in peer-reviewed journals and the presentation of relevant research findings to scholars, practitioners, and policy makers locally, nationally, and internationally.

Consistent with this new direction, the Wisner Center funded various projects evaluating the effectiveness of intervention programs directed toward intimate partner violence (IPV). A sampling, rather than an enumeration, of the kinds of research projects funded recently include Carney and Buttell (2008) evaluated the state program standards of a batterer intervention program (BIP) by examining the differences in psychosocial and demographic variables between program completers and program dropouts. Buttell, Powers, and Wong (2012) assessed predictors of attrition for a large sample of women participating in a court-mandated BIP. Similarly, Ferreira and Buttell (2014) examined the psychosocial predictors of the propensity of abusiveness for women participating in a court-mandated BIP. Finally, Burnette and Cannon (2014) used qualitative methods to identify U.S. indigenous women’s perspective concerning IPV facing women, children, and families in a tribe in the southeastern United States. The purpose of the project was to develop a body of knowledge that addresses the issue of violence within indigenous communities from a holistic perspective using the framework of colonization and family violence.

Current Projects

The Wisner Center continues to fund research endeavors of faculty and graduate students today. Currently, it is funding a research project examining the predictors of IPV during and post-disaster. Using data derived from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention Gulf States Population Survey, this study examines the predictors of IPV and the perceived level of social and emotional support of IPV victims after the Deep Horizon Oil Spill. The purpose of this study is to investigate the possibility of increased vulnerability of IPV victims post-disaster as well as identify gaps in policy and resources available to IPV victims post-disaster. The research study is expected to produce a peer-reviewed journal article in 2015.

The Wisner Center is also funding a project that utilizes a survey to determine the methods and outcomes of 3,500 BIPs in the United States and Canada. In particular, the survey examines program facilitator attributes, client demographics, facilitator insights, and program logistics. The purpose of this study is to better understand the various approaches and outcomes in BIPs across the United States and Canada as well as to cultivate a body of knowledge that contributes to the development of more focused policy recommendations. A published report illustrating the findings of this study is expected in 2015.

Future Plans for the Center

As mentioned previously, Tulane University is committed to a DMC model for the foreseeable future. As a result, research support from the larger university or TSSW for faculty research projects is largely dependent on both the tax set by Tulane administration and the revenue generated by tuition, indirect cost recovery on grants and gifts. The variability in available funding from year to year under the DMC model makes it improbable that significant funds will be committed to supporting faculty in long-term research projects. Given the difficult fiscal environment currently in place in higher education nationally, it also seems unlikely that large financial investments in junior faculty research agendas are on the horizon. Available funding for faculty research projects is dwindling nationwide, as evidenced by the 20% decrease in National Institutes of Health funding over the last 5 years (Boadi, 2014). The Wisner Center is invaluable in this kind of a funding climate because it provides resources and opportunities for junior faculty to refine their research skills and explore new research areas. In addition, the jump-start the Wisner Center provides to junior faculty and graduate students offers the potential to develop preliminary or pilot data for larger federal grant applications and provides more opportunities for publication. In this way, the financial autonomy of the Wisner Center is critical to the success of TSSW junior faculty, which, in turn, is critical to the success of TSSW overall. In moving forward, the Wisner Center continues to support the research endeavors of junior faculty and graduate students with the purpose of further developing social work education and practice in ways that address the evolving needs of families and children locally, nationally, and internationally.