Doctorate of Social Work: Online

The online DSW curriculum culminates in a capstone project that provides you with an opportunity to explore real-world challenges in social work, establish your identity as an advanced social work professional, and assert your expertise in a specific area of interest. You are welcome to be creative with the medium and delivery of your project, whether it takes the form of a website or a plan to take your private practice in new and inspiring directions. You will present your capstone project to classmates and DSW faculty during your final semester.

The DSW Program is 48 credits with a total of 15 courses, which is typically completed within 2 to 4 years. Students take three courses in each of the three core areas of leadership, practice and teaching. Additional coursework enables students to shape their skills as research-informed practitioners. In order to advance to candidacy in the Capstone Seminar course, students will need to successfully complete the Integrative Seminar course, which includes the Integrative Paper. Once candidacy is achieved, students can begin work on their capstone project, where they integrate their learning via the lens of anti-racism, diversity, equity, inclusion, and power. The completed capstone project includes a plan for dissemination of the represented knowledge and is presented to faculty and their peers.

As part of the nation’s first school of social work, our program enjoys a rich history of training clinical social workers. The mission of the DSW program is to prepare competent, scholar-practitioners to be transformative social justice leaders in advanced clinical and community practice, and social work education. Our students are better able to serve populations harmed by oppression and inequality with integrity and targeted interventions that facilitate social, racial, economic, and environmental justice. They learn a multifaceted approach to social justice with attention to the principles of diversity, equity, inclusion, intersectionality, power analysis, and anti-racism (DEIPAR). Our students apply their social justice learning to both the person and the environment, to assess decision-making considerations, and to implement novel approaches at the micro, mezzo, and macro levels. This enables our students’ development as systemic and global thinkers whose enhanced respect for human diversity, dignity, self-worth, and the importance of human relationships equips them to promote individual, community, organizational, and societal well-being, the advancement of human rights, and the elimination of poverty across local, regional, and national contexts. The DSW program is designed by expert faculty-practitioners who train students to engage in systematic inquiry to effectively evaluate and critique scholarly conventions, to disseminate advanced-level evidence-based knowledge, and to influence all practice levels by partnering with and amplifying the strengths of the communities served.