Livingstone College

 Program Information 

Accredited by the Council on Social Work Education, the Social Work Department offers the Bachelor of Social Work (B.S.W.) Degree. Graduates of Livingstone College’s Social Work Program are prepared for entry-level professional employment in public and private agencies such as child welfare agencies, schools, hospitals, and service agencies for the elderly and handicapped. Careers also involve work with the developmentally disabled, homeless shelters, and housing programs. 

The goals for the program are designed to enable graduates to articulate a practice paradigm that emerges from a commitment to human rights, social and economic justice, and individualized strength and collective empowerment. The following goals are rendered from this guiding programmatic commitment. 

1. To provide a curriculum that prepares graduates for competent beginning professional generalist social work practice with diverse client systems guided by the values and ethics of the social work profession. 

2. To provide a curriculum that prepares graduates to advance human rights and social, economic, and environmental justice as well as engage in policy practice and prevention activities that are designed to prepare graduates to identify, assess, and develop strategies that change conditions that impede, infringe, and deny clients these justices with the aim to promote healthy functioning and well-being of diverse client systems. 

3. To provide a curriculum that prepares graduates to alleviate poverty, oppression, and other forms and mechanisms of injustice. 

4. To provide a curriculum that prepares graduates to engage in practice-informed research and research-informed practice in order to undertake a scientific, analytic evidence-based research approach to practice to enable them to adapt to an ever changing practice environment. 

5. To provide a curriculum that prepares graduates to utilize the generalist intervention model to enable them to effectively practice with diverse, individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities. 

The B.S.W. Program builds on the traditional liberal arts general education base. The program trains its graduates to perform as a beginning generalist practitioner to serve the global community. Graduates also maintain awareness for lifelong learning, continuing education, or graduate and specialist study. 

Social Work majors must fulfill the forty-seven (47) general education credit requirements of the College. Majors must also complete forty-two (42) credit requirements for professional foundation courses, fifteen (15) credit requirements in cognate or support courses for the major, nine (9) credit requirements in Social Work elective courses, and nine (9) credit requirements in free electives. Additionally, Social Work majors must complete six (6) credits in spanish and six (6) credits of college mathematics. 

Note: Please refer to the Program’s Plan of Study for the minimum grade requirement in these specific course content areas. 

Students who wish to major in Social Work must apply for admission to both the College and the Social Work Program. There are two (2) separate admission requirements as specified in the “Admission Procedure” section of the Social Work Department Student Handbook. Copies of the handbook may be obtained from the Director of the Social Work Department. After admission to the program, students must maintain a 2.5 GPA in major courses and 2.0 GPA overall. 

All senior Social Work majors are required to a fifty dollar ($50) field instruction fee at the time they register for SWK 460: Field Instruction/Seminar course, and must make arrangements for transportation to and from their field placement site prior to the beginning of the course. 

If you would like additional information about the Social Work Department, please contact Dr. Walter L. Ellis at the information below. 

Walter L. Ellis, PhD 
Professor and Program Director 
Social Work Department 

Livingstone College 
701 W. Monroe Street 
Salisbury, NC 28144 
704-216-6218 
wellis@livingstone.edu