Recent Changes Reflect Growth in Cal State L.A.'s College of Health and Human Services

California State University, Los Angeles has announced that its departments of Social Work and Nursing, located within the University's College of Health and Human Services, have been granted the status of School. The expansion and development of these departments characterizes the rapid growth and increased professional status of the College over the past five years.

Changes in Social Work

The Cal State L.A. School of Social Work contains 437 undergraduates, 153 graduate students and 12 full-time faculty. The baccalaureate program is accredited by the Council on Social Work Education. The Master of Social Work degree program, introduced in the 1996-97 academic year, has initial accreditation from the Council on Social Work Education. Dr. Thanh V. Tran, a leading national scholar in the area of research on health behaviors and well-being among various ethnic minority populations, has been named the director of the newly-designated School, as well as professor of social work. Prior to his appointment at Cal State L.A., Dr. Tran was director of the doctoral program at the School of Social Work at Boston College.

Changes in Nursing

The Cal State L.A. nursing program has been in existence as a department since the late 1960s and has been a unit in the College of Health and Human Services since its inception. The School of Nursing comprises about 200 pre-nursing majors, slightly over 200 undergraduate nursing students, more than 100 graduate students and 24 full-time faculty. The nursing programs are approved by the California Board of Registered Nursing and recently received continuing eight-year accreditation from the National League for Nursing Accrediting Commission (NLNAC).

Since 2000, when it began surveying nursing graduate programs, U.S. News and World Report "Best Colleges" issue has listed Cal State L.A.'s nursing graduate program among the top five programs in California and the highest ranked CSU system School of Nursing. Dr. Judith Papenhausen, the chair of the Department of Nursing for the past six years and a nursing faculty member since 1972, directs the School.

Dr. Papenhausen received her B.S. and M.S. in nursing, both with high honors, from Cal State L.A., completed predoctoral work at USC and received her doctorate at the University of Texas at Austin. In 1999, she was honored with the first Cal State L.A. Faculty Alumni Award. She is the president of the California Association of Colleges of Nursing.

College of Health and Human Services

Student-centered, faculty and staff-focused, and community-minded, Cal State L.A.'s College of Health and Human Services is committed to educating and preparing human service professionals to become innovative practitioners and leaders. This education is effected within an interdisciplinary framework that integrates teaching, research, policy, and public service in multicultural urban settings.

The College comprises more than 60 full-time and numerous part-time faculty members and 29 staff members, the College serves approximately 4,000 undergraduate and graduate majors.