On February 8, a researcher from Washington, D.C., will present her findings about the life of Elsa Leichter, an MSASS alum and Austrian refugee social worker whose American social work career started in Cleveland during WWII. Researcher Barbara Reiterer, a Doctoral Fellow in Residence at the German Historical Institute in Washington, D.C., will discuss how Leichter found refuge as a social worker. The lecture, entitled, Elsa Leichter's Second Chance: Interruptions and Continuities in a Refugee Social Worker's Transatlantic Career, will be held on February 8 at 4:30 p.m. in Room 320 at the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences. Reiterer's talk is free and open to the public. During World War II, American social work provided a professional refuge for Leichter, a Jewish exile from Vienna who came to the United States on the eve of World War II. Reiterer's research provides a history of Austrian and American social work in the mid-twentieth century and the experiences of Jewish women exiles in the United States. Even though a cursory glance at Leichter’s biography may yield a neat and smooth narrative, interruptions complicated her life. After serving 12 years as a social worker for the Vienna city municipality, she had to start over when she came to the U.S. It was in Cleveland where she received her "big second chance," as she repeatedly said. Reiterer's discussion of Leichter will trace her complex, often difficult career path, for which her time at the Mandel School played a central role. Leichter received her degree in social work from Case Western Reserve University in 1942. She went on to work for the Jewish Family Service in New York City where she earned distinction in the field of family therapy. Starting in the 1970s, she traveled to Europe to give lectures and workshops, thus contributing to the transatlantic circulation of knowledge in the applied social sciences. She died in 1997 at the age of 92.

Bingo may be a popular activity in nursing homes, but MSASS Dean Grover Gilmore is seeing a lot more benefits that extend well beyond socializing. According to Gilmore and other psychology researchers, the high-contrast, large bingo cards boost thinking and playing skills for people with cognitive difficulties and visual perception problems produced by Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and Parkinson’s disease (PD). The findings were reported in the journal Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition. Learn more

The story of a Girl Scout troop in Austin, Texas, has a connection close to home, thanks to MSASS alumna Darlene Grant. For 11 years, the 1984 MSSA grad from the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences was in charge of the program evaluation for a therapeutic prison visitation involving girls with incarcerated mothers. The program was among several Girl Scouts Beyond Bars programs -- the only one that is designed around the social work ideal of providing wrap-around services to at-risk youth.

International travel was the highlight of this week's Observer , the student newspaper at Case Western Reserve University. Trips to Ecuador and Bangladesh will be taking place over winter break, thanks to the MSASS Study Abroad program. In addition to trips scheduled in January, a whole new round of travel begins for students who want to immerse themselves in cross-cultural studies, social policy and mental health. Spring break opportunities are still available to those who want to travel to Guatemala, the Netherlands or Poland.

Case Western Reserve University students enrolled in the MSASS study travel course to Ecuador got an inside view of international relations from a special guest on December 3. Former U.S. Ambassador Heather M. Hodges gave a presentation at the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences on the current political situation in Ecuador and offered insights into her expulsion from the country earlier this year. Hodges, a native of Cleveland, arrived shortly before 1:30 p.m. to meet with students and MSASS faculty members Mark Chupp, Sonia Minnes and Debby Jacobson. Professor Chupp set up the visit through the Cleveland Council of World Affairs, where Hodges recently began as president.

What does the future hold for the next generation of nonprofit leaders? We posed this question to Robert Fischer, PhD, co-director of the Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development. Fischer gave us his views on the realities of a tough job market and the potential opportunities for young social work graduates. A recent article in The Plain Dealer, entitled "Young nonprofit graduates struggling to find jobs here," raises an important topic, but also casts light on the realities of nonprofit organizations and the limited data we have about them. The survey report in the article, credited to The Young Nonprofit Professional Network, was based on a class project by three master's students in a nonprofit management course I taught at Case Western Reserve University in the fall of 2010.