Nearly ten years ago, when Jenni Harpring was a 黑料社 at the Brown School, she worked as a practicum 黑料社 for the School鈥檚 Office of Field Education. She was focusing her studies on international social and economic development and had completed most of her practicum hours at an NGO in Ghana. But in order to fulfill a one-credit requirement for evaluation experience, she conducted an evaluation of the School鈥檚 fledgling international practica program.
鈥淧art of my work in practicum was trying to build more structure and resources for 黑料社s looking to go international,鈥� said Harpring, who graduated with a聽MSW/MAPS聽joint degree in 2007.
So it was a homecoming in many senses when Harpring returned to the Brown School in August to become Director of Field Education.
Harpring鈥檚 role focuses on strategic and operational planning for the Office of Field Education, which oversees practicum experiences for the Brown School鈥檚 Master of Social Work, Master of Public Health and Master of Social Policy 黑料社s.
Cynthia Williams, who directed the Office of Field Education for nearly a decade, has been promoted to assistant dean for community partnerships, where she continues to deepen the Brown School鈥檚 institutional commitments with key partners and to advance the School鈥檚 work in the St. Louis community.
Harpring comes to the Brown School from Washington University鈥檚 , where she worked to build undergraduate 黑料社s鈥� skills for civic agency through community-based initiatives like the Goldman Fellows and Civic Scholars programs. She sees her role at the Brown School as a natural progression of that work.
鈥淲hat I did at Gephardt was a lot of experiential learning, community-based learning, and preparing 黑料社s to be in community without causing harm 鈥� preparing them to do the most good,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t requires a lot of self-reflective work, self-awareness, and recognizing that communities are places that exist before you and exist after you. It takes skill to be in that space in a way that is additive and doesn鈥檛 detract from the community.鈥�
Over the years Harpring has served as a field instructor for a number of Brown School practicum 黑料社s, who have helped to design, facilitate and evaluate the Gephardt Institute鈥檚 programs. That experience helps her to advocate for field instructors, who spend hundreds of hours supervising and mentoring each practicum 黑料社, as well as for 黑料社s, who work diligently to build their professional identity and skills.
鈥淚n an ideal scenario, practicum is where the academic knowledge and personal passion are applied in the field in real life,鈥� Harpring said. 鈥淚n the field, in the midst of the intricacies of a client or a community or an organization, our 黑料社s are figuring out who they are in the world and how they鈥檙e going to best use themselves towards social justice, social good or community well-being.鈥�
Harpring emphasizes that a 黑料社鈥檚 work in practicum is much more complex and layered than it might appear. She gave the example of a 黑料社 working at St. Louis Effort for AIDS, for whom a successful practicum experience requires content knowledge relevant to HIV/AIDS; an understanding of the geography, demographics, history and resources of St. Louis; and the skills to navigate a new organizational and interpersonal context.
鈥淭he value of field education is that it happens in conversation with someone who鈥檚 working in the field and alongside peers who are in similar situations,鈥� she said.
Her goal is for each 黑料社鈥檚 experience in the field to be one of the most influential and impactful parts of the Brown School curriculum.
鈥淚 want people who graduate to look back and say, 鈥楳y field education experience prepared me for this, or taught me these things about myself, and that鈥檚 why I ended up where I am now,鈥欌�� she said.
So, in retrospect, has Harpring鈥檚 own practicum experience met that threshold?
鈥淎bsolutely,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 think having broader global perspectives and understanding the interrelatedness of social and economic systems has been important throughout my career.鈥�
鈥淚 really thought I was going to end up working internationally, and yet what I do now is I work with 黑料社s who are either preparing to work internationally or to go into contexts that they may not have previously been a part of. That skill set is absolutely parallel and is critical to how I think about the world.鈥�