The University of Denver Graduate School of Social Work is pleased to announce that Professor Jim Moran will return to his tenured GSSW faculty position beginning in September, 2009.
A PhD graduate of the University of Wisconsin, Prof. Moran first joined the GSSW faculty as an Assistant Professor in 1987. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 1992 and to Professor in 1998. He served as GSSW's Associate Dean for Research and Doctoral Studies from 1993 to 1996, Research Director from 1996 to 1998 and as Director of the Doctoral Program from 1999 to 2002, when he was appointed as the University's Vice Provost for Graduate Studies and Research. In this capacity, he was elected to the Council of Graduate School Board of Directors, participated on the Graduate Record Exam Minority Advisory Board and served as the President of the Western Association of Graduate Schools.
Also while serving as Vice Provost for Graduate Studies and Research, Prof. Moran supported the University's sponsored research by establishing health insurance and annual stipend increases for Graduate Research Assistants. He worked collaboratively with the Faculty Senate to establish and fine-tune the internal Professional Research Opportunities for Faculty (PROF) grant process, helping to provide additional resources to University faculty as they produce new knowledge and create new work.
In 2007, Prof. Moran was named Outstanding Administrator by the University's Center for Multicultural Excellence.
"I will miss Jim's conscientious leadership, wise counsel and unflappable demeanor," says University Provost Gregg Kvistad. "But I am delighted that he will be rejoining our faculty as the productive scholar and excellent teacher that he has always been."
An enrolled member of the Little Shell Chippewa tribe, Prof. Moran focuses his research on cultural identity among urban American Indians, and on the prevention of alcohol use and abuse among American Indian youth and families. During his previous years at GSSW, he conducted a federally funded demonstration project in the Denver Public Schools that provided American Indian youth with cognitive and educational interventions to prevent substance abuse. He subsequently was funded by the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention to extend that work with American Indian families. He intends to renew his research activities when he returns to GSSW in September.
"Under Jim's leadership, graduate education and research at the University of Denver have continued on a very positive trajectory," says GSSW Dean James Herbert Williams. "I look forward to having Jim as a faculty colleague when he returns to our school. His accomplishments in research and administration will strengthen GSSW both regionally and nationally."
