Stanley L. Witkin, MSSW, PhD

Stanley Witkin is an adjunct professor in the DSW program of the School of Social Policy & Practice, and a writing consultant for students in the PhD program. His primary scholarly interests center on the transformative potential of social construction as applied to social work theory, research and practice. He has been a Fulbright scholar in Finland and Ireland, and a visiting scholar at universities in Canada, Australia, the United Kingdon, Israel, and Hong Kong. He is a former editor-in-chief of Social Work and has served on several editorial/advisory boards such as Qualitative Social Work, International Journal of Social Welfare, Journal of Nordic Social Work, and the Hong Kong Journal of Social Work. In addition to numerous journal articles and book chapters, edited or authored books include: Transforming Social Work: Social Constructionist Perspectives on Contemporary and Enduring Issues (2017), Narrating Social Work Through Autoethnography (2014, selected as a Choice Outstanding Title by the American Library Association), Social Construction and Social Work Practice: Interpretations and Innovations (2012), Social Work Dialogues: Transforming the canon in inquiry, practice and education (with Dennis Saleebey, 2007). In 2022 he published a novel, Finding Lenny.

Professor Witkin earned his MSSW and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He also holds an honorary doctorate in social science from the University of Lapland in Rovaniemi Finland where he developed an international program entitled, “Social Work and Social Science from a Global Perspective” (1998 – 2019). During his tenure, the program hosted over 1000 students and faculty from approximately 50 countries.