UA Social Work Graduate Student Wins SOGIE Award

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Sarah Young, a doctoral student in The University of Alabama School of Social Work, has been named a winner of the 2014 CSWE Council on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Expression Scholarship Award.

Young won the award following the acceptance of her paper, “LGBTQ Organizing Beyond ‘Low-Hanging Fruit’: A Qualitative Examination of Safe Schools Coalitions in the South” by the Annual Program Meeting.

The SOGIE Scholarship Award, working in collaboration with the Council on Social Work Education, honors excellence in scholarship that contributes to knowledge about sexual orientation and gender identity and expression, including individual and systemic issues, curriculum materials, faculty growth opportunities, and the experiences of individuals who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and/or two-spirit.

“Sarah is very passionate about her work and a strong advocate for the LGBTQ community,” said Dr. Brenda Smith, interim chair of the P.h.D Program in the School of Social Work. “She has been actively involved in issues facing the bisexual community.”

In 2012, Young attended a dinner with Vice President Joe Biden honoring the nation’s emerging LGBT leaders and was also invited back in 2013 for a roundtable discussion on issues facing the bisexual community.

Along with others, Young will be recognized in a special ceremony at the Council on Social Work Education’s Annual Program Meeting in Tampa, Florida in October.

The Council on Social Work Education is a nonprofit national association representing more than 2,500 individual members, as well as graduate and undergraduate programs of professional social work education. Founded in 1952, this partnership of educational and professional institutions, social welfare agencies, and private citizens is recognized by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation as the sole accrediting agency for social work education in this country.