| Title: |
Term Faculty Term Assistant Professor |
| Dept: | Social Work |
| Office: | CB 326 |
| Phone: | 216-687-3564, 216-687-3564 |
| Fax: | (216)687-5590 |
| Email: | M.A.DOVER@csuohio.edu |
| Web: | http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mdover/ |
| Address: | 2121 Euclid Ave. CB 326, Cleveland, OH 44115 |
Education: | ||
|
B.S., Social Work, Adelphi University, 1978
M.S., Social Work, Columbia University, 1980 M.A., Sociology, University of Michigan, 1996 Ph.D., Social Work and Sociology, University of Michigan, 2003 | ||
| Brief Bio: | ||
| I am an Ohio native whose long Cleveland and Northeastern Ohio family roots affected my choice of Ohio for my dissertation research. My dissertation in Social Work and Sociology at the University of Michigan was based on four years of research in Toledo and at the Ohio Historical Center in Columbus, as well as visits to fifteen other Ohio cities including Cleveland. It was titled "The Social System of Real Property Ownership: Public and Nonprofit Property Tax Exemptions and Corporate Tax Abatements in City and Suburb, 1955-2000." I explored whether the growth of post-industrial complexes of public, nonprofit and religious property in our urban areas has had unintended negative consequences for the tax base of our urban schools and governments. I concluded that the growth in the proportion of property value which is exempt was the result of deindustrialization and population shifts that resulted in a lower rate of growth in the value of taxable property in our cities compared to our suburbs. The growth of exempt property has made our cities important regional centers of health, education and culture, but that consideration should be given to compensating cities for hosting these complexes of exempt property (as is done in one other state to a limited extent.) Also, I concluded that an issue for public and nonprofit administration ethics is that efforts should be made to construct exempt facilities on undeveloped land rather than displacing valuable taxable buildings from the tax rolls. My work is being updated for publication and I am working on a book to be titled, "Devoted Property: A History of the Real Property Tax Exemption in City and Suburb"
Practice Experience: The first item on my resume, one I don't consider to be a problem, is that I was a community organizer organizing tenants in for a Community Action agency in New York City's Chelsea neighborhood for two years in 1975-1976. Next, I was employed in the NYC Public Schools in one of the first programs designed following the passage of the Education of All Handicapped Children Act of 1974, and at a settlement house-based group home on the Lower East Side. After a total of five years of pre-M.S.W. community organizing, group work and casework experience in New York City, 1975-1980, I worked for ten years directing trade union-based member assistance programs in New Orleans, New York City and Philadelphia, as part of the early employee assistance field. Since 1982, I have also maintained a continuous affiliation as a part-time or full-time faculty member, faculty advisor, field instructor or graduate student instructor at a dozen social work schools and programs in New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, Michigan and Ohio. In 1991, I began lengthy doctoral studies at the University of Michigan in social work and sociology. This required taking all courses required of sociology doctoral students as well as the required social work doctoral courses, passing preliminary examinations in both sociology and social work, and completing a dissertation co-chaired by faculty from social work and sociology. While I was a student, I co-parented my two children and worked as an admissions counselor, a Graduate Student Instructor in social work and sociology, and as a teaching assistant for two Detroit Area Study research projects. I was also employed as a researcher in labor relations and a research assistant in child welfare. Finally, during those years, I was a recipient of a five-year Fellowship in Applied Aging from the National Institute of Aging, which supported my interests in aging and human needs. | ||
| Creative and Activities: | ||
| In my spare time, I creatively seek new ways of catching, kissing and releasing smallmouth bass from my 17' boat, Lazy Bones, named after a Paul Robeson song of that name. When that isn't enough exercise, I creatively seek to find new ways of not losing golf balls in the woods. I am an avid film buff, and I currently updating my list of favorite films, which will soon be the basis for a new film review assignment for my social welfare policy classes, based upon a list of films with social work, social policy and social activism implications. Finally, I have recently reprinted a new edition of my story, Pooh and Party Look for Haycorns and Discover Christmas, which I wrote when I realized that there were just too few Winnie-the-Pooh stories written by the great A.A. Milne! | ||
| Research Interests: | ||
| In his final presidential address to the graduating class, President Michael Schwartz called upon CSU faculty to study the content of justice, the nature of human nature, and the history of our free institutions. I have research interests in each of these three areas. Accordingly, my dissertation and current book project study the history of an important social institution: the property tax exemption for public, nonprofit and religious property. That institution has stimulated the development of our mixed economy, one characterized by a strong free market sector but also by stable and secure exempt sectors for government, charity, education, culture and religion. The property owned by those sectors is free from the taxation which would force its owners to operate entirely according to market principles. However, in order to think critically about the possible implications of the growth of these sectors, my work used theories based in institutional and organizational analysis of the ways in which large organizations often externalize costs onto the rest of society. All of my theoretical and empirical work is united intellectually by a commitment to using sociological theories originating in the work of Durkheim, Weber and Marx to engage in institutional, organizational and class analysis of dehumanization, oppression and exploitation. For instance, in my work on the content of justice, I have produced an original theoretical typology of the relationship of three important sources of injustice of concern to social work: oppression, dehumanization and exploitation. Each of these three sources of injustice can inhibit the ability of people and communities to meet their human needs in a way that is consistent with their human rights and with their culturally valued way of life. After all, perhaps the most important characteristic of human nature is the manner in which human beings strive to meet our uniquely human needs, needs which are universal but which are met in a myriad of culturally specific ways. Trained as a social worker, a sociologist and a gerontologist, I am particularly interested empirically in the manner in which older people meet their human needs across different cultures. I am finding that Cleveland State University is wonderful place to engage in research and creative activity within a rich urban environment, in an historically important region of the country. | ||
| Teaching Areas: | ||
| My teaching interests and experience involve teaching social policy, social research, micro and macro human behavior theory and community practice. I have a growing interest in teaching about theories of generalist and advanced generalist practice and in theories of social work practice for global social work education. I am very happy to have been on the full-time faculty at CSU since August 2007! | ||
| Professional Affiliations: | ||
| National Association of Social Workers (since 1976)
American Sociological Association (since 1991) Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (since 1991) Urban Affairs Association (since 2000) Society for Social Work Research (since 2003) Social Welfare Action Alliance (founding member, 1985) Council on Social Work Education (associate since 1996, full member since 2003) Association for Community Organization and Social Administration (since 1996) Urban History Association (since 2008) Social Science History Association (since 2000) | ||
| Professional Experience: | ||
| Post-MSW Positions Held:
Social Worker, DC-37 AFSCME Legal Services Fund Social Worker, Bucks County Housing Group, Langhorn, Pennsylvania Director, Faculty/Staff Assistance Program, University of Pennsylvania Clinical Director, The Assistance Program, Philadelphia AFL-CIO Director, Medical/Psychiatric Social Work Service, Service Employees International Union Local 32B-J Health Fund, New York, NY Regional Coordinator of Personal Services, National Maritime Pension and Welfare Plan, New Orleans, Louisiana Pre-MSW Positions: District 65-UAW Personal Services Unit - Social Work Intern 1979-1980 and Summer Social Work Employee 1979 and 1980 Social Work Intern, Harlem Hospital Division of Child Psychiatry Family Assistant, N.Y.C. Board of Education Division of Special Education Counselor, Educational Alliance Project Contact Residence Social work intern, Community Service Society C.A.U.S.E. Program, New York, NY Housing Blockworker and Organizer, Chelsea Action Center, New York, NY | ||
| Professional Service: | ||
| Fall 2009 to Present: Membership, Regional Leadership Team, National Association of Social Workers Ohio Chapter
2008-2009 (Fall): Treasurer (January-April) and Co-Treasurer (April-Present), Social Welfare Action Alliance. Following the election of Prof. Herman Curiel of the University of Oklahoma as a co-treasurer, I am currently serving as Interim Co-Treasurer pending the return of one co-treasurer from overseas, after which I will end my 25 years of active service to this organization, for which I served as the co-convener in 1985. 2003-Present: Member, Membership Committee, Social Welfare Action Alliance. Following the election of Melissa Affronti as Membership Chair, I've agreed to advise on database use through next Spring, following which I will end my work on this which covered the years 1985-2000, and 2004 to present. 2003-2009, 1985-1991: Member, National Steering Committee, Social Welfare Action Alliance 2007: Chair and Session Organizer, Council on Social Work Education, Partnership Presentation, Social Welfare Action Alliance: 2007 Katrina, Civil Rights and Activism Conference Follow-Up. Presenters: Manoj Pardasani, Jull Murray, Susan Robbins, Candida Madgrigal, Michael Forster. San Francisco, California. 2005 "Co-Provocateur" (with Dr. Helen Morrow), "Pros and Cons of BSW Programs in Interdisciplinary Department," Saturday evening Salon, Annual Conference, Baccalaureate Social Work Program Directors, November 2005, Austin, Texas. 2004 Chairperson, Studies in Community Involvement and Development (Community and Neighborhood Development Track), Session E6, November 11, 2004. Presenters: Sungsook Cho and David Gillespie; Ian Bedford; John G. Messner ARNOVA: Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action, Los Angeles. 2003 Co-chair, breakfast roundtable discussion in March 2003: Michael A. Dover and Henry Louis Taylor, Radical thinking about the built environment: Do community development and large organizational growth undevelop the inner city? at the Urban Affairs Association 33rd Annual Meeting, Cleveland. | ||