Alum Betty J. Ruth (SSW ’84, SPH ’85), director of Boston University’s Dual Degree Program in Social Work and Public Health and clinical professor at and School of Social Work, is the 2020 recipient of the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) Significant Lifetime Achievement in Social Work Education Award.

“Few educators have done as much as Betty Ruth to integrate public health into the social work curriculum,” writes CSWE’s president, Darla Spence Coffey. “The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the clear need for improvements in our public health system and shown how social workers can make positive impacts on health policies. For her more than 30 years of dedication to improving social work education, we are glad to present the 2020 Significant Lifetime Achievement in Social Work Education Award to Betty J. Ruth.”

Ruth began her career in social work education in 1987 when she was recruited to School of Social Work by her mentor Hubie Jones, dean emeritus of SSW. Tasked with improving and expanding the MSW/MPH dual degree program, she has since built the program into a touchstone of public health social work education.

Ruth helped establish and launch the Center for Innovation in Social Work and Health (CISWH), where she is now leadership core co-director and a faculty affiliate. She has been a lifelong, passionate advocate for the integration of public health and social work and has provided broad leadership to advance public health social work practice. This includes her recent HRSA-funded Advancing Leadership in Public Health Social Work Education Initiative, along with other research efforts focused on oral health promotion, continuing education evaluation, and suicide prevention education in social work.

In addition to her administrative leadership, Ruth has advised and mentored hundreds of students and taught thousands more—on-campus, off-campus, and online—in subjects including racial justice, macro practice, social work in health settings, and professional ethics.

An accomplished speaker and writer, she is the author of numerous articles on public health social work–related issues and co-founder of the Group for Public Health Social Work Initiatives, a working group dedicated to public health social work advocacy, training and research. In 2006, she chaired a national conference at Boston University, Public Health Social Work in the 21st Century, which drew hundreds of participants and highlighted BU’s leadership role in this arena. She has served in multiple leadership roles in the American Public Health Association’s Public Health Social Work Section, and in 2013, she was the recipient of APHA’s Insley-Evans Prize in Public Health Social Work.

Ruth will retire from BU in December 2020. A scholarship fund has been set up in honor of Ruth and her husband, Ken Schulman, who is an associate dean at SSW.

Ruth and other CSWE award recipients will be acknowledged at a luncheon during CSWE’s 66th Annual Program Meeting (APM) on November 12-15 in Denver, Colorado.