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James Midgley, PhD (emeritus)

Inducted in 2010

Current Position

Professor, Dean Emeritus, School of Social Welfare, University of California Berkeley

James Midgley retired from the School of Social Welfare at the University of California, Berkeley in 2016. He previously served as the Dean of the School of Social Welfare (1997 -2006) and held the Harry and Riva Specht Chair in Public Social Services from 1997 to 2016. He is currently Professor of the Graduate School at the University. He has published extensively on issues of social development, international social welfare and social policy. In particular, his contribution to articulating a conceptual basis for social development and promoting international social work has been widely acknowledged. His most recent books include: Social Development: Theory and Practice, Sage, 2014; Future Directions in Social Development. Palgrave, 2017 (with Manohar Pawar); Social Welfare for a Global Era: International Perspectives on Policy and Practice, Sage, 2017; Social Investment and Social Welfare: International and Critical Perspectives. Elgar, 2017 (with Espen Dahl and Amy Conley Wright) and Handbook of Social Policy and Development, Elgar, 2019 (with Rebecca Surender and Laura Alfers). His books have been translated into Japanese, Spanish, Korean, Bahasa-Malaysian, Bahasa-Indonesian and Chinese.
He has received numerous honors and awards including honorary doctorates from the University of Johannesburg in South Africa and the Polytechnic University of Madrid in Spain; the International Rhoda Sarnat Prize from the National Association of Social Workers (NASW), the Career Achievement Award from the Association for Community Organizing and Social Administration (ACOSA); the Lifetime Achievement in Social Work Award from the California Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW); the International Partnership Award from the Global Commission of the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) and the Berkeley Citation for his distinguished services to the University.
In addition to many keynote and plenary addresses at international conferences, he has given several named lectures including the Dan Sanders Memorial Lecture at the University of Illinois; the Peter Hodge Memorial Lecture at the University of Hong Kong; the Kenneth Pray Lecture at the University of Pennsylvania; the Bernard and Rhoda Sarnat Lecture at the University of Southern California; the Allen T. Burns Lecture at the University of Chicago; the Herman D. Stein Lecture in International Social Welfare at Case Western Reserve University and the Run Run Shaw Distinguished Visiting Scholar Lecture at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He has held has held honorary professorial appointments at Nihon Fukishi University in Japan, the University of Johannesburg, South Africa, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and Sun Yat-sen University in China.

https://socialwelfare.berkeley.edu/faculty/james-midgley

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