Tiffany Baffour Named 2022 Madam C.J. Walker Resource Award Recipient
This February, Tiffany Baffour—director of the Master of Social Work (MSW) Program
in the U’s College of Social Work—was selected as a recipient of the 2022 Madam C.J.
Walker Resource Award, one of several awards given by the University of Utah Black
Cultural Center to honor Black faculty and staff during Black History Month. Dr.
Baffour was given the award in recognition of her work to strengthen community-engaged
learning experiences and opportunities tied to civic engagement, as well as her efforts
to foster stronger partnerships between the U and its surrounding community.
Dr. Baffour has more than 25 years of experience in teaching, curriculum development, clinical practice, advocacy, research, and administrative leadership in the fields of social work and organizational development. She serves as a member of the Board of Directors for the McCluskey Center for Violence Prevention, and chair of the MSW Advisory Committee and College of Social Work Awards Committees. She currently teaches social policy in the MSW Program and a course for doctoral students on pedagogical techniques in social work education. Her research agenda includes the areas of anti-racist and inclusive pedagogy, violence prevention, restorative justice theory, mental health/health disparities, and community-based participatory research. With this expertise, she has delivered numerous juried and invited presentations on higher education pedagogy, and is often called to provide her expertise on the national level in the areas of social justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as anti-racist pedagogy in social work education. She has supported diversity and equity efforts in local K-12 schools and human service organizations.
On the national level, Dr. Baffour serves in several important leadership roles. At the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE)—the accrediting body for all U.S. social work programs—she serves in a volunteer capacity as chair of the Council on Conferences and Professional Development, and as a member of both the Commission on Membership and Professional Development, and the Task Force to Advance Anti-Racism. In her capacities with CSWE, Dr. Baffour has been a staunch national advocate for infusing anti-racism, diversity, equity, and inclusion content into the social work curriculum, assessment, and training for faculty and field instructors in all accredited social work programs. Most recently, Dr. Baffour served as co-guest editor of a two-volume issue for the journal Reflections: Narratives of Professional Helping (special Call for Papers on “A Call for Social Worker Educators to Confront and Dismantle Systemic Racism Within Social Work Programs”). This ground-breaking work specifically looks at intersectional perspectives for solving issues of systemic racism within social work education.