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Between them, married couple Betty Ruth (SSW’84, SPH’85) and Ken Schulman have contributed nearly 75 years of service to the Schools of Social Work and Public Health at Boston University.
Ruth, a clinical professor at SSW, has been director of BU’s dual degree Program in Social Work and Public Health since 1987. Schulman, who joined the SSW faculty in 1979, has served in administrative positions at the school since 1986 and became associate dean for Enrollment Services & Alumni Relations in 1992.
Given Schulman’s role as associate dean and Ruth’s leadership in public health social work, the pair has become a touchstone for the BU social work community as a whole.
Thanks to all who helped endow the Betty J. Ruth & Ken Schulman Scholarship Fund.
Through generous alumni support in recent months, the Betty J. Ruth & Ken Schulman Scholarship Fund has been established at BUSSW. In keeping with the pair’s dedication to our students and desire to make a MSW degree accessible to all, this fund will provide scholarships for BUSSW students demonstrating financial need.
This fund continues to accept donations to help ensure the endowment grows and that the scholarship awards increase over time. To make a contribution to the Fund, please either make a donation online or send a check payable to Trustees of Boston University with a note directing it to the Betty J. Ruth & Ken Schulman Scholarship Fund to:
Boston University Development
PO Box 22605
New York, NY 10087-2605
If you have questions about making a gift, please contact Assistant Dean for Development Ray Joyce at rayjoyce@bu.edu.
About Betty J. Ruth
First recruited by her mentor, Dean Hubie Jones, Betty began what she calls her “accidental academic career” in 1987. Tasked with improving and expanding the then newly minted MSW/MPH program, she simultaneously began advising field interns and teaching across the MSW curriculum. Betty has taught hundreds of courses and thousands of students in Racial Justice, Social Work in Health Settings, Introduction to Macro Practice, and Professional Ethics. Betty has also taught across all of our platforms – on-campus, off-campus, and online — and was responsible for developing the online course in Professional Ethics.
Throughout her time at BUSSW, the MSW/MPH program has been Betty’s primary focus. Under her stewardship, it grew rapidly. The program is distinguished by its carefully crafted curriculum and integrated focus on public health social work. Betty has provided intellectual leadership, administrative coordination, intensive advising, and extended mentoring to the roughly 400 students who have graduated from the program, many of whom have gone on to become local and national leaders. Today, the Boston University MSW/MPH program is the largest program of its kind in the U.S. and is widely regarded as the standard-bearer for MSW/MPH education.
Betty’s contributions to BUSSW over the decades go well beyond the MSW/MPH program. She helped conceive and launch the Center for Innovation in Social Work and Health (CISWH), including serving as a faculty lead for one of its first Learning Communities.
As Betty herself notes, she has been guided by a lifelong love for BUSSW, something she attributes to the spirit of “beloved community” that Hubie Jones created so long ago. She is grateful to have had the opportunity to work with so many wonderful mission-driven faculty, administrators, students, staff, and alumni, to help sustain that vision.
About Ken Schulman
Ken began his career a BUSSW as an adjunct faculty member, hired by then-Dean Hubie Jones to organize and lead Study-Travel Tours to Cuba. He soon began teaching both on- and off-campus for the next 13 years before moving fully into an administration role.
In the 40 years since he was hired, Ken Schulman has had – as both a senior administrator and as a faculty member – an immeasurable impact at BUSSW and in the lives of many in our community.
For 34 years, Ken led the School’s highly successful admissions efforts, increasing our percentage of students of color, advanced standing, dual degree, and macro practice populations. For six years, Ken supervised the expansion of our Professional Education Programs, including securing donor support, and oversaw the School’s marketing and communications efforts for 10 years, until 2018.
In his alumni relations work, Ken followed a “prospective-student-to-alumni lifecycle” philosophy, linking his enrollment work with an alumni relations program that created an active and engaged Alumni Association Board and alumni networks across the US, and in Canada and Europe. Over the years, these relationships resulted in more than $15 million in philanthropic support for the School.
Ken has been instrumental in recruiting, educating, and sustaining thousands of BUSSW social work professionals over four decades. We will miss him and his dedication immensely.