
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, March 18, 1994                   TAG: 9403180221
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: By ALLISON BLAKE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RADFORD                                LENGTH: Short

NEWS REPORT SPURS DONATION TO RU SOCIAL-WORK PROGRAM

Radford University's Master of Social Work program will be launched as originally planned this fall, after an anonymous donor came up with the money the General Assembly could not.

A donation of nearly $115,000 was made to the university after the donor read in Wednesday's Roanoke Times & World-News that the program had been underfunded by legislators. The university originally had asked for $189,186. The General Assembly came up with $75,000.

Already at Radford University, Dennis Cogswell, as director of the School of Social Work, is hustling to keep up with demand. By word-of-mouth alone, the proposed graduate program has drawn 450 requests for applications. Only 25 will be admitted with the first class.

"This really suggests a lot of interest," said Cogswell. "In Virginia, the other two [such] programs are at Norfolk State and VCU, so you can see there's really the whole western part of the state to serve."

Cogswell and his new staff will tailor the program to the region, focusing on family issues in rural and semirural areas. Course work will take into account the fact that families tend to stay put, and the generally far-flung locations of people with acute mental health problems, such as mental retardation.

"These situations are very real to the people who have to deal with them, but there's not enough mass to have a full-fledged social services program to deal with them," he said.

by CNB