Assistant Dean Mena daSilva-Clark Retires After Decades of Innovation at BU School of Social Work
Mena daSilva-Clark, longtime senior administrator and assistant dean of Online and Off-Campus Programs at BU School of Social Work (BUSSW), will retire at the end of January 2023 after dedicating nearly 40 years to the top-ranked School.
DaSilva-Clark’s positive contributions to BUSSW, the social work community, and the education of social workers across the nation are vast in scope. Her innovative approach to program development has always been focused on improving educational experiences and support for non-traditional students and underserved communities while also integrating and implementing student services equity across all campuses and programs.
This commitment is reflected in the successful planning, design, and launch of one of the nation’s first successful online MSW program (OLP). Over the course of a decade, daSilva-Clark led the School’s OLP efforts, helping all constituents adapt to the emerging online educational environment. She provided leadership and vision for the Off-Campus Program (OCP), expanding it from two to four sites by adapting the Cape Cod and the Worcester Hybrid programs, and enhancing the existing programs in Bedford and Fall River. She led the creation of certificates and a macro major/minor for OLP students, strengthened continuing education offerings in remote areas of Massachusetts by using the OCP sites as training centers, and obtained grant funding to train community-based social work interns in federally recognized underserved areas. Overall, these programs helped increase BUSSW visibility and enrollments by 70+% in the past decade and created important streams of income for the School to sustain many initiatives.
DaSilva-Clark’s leadership in online education has been widely recognized across the University. She shared her knowledge on numerous BU committees and working groups including the Digital Education Strategic Planning Committee, as well as developing and chairing the BU Online Collaborative Team with 50+ participants and representatives from BU schools and colleges.
During the Covid pandemic, one of the most challenging times in higher education, daSilva-Clark was instrumental in helping the School community navigate the challenges of virtual education. She led the pivot to a remote learning model across all programs, serving as a remote teaching coordinator, developing remote teaching guides, and providing consistent guidance and support to students and colleagues.
Her contributions go well beyond the education of MSW students and extend to years of leadership and service for the School, University, and on national committees, including successfully helping BUSSW in its reaccreditation effort with the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC), the New England Commission of Higher Education (NECHE), and the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE), among others.
Throughout her career at BUSSW, she worked tirelessly to ensure that her staff, students, faculty, and colleagues succeeded in getting the recognition they deserved through nominations, the establishment of prizes, and generous support to attend and present at CSWE conferences.
DaSilva-Clark twice received the BUSSW Alumni Association Award for Outstanding Contributions to the School of Social Work and was elected a Vogt Leadership Fellow for the Boston Consortium for Higher Education. The above are just the highlights of an impressive professional career that was filled with four decades of challenges, achievements, innovations, and unparalleled dedication.
To make a gift in honor of Mena daSilva-Clark’s legacy at the School, please click here or contact Raymond Joyce at rayjoyce@bu.edu.