CBCS faculty, staff, and students gathered in the MHC Atrium to celebrate Riaan van Zyl, PhD, who will retire this month. The event included a panel, wherein van Zyl was joined by Jim Clark, PhD, MSW, Florida State University (FSU) provost and former dean of the FSU College of Social Work, and Bruce Thyer, PhD, LCSW, BCBA-D, FSU Distinguished Research Professor. The three speakers, who have been friends and colleagues for over 30 years, provided commentary on the state of social work research and practice, and other contemporary developments in professional social work education.
Van Zyl served as professor and director of the USF School of Social Work since August 2017. Prior to that, he was associate dean for research at the Kent School of Social Work at the University of Louisville. Van Zyl was the head of the Department of Social Work at Rand Afrikaans University in Johannesburg, South Africa for nine years and senior lecturer for five years. He also served as chair of the Joint University Council on Social Work in South Africa, where he was responsible for developing new accreditation standards.
School of Social Work faculty and staff thanked van Zyl for his leadership and announced the establishment of the Dr. Riaan van Zyl Improving Childhoods Lectureship Fund in his honor. The fund will provide an annual lecture series on work being done to make childhoods better. Photos of the retirement celebration can be viewed here.