WMU News

Multicultural issues expert to speak

February 11, 1999

KALAMAZOO -- An authority on multicultural social issues will speak at Western Michigan University Thursday, Feb. 25.

Dr. Lorraine Gutierrez will be keynote speaker for the Annual Whitney M. Young Jr. Scholars Day Program. Her presentation at 7 p.m. in Room 3502 of Knauss Hall is free and open to the public.

Gutierrez is an associate professor in the School of Social Work and the Department of Psychology at the University of Michigan, where she also serves a faculty associate in American Culture. She will address issues related to her ongoing work with Hispanic and other communities, organizational development and empowerment.

Gutierrez co-coordinates the Detroit Initiative in Psychology, an undergraduate community psychology program, in partnership with community-based organizations in Detroit. The program of education, scholarship and service involves students in service and research.

Within U of M's School of Social Work, Gutierrez's teaching focuses on multicultural and community organization practice. She brings to her teaching more than 20 years of social work practice and research in multi-ethnic communities in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Detroit and Seattle.

Her research centers on multicultural issues in communities and organizations. Her current projects include identifying methods for multicultural organizational development and community practice, defining elements of culturally competent mental health practice and identifying the link between gender ideology and attitudes toward race and racism.

She has published more than 20 articles, chapters or books on such topics as empowerment, practice and women of color.

Media contact: Mark Schwerin, 616 387-8400, mark.schwerin@wmich.edu


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