Nancy Rodenborg has over 20 years experience in social work practice, teaching, and research on diversity and inequality. She has taught diversity courses to both MSW and BSW students and served on the Augsburg University Diversity Committee and the Diversity and Global Learning Collaborative. She led the development of a funded project with social work colleagues and The INTER-RACE Institute to increase MSW students’ cultural competence by participating in facilitated, intentionally diverse dialogue. The MSW Dialogue Project has served over 300 students since 2005.
Dr. Rodenborg’s current research explores the theory and practice of intergroup dialogue, cultural competence and inclusion. Her most recent article (co-authored with Dr. Laura Boisen) explores how unconscious bias is likely to affect social work cultural competence (“Aversive racism and intergroup contact theories: Cultural competence in a segregated world”, Journal of Social Work Education). Dr. Rodenborg brings a passion for global understanding and cooperation to her work. She was a founding executive committee member of the award-winning Social Work in a Latin American Context Mexico consortium. This annual semester-abroad program in Cuernavaca, Mexico, received the Partners in International Education award from the Council on Social Work Education in 2006. The program has served over 120 students from Augsburg and 22 other colleges since 2004. Dr. Rodenborg urges all social work students to participate in at least one international learning experience while at Augsburg. “It is vital for our shared future! I am committed to increasing our students’ global and domestic cultural proficiency so they do not perpetuate systemic discrimination and are prepared to join with others to promote long term structural change. I see this as a challenging, exciting, life-long and global endeavor.”
Education
- B.S. Music and German. Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, 1973.
- M.S.W. University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1977.
- Ph.D. Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, 2000. M.I.A. Master of International Administration. School for International Training, Studies in the administration and delivery of social services within the international and cross-cultural setting. Emphasis on refugee social services. Brattleboro, Vermont, 1983.
Current Research Interests
- Intergroup dialogue
- Multi-cultural issues in social services and social work education
- Institutional discrimination in social services
- International education in social work