March 27, 2019 | UHCL Staff
Each year in March, University of Houston-Clear Lake seniors nearing completion of their Bachelor of Science in Social Work commemorate National Professional Social Work month by disseminating information about their chosen profession. One of the core values of social work is social justice. In light of the March 15 slayings of 50 worshiping Muslims in Christchurch, New Zealand, the students and faculty felt it was important to respond. On March 18, they responded with a vigil.
“We have the event every year, not just to promote the social work profession, but to help our students develop their identity as social workers,” said Associate Professor of Social Work Heather Kanenberg. “Right after the shootings happened, (Assistant Professor of Social Work) Roberta Leal and I were talking and began processing how we might best respond as social workers to an event caused by such hate and violence. Even though this happened outside our community, we decided something should be done on campus and then a student emailed and suggested a vigil. It was the perfect response. It came out of a professional sense of what we do, a personal desire to do something on our campus, and our students’ desire to be involved.”
“We decided to hold the vigil at the same time as our event,” Leal said. “It was a good fit. Bringing about awareness for social, religious and racial justice is exactly in alignment with social work’s core values.”
Kanenberg said that the best part of the vigil was that it was completely “grassroots.” “It bubbled up from people who wanted to be involved, instead of being planned,” she said. “People wrote their own remarks and the students who read the names of the victims volunteered to do that. It happened on a campus community level, students asking each other who wanted to read names and be part of the event.”
She added that junior social work student Erica Solis took the lead in organizing the vigil, Associate Professor of Humanities Shreerekha Subramanian read a poem and Associate Professor of Anthropology Maria Curtis compiled an accurate list of the victims’ names. “It was a team effort,” Kanenberg said.
“I spoke to Dr. Kanenberg on Saturday after the shooting happened and said I’d like to organize something to show solidarity and support,” Solis said. “In situations like these, I think it’s very important to use our voice.”
Solis quickly created a flyer to inform the university community that there would be a vigil. She had organized similar rallies after the shootings at Santa Fe High School and Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. “People need to come together after something like this happens,” she said. “That is a passion that I have.”
Approximately 70 students held lit candles as she spoke about the importance of community solidarity after a tragic event such as a mass shooting. “We are getting numb to these shootings, and they’re happening on a global scale,” she said. “We have to take time to pause and realize our privilege that we can come together and try to keep these things from happening.”
Kanenberg said social workers promote justice, equality and improve the quality of life on many levels. “We can work together with someone one-on-one, or we can work on a community level to organize and respond to events,” she said. “It helps people feel a sense of power and control over what is happening in their life and begin to influence change. People might feel that there’s nothing they can do, but this vigil was social workers making a public statement that these events are not acceptable, and we don’t tolerate hate and violence, especially not on our campus.”
Students should be encouraged to use their voice, she added. “This connects us to what we do as social workers,” she said. “We help people step out and exercise their voice.”
For more information about UHCL’s Social Work program, visit www.uhcl.edu/academics/degrees/social-work-bsw.
