Published: September 24, 2009

UN representatives, students and faculty held a forum in Lowenstein room 706 as part of the UN international gathering to discuss emerging issues in international welfare, Fordham’s sociology curriculum, and the relevance of social work to the UN’s goal of universal human rights.

Robert Chazin, a professor at Fordham’s Graduate School of Social Services (GSSS) was one of the panelists. He explained that the field of sociology’s focus has shifted in recent years, and emphasis has gone from issues of malnutrition and physical well-being to those of mental, educational and gender status.

“We used to talk about human needs,” Chazin said. “Now we talk about human rights.”

Chazin commented on the timeliness of the discussion, as Fordham’s School of Social Sciences will soon undergo reaccreditation, as it does every seven years. The department, Chazin said, will modify its curriculum to accommodate the shifting landscape of sociology.

Another panelist, Dr. Ani Kalayjian, a professor of psychology at Fordham and founder of the Association for Trauma Outreach and Prevention (ATOP), spoke about mass trauma and disaster relief. During a recent trip to Sierra Leone with ATOP, Kalayjian met psychosomatic victims of the country’s civil war.

According to Kalayjian, residents of Sierra Leone still carry the psychological scars of a bloody era, and because of the decline in civil wars around the world since the seventies, there is a new priority to treat the psychosomatic effects of violence and disaster.

Susan Egan, assistant dean to the Graduate School of Social Work, commented on the changing needs in humanitarian aid. “Our faculty has voted on using human rights and social justice for the promotion of economic, political, social, physical, mental, spiritual and educational well-being as the framework for our curriculum,” she said.

“I think that changing the focus from needs to rights takes the spotlight off of materials and their costs and instead shines it on people themselves,” said Michael Douglas, FCLC ’11. “If we tackle issues from a human rights perspective,” he added, “then human needs will inevitably be addressed.”