Dr. Jim Raines is the winner of this year’s Gary Lee Shaffer Award for Academic Contributions to the Field of School Social Work.

The award was given by the School Social Work Association of America (SSWAA) at its annual conference in Baltimore on March 12.

Gary Shaffer was a faculty member at the University of North Carolina and a passionate advocate for children and the field of school social work. He passed away in 2009. Later that year, the SSWAA established the award program “to commemorate his contributions through an annual recognition of a university faculty member who has made significant contributions to the field.”

Dr. Raines joined Cal State Monterey Bay in 2010. He has served as a professor, interim director of the Master of Social Work program and chair of the Department of Health, Human Services and Public Policy.

He earned a Ph.D. in social work from Loyola University in Chicago, an advanced certificate in social work (clinical practice) from New York University, a master of social work from Columbia University and a master of divinity from Fuller Theological Seminary.

Published March 22, 2016