Dean’s Welcome

The Brown School is a special community. We are distinguished by the energy and excellence of our faculty, the diversity and talent of our students, the strength of Washington University, and the deep ties to the local and global communities we serve. We encourage our faculty, staff, students and alumni to be agents of change. We are committed to creating new knowledge to counter the effects of systemic oppression and racism, in order to build a more just and equitable world.

Our School has generated and disseminated influential ideas and policy strategies locally and globally. For example, Brown School faculty are leaders in asset creation, a fundamental social development strategy to address global poverty. We are also leading the charge in St. Louis to investigate and inform how to equitably distribute resources to support health and well-being across every community.

Our graduates are leaders in social work, public health and social policy, taking on the most challenging and important policy, practice and management roles in the country and around the world. I encourage you to learn more about what we have created at Washington University in St. Louis. I hope you will join us in this important pursuit of knowledge and social change.

Mary M. McKay
Neidorff Family and Centene Corporation Dean
of the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis

Our History

The Brown School was founded in 1925, and in 1937, Brown Hall was dedicated as the nation’s first facility devoted to social work education. It was named for George Warren Brown, the founder of the Brown Shoe Company in St. Louis, and generously funded by a bequest from his widow, Betty Bofinger Brown.

In 1945, the social work department became its own school, offering a Master of Social Work degree. We soon began a doctoral program and became the first school at Washington University to admit African-American students.

Over the ensuing decades, the School prospered and grew to become one of the top-ranked schools of social work in the nation, focused on evidence-based scholarship and impact. In 2008, we added a Master of Public Health degree, and in 2015, a PhD in Public Health Sciences. Also in 2015, the first cohort started for our Master of Social Policy degree, created in partnership with several universities in China. The Clark-Fox Policy Institute launched in 2017, furthering the School’s commitment to engage in the creation of evidence-based policy solutions.

Our Vision

To create positive social change through our path-breaking research and educational excellence.

Our Mission

To educate and prepare future social work and public health leaders in areas of policy, practice, and research.
To pioneer research and apply results to impact policy and practice locally, nationally, and internationally.
To collaborate with organizations to use evidence to improve access to and quality of social services and to address social and economic justice.

About WashU

Founded in 1853, Washington University in St. Louis is counted among the world’s leaders in teaching and research and boasts highly ranked schools of Social Work, Medicine, Business and Law. It is dedicated to challenging its faculty and students alike to seek new knowledge and greater understanding of an ever-changing, multicultural world. The university draws students and faculty to St. Louis from all 50 states and approximately 130 nations.