
World-class faculty
With a 13:1 student-faculty ratio, you can learn alongside professionals
who are shaping the profession of social work and nonprofit organizations
93% employment rate within 6 months
specializations
a student mentoring program
#1 in Ohio
22 average faculty h-index
9 research and training centers
The Mandel School is home to nine research and training centers, including three Centers of Excellence, as well as First Year Cleveland, a community movement dedicated to reversing infant death rates and helping all babies celebrate their first birthdays. We facilitate authentic research and training collaborations between faculty and community partners, including human service agencies, service delivery systems and policy makers.
- Begun Center for Violence Prevention Research and Education
- Center for Evidence-Based Practices (Center of Excellence)
- Center for Innovative Practices (Center of Excellence)
- Center on Trauma and Adversity
- Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development
- Child and Adolescent Behavioral Health (Center of Excellence)
- Community Innovation Network
- National Initiative on Mixed-Income Communities
- Partnership for Evaluation, Research and Implementation
Many of our research and training initiatives are multidisciplinary involving multi-institutional partnerships that address broad social problems, social-work practice and policy. We emphasize dissemination, or using innovative research to enhance practice and service delivery in the community. Our reach is local, national and international. Our centers also provide several opportunities for students to participate in all aspects of the research process.

An inspiring alumna of the Mandel School, Geneva B. Johnson was nominated as a Case Western Reserve University Trailblazer in 2022, awarded the Grace Longwell Coyle Award in 2021 and was inducted into the school's Hall of Achievement in 2015. She was given the highest alumni honor at her undergraduate alma mater, Albright University, when she was awarded an honorary doctor of humanities. She also received an honorary doctor of humane letters from Alvernia University.
Johnson attributes her professional success to her education at CWRU, which profoundly impacted her life, molding her into the instrumental and innovative leader she became. Ever grateful to the Mandel School, where her social work education was fused with leadership training based on principles of inspiring people to see and use their strengths, she led her many years in nonprofit management and communal service via her mantra of, “A leader doesn't tell; a leader asks.”