“We all joke about being in a trailer. The space has never really been an issue, but Bass will be more of a home.”
— Tracy Dietz

Social work finds new permanent location in Bass
By Colleen Casey
Staff Reporter

Tracy Dietz, chairwoman of the social work department, said she’s excited her office won’t shake when the wind blows as it has the past ten years.

The social work department will move into the Bass Building this summer into the area where the engineering department is currently located. Engineering will move into the completed Tucker Technology Center, said Rhonda Keen-Payne, dean of the College of Health and Human Sciences.

Keen-Payne said it was sensible for the social work department to move to Bass, where the College of Health and Human Sciences takes up the most space. The size of the department fits the engineering suite nicely without a lot of reconstruction, she said.

After social work moves out of the trailer it will house the economics department computer lab which is currently in Winton-Scott Hall, said Edward McNertney, chairman of economics.

Dietz said social work will take up five faculty offices and no specific classrooms in Bass. But the move will still be positive for the department, she said.

“We all joke about being in a trailer,” Dietz said. “The space has never really been an issue, but Bass will be more of a home.”

Despite the social work department’s move from a trailer, sociology instructor Keith Whitworth, whose department will remain in another trailer, said he doesn’t mind being housed there.

“There isn’t dissatisfaction with the trailers,” Whitworth said. “My only concern is the students’ perceptions of the department. It would be interesting to know if the trailer colors perceptions of our department.”

Whitworth said he’d like to see if students perceive the sociology department as less supported and less funded because they’ve been located in a trailer for the last 16 years.
It hasn’t affected the department’s students or recruitment, he said.

McNertney said he’s also content with the economics department’s location, which has been in a trailer for about 12 years.

“We always joke that we just live in a building in the shape of a trailer,” McNertney said. “We like it, but someday or other we’ll need a permanent location again.”

The location hasn’t negatively affected economics students, but a permanent location could mean a better departmental library, McNertney said.

Sophomore social work major Julie Benscoter said her newly expanded social work library will give her more accessible opportunities.

Benscoter said the move will be nice in many ways.

“It makes a lot of sense for us to move closer to the rest of our college,” Benscoter said. “We have a new sense of belonging to our department and to our school.”

Benscoter said it never bothered her that the social work department is located in a trailer.
Dietz said she doesn’t think a department’s location is based on status, and the trailer hasn’t affected recruitment.

“Moving into a permanent location is not a statement of value. We’ve been established and accredited since 1977,” Dietz said. “It’s just hopefully a positive thing, especially for students.”

Colleen Casey
c.m.casey@student.tcu.edu

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