Social Work Master’s Program Names Coordinator

Rana Duncan-Daston, associate professor of social work at Radford University, has been named coordinator of the university’s Master of Social Work (MSW) program. She has been a full-time faculty member for 13 years, and she served as the extended campus MSW coordinator for the past eight years at the Southwest Virginia Higher Education Center in Abingdon.

Two of Duncan-Daston’s key roles in her new position are to be available to counsel graduate students and to assist the School of Social Work as it prepares the master’s program for a reaccreditation review in three years. “We are now in the self-study mode and will officially begin the process this fall,” she said.

Duncan-Daston, who was named 2010-11’s outstanding faculty member for the Waldron College of Health and Human Services, has been mentored by Joyce Edward, a scholar in the psychoanalytic field. Edward is helping her develop an elective in psychodynamic psychotherapy, which will begin in the summer of 2012 and be open to all graduate students in a related field.  

Duncan-Daston was one of six professionals in the nation – two social workers, two psychologists and two psychiatrists – selected to attend the inaugural Psychoanalytic and Psychodynamic Teacher's Academy in New York earlier this year. Sponsored by the American Psychoanalytic Association, the purpose of the academy was to provide the opportunity for clinical teachers to engage in a personalized professional development program to facilitate interest in psychoanalysis and psychodynamic therapy, as well as to increase the effectiveness of teaching in these areas.

Duncan-Daston received her doctorate in higher education administration from the University of Virginia and master’s degree in social work from Florida International University.

Jul 5, 2011
Bonnie Erickson
540-831-5804
broberts@radford.edu