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These three core values drive the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences. Read on to learn how faculty, students and alumni from the Mandel School are demonstrating these ideals through their impactful work.

Equity

Shaping the lives of the chronically homeless

Doctoral candidate Meagan Ray-Novak set out to conduct a study that would help elucidate intersections of race and gender in chronic homelessness. But her work eventually revealed an unexpected theme: the profound impact of caretaking for loved ones. 

Led by Ray-Novak, who is also a research associate at the Mandel School’s Center on Poverty and Community Development, the study involved 40 in-depth interviews with people experiencing chronic homelessness and captured their firsthand experiences, including caregiving responsibilities and personal losses. 

Researchers used different methods to analyze these firsthand accounts, looking for patterns that could point to larger issues in society. Many participants prioritized relationships with loved ones, even when those relationships led to personal instability, such as job-loss or eviction. Emotional connectedness was often more important than securing stable housing.

“We found that this story is really about love and caretaking,” Ray-Novak said. “Many individuals in our study made sacrifices—losing homes, jobs and financial security—to take care of loved ones during moments of crisis.”

The research, she said, offers a foundation for future interventions that account for the relational and identity-based needs of individuals experiencing homelessness, potentially reshaping how services address housing insecurity.

Innovation

A “space for discovery”

For the educators behind Cleveland’s Math Corps program, math is much more than just a school subject. It’s a new way to see the world, said Francisca García-Cobián Richter, PhD, the Math Corps Cleveland program director.

“Math is just a medium,” said García-Cobián Richter, who is also an associate professor of social work, draws on her background in analyzing social interventions and academic outcomes for students. “It’s just a way by which young people come together to support each other and see and realize their own greatness.”

Math Corps, which was started in Detroit in 1992, is a combination of an extracurricular math club, a mentoring program and tutoring. Open to Greater Cleveland students in grades 7 to 12, it pairs college students and instructors to work with and mentor high school students, while high school students help out younger students. That structure builds camaraderie and gives older students leadership experience, García-Cobián Richter said. Students meet at �ǿմ�ý every Saturday morning, starting out with breakfast and games, then break into groups for tutoring. 

“It’s not just for children who have a very positive or a very negative relationship with math,” García-Cobián Richter said. “We’re not expecting every child to love STEM. It is more than that. It’s providing that space for discovery of themselves.”

Math Corps aims to teach math differently than it’s taught in schools, García-Cobián Richter said. Instructors let students dictate the pace of their learning, hoping to inspire curiosity about concepts they may not get to in school. 

“It is a family,” García-Cobián Richter said. “It’s really a community.”

Transformation

Listening for change

Alarmed by a rise in gun violence in their community, three mothers of Euclid, a city just outside of Cleveland, decided to take action by forming the Hope Task Force. They recently hosted three listening sessions—led by two representatives from the Mandel School.

Mark Chupp, PhD (GRS ’03, social welfare), associate professor and founding director of the Community Innovation Network (CIN), co-led the three November sessions with Gloria Craig (SAS ’21), a facilitator for CIN. 

Their work is part of the Mandel School’s goal to assist the local community in developing policy proposals and action plans based on the community’s own ideas. Nearly 140 people attended three sessions at the Euclid Public Library, where they shared their concerns and experiences with guns and gun violence—some especially tragic. 

But they also identified existing assets and qualities in the community that promote safety. “Through our structured dialogue process, facilitated by our MSW students in small groups, every person was able to share personally how gun violence has impacted them,” Chupp said. “This cultivated deep listening and mutual understanding among people with very divergent experiences.”

Chupp noted he was pleased with the range of participants as well as the outcomes: In written evaluations, more than 90% reported they were more motivated or energized to address community safety. For example, Kandace Jones, who has lived in Euclid for more than 40 years, emphasized the need for community-building efforts, especially with youth.

Chupp, Craig and the CIN team are analyzing the input from the listening sessions to identify topics that will be explored in the next phase of the process. CIN will take the first three months of 2025 to share findings, educate the community on best practices and introduce local resources for promoting safety. This will lead to a visioning and strategy session in May, Chupp said, that will be the basis of an action plan for the community to improve safety in Euclid.

Read more stories like this in the Winter 2025 edition of Action.