University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration
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| Type | Academic unit of the University of Chicago |
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| Established | 1920 |
| Dean | Neil B. Guterman (term began on July 1, 2010) |
| Location | Chicago, IL, US |
| Campus | Urban |
| Website | www.ssa.uchicago.edu |
The School of Social Service Administration (SSA) at the University of Chicago is one of the world's leading schools for the training of social workers and researchers in social welfare scholarship, ranking number 1 (The Gourman Report). SSA was founded in 1903 by esteemed minister and social work educator Graham Taylor as the “Social Science Center for Practical Training in Philanthropic and Social Work.” By 1920, through the efforts of founding mothers Edith Abbott, Grace Abbott and Sophonisba Breckinridge, and such notable trustees as social worker Jane Addams and philanthropist Julius Rosenwald, the school merged with the University of Chicago as one of its graduate schools. It became known from that point forward as the School of Social Service Administration.
SSA gives its graduates a broad grounding in the social sciences. The School offers both a Master’s level program and a Doctoral level program. The Master’s program lasts two years and can be pursued either full or part-time. It awards graduates with an A.M. degree in social work. The Doctoral program awards graduating candidates with a Ph.D.
SSA is one of a handful of institutions that helped create and define the social work profession and the social welfare field. The School of Social Service Administration’s first leaders were activists in the Chicago settlement house movement, one of the main strands in what eventually became social work. Graham Taylor, who organized SSA's predecessor, the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy, was a social gospel minister and founder of the settlement house, Chicago Commons. Similarly, Sophonisba Breckinridge, Grace and Edith Abbott, and Julia Lathrop, the women who shaped SSA into an institution of national importance, had lived and worked at Jane Addams' Hull House.
While most early schools of social work concentrated on practical training for caseworkers, SSA's leaders immediately insisted on the need for a solid foundation in social science and social research as well. In its first decade, the faculty and students of The Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy were investigating such issues as juvenile delinquency, truancy, vocational training, and housing in the rapidly growing city of Chicago. The decision in 1920 to merge the Chicago School and the University of Chicago opened students to contact with the social sciences. It was from this union that the SSA was created. SSA's first requirement both in 1920 and today is that a student demonstrates a "good foundation in the social sciences."
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