Master of Law and Social Policy
Faculty Profiles
Raymond Albert
Professor and Director, Law and Social Policy Program
Raymond Albert received his undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania, and his JD and MSW degrees from the University of Connecticut, where he was the first dual-degree graduate. In addition to serving as Co-Dean, Albert is the Director of the Law and Social Policy Program , and teaches several courses in the program. He also teaches a course on social legislation and on community practice in the Master of Social Services program. Professor Albert's book, Law and Social Work Practice: A Legal Systems Approach , and related articles on the legal dimensions of social services and social policy reflect his longstanding focus on sociolegal problems and on making sense of the social work and law connection. Additional journal articles address his interest in alternative dispute resolution. He is currently at work on a project examining economic status of working class black males and on a text that explores life histories of participants in selected social programs and the implications for addressing the legal context of practice with these populations.
Professor Albert is a Co-Editor of the Journal of Law and Social Work . He sits on several non-profit Boards of Directors, including the Center for Responsible Funding , an innovative agency in Philadelphia that works to expand the funding base of organizations working for social and economic justice, where he is President of the Board; the People's Emergency Center , a Philadelphia agency serving homeless women, children and teens and effecting an associated comprehensive community development program; and Montgomery County Mental Health and Mental Retardation Center, a Norristown mental health services agency. He was co-founder and former President of the Board of Directors of the mediation program of the Good Shepherd Mediation Program . He is currently a member of the Commission on Conferences and Faculty Development for the Council on Social Work Education.
Email Raymond Albert: ralbert@brynmawr.edu
Dabney Miller
Dabney Miller received her BA in anthropology from Franklin and Marshall College. She holds a Master's degree in anthropology from Duke University, where she did her research and thesis on the cognitive models used by social workers in deciding whether to place children in foster care. During her years at Duke, she served on the North Carolina Governor's Commission on Standards for Foster Care. She went on to receive her MSS and MLSP from Bryn Mawr College Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research.
In the mid-1980's, Ms. Miller worked as a founding staff member of Women's Agenda, a legislative advocacy organization that worked to increase funding in the Pennsylvania state budget for women's and children's services. Since 1985, she has worked at the Women's Law Project, a feminist legal advocacy organization that fights discrimination and injustice against women, particularly those who are poor and disenfranchised. Now associate director of the WLP, Ms. Miller has worked for several years on a series of advocacy efforts relating to Philadelphia Family Court. More recently, she and other WLP staff have focused their advocacy on the broader picture of systemic challenges and limitations at Philadelphia Family Court. Ms. Miller led early efforts in Pennsylvania to secure the right to second-parent adoption for lesbian and gay parents and in this capacity has worked extensively with lawyers, social workers, the court, and parents, and these efforts to litigation that ultimately resulted in a ruling by the PA Supreme Court finding that the PA Adoption Act does indeed permit lesbian and gay parents to adopt the children of their partners. Ms. Miller was founding co-chair of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights.
Debra Rubin
Debra Rubin received her BA in Social Work from West Chester University and her Master of Social Service and Master of Law and Social Policy from Bryn Mawr College Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research. She spent ten years working at the Women's Law Project, a feminist legal advocacy organization that fights discrimination and injustice against women, particularly those who are poor and disenfranchised. She is currently the Director of Community Service at Bryn Mawr College. Ms. Rubin has also been a staff counselor and case manager at the Women's Center and a health counselor in Women's Health/Student Health Services of the University of Pennsylvania.
Ms Rubin began her social justice work in 1977, volunteering with the Domestic Abuse Project, then went on to establish a local chapter of the National Organization of Women, and later co-founded Delaware County Project V.O.T.E. Project V.O.T.E. registered over 15,000 minority and disenfranchised voters. (When thrown out of a local public assistance office while doing non-partisan voter registration, Project V.O.T.E sued the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and the success of this lawsuit became a model for other non-partisan voter-registration drives in social service agencies throughout the country.) Ms. Rubin has also taught a course on the history and philosphy of social work and social welfare at the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Work.
Ms Rubin began her social justice work in 1977, volunteering with the Domestic Abuse Project, then went on to establish a local chapter of the National Organization of Women, and later co-founded Delaware County Project V.O.T.E. Project V.O.T.E. registered over 15,000 minority and disenfranchised voters. (When thrown out of a local public assistance office while doing non-partisan voter registration, Project V.O.T.E sued the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and the success of that lawsuit became a model for other non-partisan voter-registration drives in social service agencies throughout the country). Ms. Rubin has also taught a course on the history and philosophy of social work and social welfare at the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Work.
