Tiffany D. Baffour, M.S.S. ’99, Brings Bryn Mawr Lessons to Leadership Role
September 23, 2025
Tiffany D. Baffour, M.S.S. ’99, was destined for a career as a social work professor; her father had a 50-year career in social work, and her mother was a longtime college professor and Fulbright scholar.
“I didn’t choose social work, social work chose me,” she says.
Although she was not initially interested in social work, witnessing her father come home tired yet unwavering in his commitment left a lasting impression. He introduced her to the power of advocacy, and at just 12 years old, she joined anti-Apartheid protests in the Washington, D.C. area through his colleague's invitation. His passion and dedication planted the seeds of her own journey, shaping her understanding of social work as a legacy of justice and advocacy.
She was pursuing sociology at a master’s level when she realized she wanted to have a more active role in the social issues she was studying.
“I really wanted something more action-oriented,” Baffour says. She had the opportunity to work in foster care in Philadelphia and discovered she loved the work.
Inspired to help create community and policy change, she decided to go back to school, earning her master’s at Bryn Mawr and going straight into the doctoral program at Howard University. She graduated in four years and has held a half-dozen university appointments including at Florida State, the University of Utah, and in the University of North Carolina system.
In the past 26 years, she has worked with individuals and communities not just through research but also by translating those research findings to the community's benefit and pursuing changes to state and national policymaking.
“And I’m not finished yet!” she adds.
This summer, Baffour became the new director for the School of Social Work at East Carolina University. She is excited to see how their work in rural communities can meet people where they are and tackle challenges from health care access to training and retention of social work professionals.
As she settled into her busy new role, she took some time to talk to us about how her life — and her time at Bryn Mawr — prepared her for this moment.
“I had such a great beginning to my career at Bryn Mawr. Some of the relationships I developed have been very important to me, even now.”
Tiffany D. Baffour, M.S.S. ’99
What are some of the challenges and opportunities today in leading a department and training the next generation of social workers?
I think one of the biggest challenges for students entering the field is to understand what the profession is about. Many students come into social work wanting to pursue private practice, and many come in thinking it’s a shortcut to getting licensure. They don’t always want to invest the time in understanding the values of the profession, that our profession is really based on social justice, and we’re here to improve the well-being of individuals, groups, and society. It’s not just about starting a private practice and making money. I think that is a huge developmental shift, and a lot of unlearning and learning has to take place.
And it’s really a challenging time to be an advocate of social justice and an advocate for people who are underserved. Our academic programs are under attack, as are all other academic programs that are perceived to have a focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion.
But there are also a lot of reasons to be optimistic. I think we really stand at the gate to continue to be peer advocates for social justice and for individuals who are poor and underserved. I think continuing to stay true to that mission is really important, and to have a faculty that is passionate about that mission is really important.
Baffour with Bryn Mawr Associate Professor of Social Work and Social Research Tamarah Moss.
What lessons from your time at Bryn Mawr have you been able to carry into your work and into this role in particular?
The foundation was really incredible. I went to Bryn Mawr because I was interested in the clinical program but what I gained out of it — and I think what sticks with me the most — was the broad base of understanding that, as social workers, we are working with individuals, families, communities, organizations, and how we apply the skills that we learn to these various groups. I’ve had positions that were non-social work positions, and I used those foundational skills I learned at Bryn Mawr more in those roles than I did in traditional social work roles.
At Utah, for example, I was associate dean of graduate equity, diversity and inclusion, and I worked with lots of different folks both in the community and constituents across maybe 200 academic departments — students, administrators, faculty, people at national organizations. I feel like those skills, basic things like, how do you engage with not just individuals but groups, is really critical. Also, how do you communicate with people who have very different values from you as a person and as a social worker? I feel like some of those skills I learned at Bryn Mawr in terms of conflict resolution and mediation have been critical across my career.
What advice would you give someone interested in pursuing a degree and a future career in this area?
I think the best advice I could give is: this is a great career, and I think it’s a career with endless possibilities. Where you start is not necessarily where you’ll end, and that’s the beauty of our profession. The skills that you develop are really a great preparation and foundation for many kinds of things.
I always tell my students that I’ve reinvented myself 100 times over the course of my career. I’ve done clinical practice. I’ve done quality assurance work at organizations. I’ve done macro community organizing. I’ve been a professor, a researcher, and an administrator.
I feel like in this profession, one can reinvent themselves over and over. You learn great skills that you can later use in leadership. Many students entering the profession may not think, ‘One day I’m going to be a supervisor or a leader,’ but this field also prepares you for that.
