Initiatives

Socially Responsible Practice Project

The most contemporary translation of our legacy is educating socially responsible practitioners who are relevant, flexible, and multiskilled enough to work in and improve a complex, diverse, and changing world. Socially responsible practice is the careful translation of our Adlerian heritage. This practice lives in our School culture, curricula, expected student competencies, Institutes, and the ways in which we engage communities. We believe we are doing visionary and exceptional work in this area. And we can do a better job; our legacy demands that we do.

Because of this, we launched the Socially Responsible Practice Project (SRP Project) Project as an initiative of our Strategic Plan. The goal of the SRP Project was to reflect on our organizational core competency of socially responsible practice toward developing better alignment in what we mean by socially responsible practice—which will improve our ongoing efforts of graduating socially responsible practitioners. Through a year-long schedule of conversations, events, and activities, our faculty, staff, students, and alumni from Chicago and Vancouver discussed and debated socially responsible practice, expressing perspectives in academic ways as well as through experiential means such as art and music.

The outcomes of this yearlong conversation are articulated in “The Socially Responsible Practice Project” White Paper, published in October 2012 as we celebrated the Adler School’s 60^th Anniversary. This report serves to strengthen our collective understanding of socially responsible practice—as the leading academic institution advancing socially responsible practice, health communities, and a more just society.

Click here to read “The Socially Responsible Practice Project.”

Common Book Program

In 2010, the Adler School of Professional Psychology launched the Common Book Program to develop community by creating dialogue across multiple constituencies on issues related to social justice and social responsibility.

2012 marks the third year of the Common Book Program and this year's selection is Left Neglected by Lisa Genova.

Book Description: Sarah Nickerson is like any other career-driven supermom in Welmont, the affluent Boston suburb where she leads a hectic but charmed life with her husband Bob, faithful nanny, and three children—Lucy, Charlie, and nine-month-old Linus.

Between recruiting the best and brightest minds as the vice president of human resources at Berkley Consulting; shuttling the kids to soccer, day care, and piano lessons; convincing her son’s teacher that he may not, in fact, have ADD; and making it home in time for dinner, it’s a wonder this over-scheduled, over-achieving Harvard graduate has time to breathe.

A self-confessed balloon about to burst, Sarah miraculously manages every minute of her life like an air traffic controller. Until one fateful day, while driving to work and trying to make a phone call, she looks away from the road for one second too long. In the blink of an eye, all the rapidly moving parts of her jam-packed life come to a screeching halt.

A traumatic brain injury completely erases the left side of her world, and for once, Sarah relinquishes control to those around her, including her formerly absent mother. Without the ability to even floss her own teeth, she struggles to find answers about her past and her uncertain future.

Now, as she wills herself to regain her independence and heal, Sarah must learn that her real destiny—her new, true life—may in fact lie far from the world of conference calls and spreadsheets. And that a happiness and peace greater than all the success in the world is close within reach, if only she slows down long enough to notice.

Lisa Genova graduated valedictorian from Bates College with a degree in Biopsychology and has a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Harvard University. She is the author of the New York Times Bestselling novels Still Alice and Left Neglected.

Click here for information on upcoming Common Book Program events.

If you have questions regarding our Common Book Program, please email us.