The School of Social Work launched a part-time, online doctor of social work program that focuses on teaching and higher education leadership during the fall 2026 semester.
File photo / The Shorthorn staff
The School of Social Work has launched a parttime, online doctor of social work program starting this fall that will focus on teaching and higher education leadership.
Karen Magruder, director of the new program, said the doctorate’s national popularity has grown significantly in the last decade or so.
“It makes sense because not everybody wants to concentrate on research,” Magruder said. “There are a lot of folks who want to progress in their careers and learn more and be experts and innovators.”
Unlike the PhD program, which is primarily research-focused, Magruder said the practice doctorate looks to help bridge research and advanced practice in the social work profession.
“Social workers often work in hospitals or other community practice settings where many of the other professionals are at the doctoral level, and so that helps to elevate the social work profession and level the playing field a little bit in practice, too,” Magruder said.
The program will include asynchronous coursework, virtual discussion sessions, collaborative projects and faculty mentorship, according to the release.
Students will take 15 courses in the span of three years, two will be taken during the fall semesters, two in the spring and one in the summer. Each year will focus on a category: fundamentals, expertise and dissemination.
The third year includes a teaching practicum, where most of the students will be assigned to teach a bachelor’s or master’s course in the School of Social Work, and will be paid, Magruder said.
Students who are already teaching at other universities or who want to complete their practicum at another institution can do so with the School of Social Work’s approval.
“Most DSW programs don’t offer an experience like that, and it can be hard to secure opportunities without that experience,” Magruder said. “It really gives them an advantage in the job search market if they’re looking for teaching opportunities.”
Even though the program is fully online, Magruder said they intentionally built in synchronous components to focus on community-building.
“Having that network of all these other social work practitioners who are leaders and experts and innovators, and having that network is really powerful,” she said.
Jeniece Goudeau, one of the 17 students in the fall 2026 cohort, said she started looking for a social work doctoral program in Texas last year and learned that UTA was planning to launch a program.
“I was really looking for a program that was really focused on educating and preparing me to be a better leader and to also potentially be a professor in the future,” Goudeau said.
Apart from the curriculum, the program’s affordability was another factor that drew Goudeau.
“Right now in this economy, affordability is very important,” she said. “Because I have my bachelor’s degree and my master’s degree, and I had to take out student loans for those degrees, I was just like, ‘I don’t really want to pile on too much more student loans.’”
When going through applications, Magruder said, they focus on three things: academic aptitude, including GPA and writing quality, practice experience and the candidate’s fit in the program.
Monisa Caldwell, School of Social Work graduate program coordinator, said the best part of her job is learning about the applicants, and with the program being new, she gets to see what students want for themselves.
“When I see their application, I kind of get to know them via paper,” Caldwell said. “I don’t get to see them, unfortunately, face-to-face because this is an online program, but I get to know them through their words.”
This program has been a project that social work faculty have been envisioning for many years.
“It really did take a team of many people working for a sustained amount of time to see this vision come to reality, so it’s very exciting for us,” Magruder said.
Apart from the faculty who have worked behind the scenes, Magruder said she also hired a graduate student to pilot test the courses before they went live to provide feedback, and they adjusted based on that.
One of the program’s requirements is having at least three years of professional experience, which can be an opportunity for students to learn their preferences before applying to the program.
“Give yourself time after earning your MSW to gain a variety of professional experiences,” Elisha Tones, assistant professor of practice, said in an email. “Explore different practice and leadership opportunities, pay attention to what you enjoy and what you do not, and allow those experiences to help shape the questions and specific areas you want to explore in your capstone.”
Requirements:All official transcripts of undergraduate and graduate workA master’s of social work or Master of Science in social work from a CSWE-accredited institutionThree or more years of post-master’s graduation practice experienceCompleted application formThree letters of recommendationCurriculum vitae (CV) or resumeStatement of purpose (750 to 1,000 words, APA 7 style)TOEFL iBT total score if applicable
Applications for spring 2027 are open, and the deadline to apply is Sept. 15.