The IGDS:NBU Welcomes New Head
07/04/2020
The Institute for Gender and Development Studies: Nita Barrow Unit is pleased to announce Letnie Rock, PhD as our new head, effective August 1, 2017.
Dr Rock brings to the post years of experience in research, teaching and public service in areas such as child abuse and neglect, corporal punishment, domestic violence and disaster management.
Dr Rock holds a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Social Work from the Fordham University Graduate School of Social Service in New York, and a Master of Human Services Administration from the Antioch/New England Graduate School in Keene, New Hampshire. She started her academic career in 1974 at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, before pursuing another Bachelor degree in Social Work at the University of Windsor in Ontario, Canada.
The social work specialist joined UWI Cave Hill as a lecturer in August 1999 and was appointed Senior Lecturer in Social Work in 2012.
Dr Rock is not new to the IGDS:NBU, having acted as Head of the Center for Gender and Development Studies (as the Unit was first named) and later, the Institute for Gender and Development Studies: Nita Barrow Unit. She is also a former member of the Editorial Committee for the Working Paper Series, and has served as the Faculty of Social Sciences’ representative to the Board for Gender and Development Studies.
Her other notable campus appointments include: Acting Campus Coordinator, School of Graduate Studies and Research, Cave Hill Campus (February 2013); and Acting Director of the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute for Social and Economic Studies (SALISES) Cave Hill (August 2012).
Dr Rock has also published extensively in peer reviewed journals and edited collections on key issues including child abuse and neglect, domestic violence, disabilities, HIV and AIDS, climate change and disaster management. Additionally, she is a Member of the Editorial Board of the Caribbean Journal of Social Work and Social Work Education – The International Journal.
Public service is also a significant component of Dr Rock’s work. From 2008 to 2011 and 2011-2013, Dr Rock was appointed chairman of the National Advisory Commission on Education (NACE) of the Government of Barbados. She is also a past President of the Association of Caribbean Social Work Educators and a past member of the Board of the International Association of Schools of Social Work (IASSW).
Dr Rock currently serves as a member of the Sustainability, Climate Change and Disaster Intervention Committee and the Human Rights and International Projects committees of IASSW, as well as on the Executive Committee of the Barbados Association of Palliative Care.
In 2015, her teaching excellence in the area of social work was rewarded by the Association of Caribbean Social Work Educators.