Robin M. Mathy, MSW, ASW (CA), CSWA (OR), LGSW, MSc, MSt, MA
Emergency Contact
  • My Mission
    My personal mission is to embody lifelong education, cultural humility, and social justice while striving to decrease health disparities in LGBTQ communities. I am dedicated to continuously expanding my knowledge and skills, recognizing that learning is a lifelong journey. By remaining open-minded and receptive to new perspectives, I seek to develop cultural humility, fostering genuine respect and understanding for diverse identities, experiences, and backgrounds.

    With a firm belief in social justice, I am committed to advocating for equality and fairness in all aspects of life. I recognize the inherent worth and dignity of every individual, and I am determined to challenge systemic oppression and discrimination. Through education, activism, and engagement, I aim to contribute to a more just and inclusive society where all individuals have equal opportunities to thrive.

    Moreover, my mission is centered around addressing health disparities within LGBTQ communities. I recognize the unique challenges faced by these communities and the importance of ensuring equitable access to healthcare services. I am dedicated to promoting comprehensive healthcare, raising awareness, and supporting initiatives that improve the physical, mental, and emotional well-being of LGBTQ individuals.

    By integrating these characteristics into my personal mission, I strive to make a positive impact, not only on the lives of individuals within LGBTQ communities but also on society as a whole. I am committed to fostering understanding, fighting for justice, and working towards a world where everyone is afforded the same rights, opportunities, and access to healthcare, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

    Teaching Philosophy

    As a licensed social worker with nearly two decades of experience, I am deeply committed to socializing social work students to practice the profession’s core values as articulated in the 2021 National Association of Social Workers Code of Ethics. In addition, in part because of my intersectional identities (race, ability, gender identity, sexual orientation) and my personal and professional experiences with discrimination, disadvantage, injustice, and oppression, I know how important it is that social work students are socialized to address anti-racism, diversity, equity, and inclusion in all aspects of their practice. Therefore, I stress the importance of students developing cultural humility and ensuring the learning environment feels psychologically safe for students to take risks and expose vulnerabilities while contributing to discussions without fear of reprisals.
    My ultimate goal as an educator is to teach social work students to apply the person-in-environment strengths-based perspective unique to social work while socializing them to incorporate a commitment to lifelong learning and continuous self-reflection consistent with cultural humility. As articulated in Anderson et al.’s 2021 revision of Bloom’s 1956 taxonomy, this enables social work students to go beyond recalling and explaining social work concepts and apply them to new situations and circumstances, defend their practice decisions based on evidence-based research, and creatively design and develop new ways to address social injustice, engage in social change, and remediate social problems.
    To facilitate this educational process, I design my courses by first identifying the learning objectives I want students to achieve. Because it is imperative for social work programs accredited by the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) to fulfill the nine competencies articulated in its 2022 Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards (EPAS), I highlight for students the ways each course objective aligns with specific EPAS competencies. I then develop each week’s readings, videos, active learning exercises, and associated assignments by aligning each to a particular course objective. I also articulate to students (and administrators) why each of these is important. In addition, I incorporate active learning in each class session. For example, before a class session on cultural competency, I introduce students to intersectionality by assigning classic writings and a video of Kimberlé Crenshaw addressing the importance of intersectionality in our social lives. Finally, I use think-pair share, small group, and whole-class discussions to have students reflect on and discuss case studies addressing intersectionality and ways to analyze and apply this concept to their social work practice.
    I use frequent, low-risk, one-page reflective essays as formative assessments beginning early in a course and continuously obtain feedback on my teaching effectiveness. I make tweaks to demonstrate empathy and rapport with students and ensure my teaching reaches students at the levels I expect them to learn. I use summative assessments such as feedback from students, peers, and more experienced teachers to make course iterations to increase my teaching effectiveness. To provide an inclusive learning environment, I ensure that audible, large print and translated versions of the readings are available, that closed video captioning is accessible, and that I make reasonable accommodations for those who need to overcome barriers to their learning.