Dr. Michael Daley’s passion for social work was born from personal experience and education. While he’s always been interested in the human condition, his personal journey found him investing time in social work with a desire to help those around him. Now, as the director of the social work program at Texas A&M University—Central Texas, Daley continues to make a difference and be a positive influence on the world around him knowing that education is the key to success.
“My father told me that I really should try to get the best education that I could afford,” Daley said.
His father who earned a Bachelor of Law as his first degree later in life, around his forties, served as a model of persistent and lifelong learning.
“He was interested in education, as were his brothers and sisters,” Daley explains, though their family story was marked by loss as only four of his father’s nine siblings survived into adulthood.
His father’s occupational travels took him away often, leaving Daley to spend most of his time with his mother, who struggled with the challenges of raising him as a single parent during her husband’s absences. As an only child watching his mother navigate these challenges, Daley’s upbringing fostered self-reliance.
“I think it’s made me a lot more self-reliant than some, but I don’t have any way to judge that, because being me is all I’ve had,”
Soon, Daley was a graduating senior obtaining his Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology at Rice University in 1971. Fresh out of school and eager for employment during the 1970-1971 recession, he took the first serious offer he received—a position at the Harris County, Texas orphanage.
“It was the first job I got out of college, and it turns out I liked it, and I felt like I was decent at it,” he said.
The job was supposed to be routine, “an 8 to 5 job,” but it turned out to be anything but.
“You never knew exactly what was going to happen,” Daley said, “There were always a lot of emergencies with families, children creating problems, running away, difficulties in school, etc. So, it was interesting, to say the least, and not routine at all. My eyes were opened to sides of life and parts of the community I really wasn’t aware existed,” he said. “There was an incredible richness to that experience that I had not experienced that way before.”
It was during this time that Daley realized the value of further education, not just for himself, but for the people he worked with.
“I made a decision that more education would certainly benefit me, but hopefully the people I was working with as well,” Daley said. “I saw some pretty horrible things done to people and I wanted to try and, not only do what I did better, but to help the workers as a group do better work themselves.”
With this resolve, Daley pursued his Master of Social Work at the University of Houston from August 1973 to May 1975 and eventually, his Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin—Madison, graduating in 1983. Daley worked in research shops, analyzing data, looking at poverty, homelessness, and juvenile incarceration rates before he began his teaching career as the founding director of the social work programs at Stephen F. Austin State University in East Texas and later at the University of South Alabama in Mobile, Alabama.
In 2015, Daley’s career brought him to Central Texas to build a social work program at the then Tarleton State University—Central Texas. His approach is to give students hands-on experiences that teach them the true nature of social work.
“We do a lot in social work to involve people in active participation, actually demonstrating the skills and knowledge that we are teaching to them,” he said.
For his senior-level students, he assigns community-targeted projects that challenge them to interact with local agencies, speak to people, and propose solutions.“By the same token, I think it ends up paying off big dividends, because when they graduate, they know they can do something. And we do too,” Daley said.
Engaging with community service projects through Phi Alpha, the honor society for social work, students develop practical skills that complement their classroom learning. This involvement prepares them for the challenges of their future careers while making significant contributions to the community.
“Phi Alpha is the honor society for social work, and that organization on most campuses get honor cords and marches at graduation, hires, actively does community-based projects, working with low-income schools, working with nursing homes, and feeding the homeless,” Daley said. “The chapter has won 13 consecutive national awards for community service. Out of 400 plus schools that have Phi Alpha chapters, only two or three get them, so it’s a big accomplishment.”
Navigating the challenges of academia, Daley speaks candidly about the difficulties faced in delivering education with shrinking resources.
“One of the biggest challenges that we all face in education is shrinking resources for incredibly challenging work to deliver education to the students,” he said.However, he is quick to point out the creative ways his department has found to overcome these barriers.
“We’ve got a lot of activity related to talking with students in our offices around advising, developing orientations to help them feel connected to us and the rest of the university.”
One of Daley’s proudest contributions to the field is his book, Rural Social Work, which is now in its second edition and also the leading text for courses on the subject in the United States.
“Rural social work is kind of underappreciated in this country,” Daley said, especially as most social work literature focuses on urban issues. “Eighty percent of Texas is rural and it just so happens that 80% of Texas is a healthcare shortage area, a mental health shortage area.”
This lack of resources often requires rural communities to be more innovative in their approach.
“In some cases, rural communities get more creative; they use churches and schools and community groups, whereas in an urban area there are more likely to be formal agencies.” Daley said.Daley’s work continues to encourage students and professionals to think critically about how they deliver services and to whom.
“We’ve been very successful in placing our students in graduate social work programs. And a number of our graduates are now advanced-level social workers with graduate degrees and high-level certifications,” he said. “So seeing them in the workforce, becoming leaders, I think is really, really gratifying.”
Daley continues to focus not only on his students and building the social work program at A&M—Central Texas, but also on his personal journey and education. He has won numerous awards and recognitions for contributions to the field and, in January, hopes to see his second book published.