School of Social Work

People

Tracy Soska

Continuing Education Director, Lecturer in the Community Organization and Social Administration Program, School of Social Work
MSW, University of Pittsburgh

2025 Cathedral of Learning
412-624-3711
E-mail: tsssw@pitt.edu

Biography

Soska’s primary interests are in community organizing and social administration, workforce development, collaboration and coalition building, and university-community relations and partnerships. He is co-director and co-principal investigator of the University’s Community Outreach Partnership Center funded through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. His is also principal investigator for the United Way Neighborhood Leadership and Wellness Project evaluation component and for the School’s new gambling community impact research initiative.

Soska has also served principal investigator for the University-Community Career Development Partnership, a welfare-to-work initiative that focuses job readiness training, work experience, and employment placement within the University of Pittsburgh and UPMC Health System. He has also been principal investigator for the Catalyst for Community Builders Project, a grassroots leadership and community organizing training initiative in Southwestern Pennsylvania. Soska also provides coordinating support to the Regional Coalition of Community Builders, a grassroots leadership network in Southwestern Pennsylvania.

Soska oversees the school’s Continuing Education (CE) Program that provides a range of workshops, courses, institutes, online courses, and training academies for social workers and other helping professionals. Soska has had long service on the University’s Senate Council and Faculty Assembly, notably the Senate’s Community Relations Committee. Soska is a recipient of the Chancellor’s Distinguished Public Service Award (2002). He has published and presented nationally in the area of university and community partnerships.

Teaching

Community Organizing and Social Administration (COSA) III (MSW)

Generalist Foundations of Social Work Practice (MSW)

General Practice with Communities and Organizations (BASW)

Special Topics Seminar (undergraduate Living and Learning Center seminar)

Selected Publications

Soska, Tracy & Butterfield, Alice Johnson (ed.) University-Community Partnerships : Universities in Civic Engagement. (2005). Haworth Press. Binghampton, NY. Published simultaneously as a special issue of the Journal of Community Practice. 12 (3/4). 2004. Haworth Press

Soska, Tracy & Trudeau, John (Ed.). “Bridging University and Community” Professional Development: The International Journal of Continuing Professional Development. Vol. 1/2. 2005. Temple University Center for Social Policy and Community Development. Seymour Rosenthal (Ed.)

Soska, Tracy (Ed.). The University in Civic Engagement: Service in the University’s Mission. Report of the Senate Community Relations Committee on the University of Pittsburgh Senate Plenary of March 21, 2001. November 2001.

Soska, Tracy. University-Community Partnerships: Implications for Schools of Social Work. Paper presented at the Council of Social Work Education Annual Program Meeting. Dallas, TX. March 10, 2001

Affiliations, Associations, Consultation

Editorial Board—The Journal of Community Practice. Haworth Press. Journal of the Association of Community Organizing and Social Administration. Marie Weil (Ed.)

Editorial Board—Professional Development: The International Journal of Continuing Social Work Education. Temple University School of Social Policy and Administration. Seymour Rosenthal (Ed.)

Editor—ACOSA Updates! National quarterly newsletter of the Association of Community Organizing and Social Administration.

Steering Committee—CENET. The Continuing Education Directors Network for Schools of Social Work.

Member—University of Pittsburgh Senate, Faculty Assembly, Community Relations Committee

Council on Social Work Education (member)

National Association of Social Workers (member)

Association of Community Organizing and Social Administration (School liaison)

Leadership Pittsburgh—Program Planning Committee, LP I

United Way of Allegheny County—Neighborhood Wellness Impact Council