Dr. Greta Slater has been serving the College of Health for 22 years, joining as a contract faculty member in 2004 and starting on the tenure track the next year. She now serves as the Chair of the Department of Social Work and as an associate professor of social work.

Throughout her time at Ball State, Slater has served as department chair on three other occasions, and taught everything in the Social Work curriculum in the bachelor’s program and the master’s program, which she worked to create.

“One of my, what I consider one of my legacy roles, I guess, was the MSW program director. So that’s our Master of Social Work program.” Slater said, “And we started our MSW program in 2019, so we admitted our first students that year.”

The program is fully accredited by the Council on Social Work Education and is in its fifth year of operation, and has already graduated roughly 350 students. As a hybrid program, it is designed to allow students flexibility to continue working as they work towards their master’s degree.

In addition to creating the MSW program, she has helped to launch the online Bachelor of Social Work program, and has seen growth in the Department of Social Work, which now boasts an additional eight faculty members from when she started at Ball State.

Prior to taking her position as a Cardinal, Slater served as a practicing clinical social worker for a variety of practices centering around trauma and post-traumatic growth.

After taking her position at Ball State, she continued to pursue her education, earning her Ph.D. from Indiana University in 2005, and her Master of Public Administration from Ball State in 2017.

As she completes her final year at Ball State, Slater has taken the time to reflect on her experiences as an educator, and the lasting impact she has had on the College of Health.

One lasting contribution is the MariSon Project, a hospice and palliative care training program and fund, created by Slater and her husband, Nicholas Slater, in honor of her late mother and sister.

“The hope is to have scholarships, money for travel, potentially some startup money for faculty who want to do research in hospice and palliative care.” Slater said, “But I really would love to have the College of Health be a hub for training hospice and palliative care social workers, nurses, speech pathologists, anybody in the College of Health.”

As she nears retirement, Slater has no intentions to step away from her work completely, already describing her plans to work to create a certificate program for hospice and palliative care.

Slater has been recognized by Indiana University, and is set to receive the university’s Distinguished Alumni Award in April, an award that acknowledges the excellent work she has done throughout her career.