Faculty, staff, and students joined the Whiting-Turner Contracting Company crew and Ballinger architects Feb. 25 inside the school’s future assembly room to reflect on the milestone.
Hands stayed warm in coat pockets and heads protected in hard hats to get a glimpse of the final beam rise into place for the new University of Maryland School of Social Work (UMSSW) building.
University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) faculty, staff, and students joined the Whiting-Turner Contracting Company crew and Ballinger architects Wednesday, Feb. 25, inside the school’s future assembly room to reflect on what this construction milestone represents: change.
“This is a new moment for what we call change makers,” said UMB President Bruce E. Jarrell, MD, FACS. “That's what the School of Social Work does.”
At a topping off ceremony at 600 W. Lexington St., UMB and Whiting-Turner celebrated the structural completion of the new School of Social Work building that culminated in the raising of the final beam. Crews broke ground Oct. 17, 2024. This construction tradition is symbolic in one sense — raising a painted white beam topped with an American flag and a small evergreen tree to represent good luck and respect for the tree spirits — and practical in another sense, as a hand-off between the trades working on the foundation and structure and the crew that will complete the interior and façade.
“This has been, since I’ve been dean, a dream becoming a reality,” said Judy L. Postmus, PhD, ACSW, dean of the School of Social Work. She recalled taking office in July 2020, in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, when she was asked what she wanted in a new building she had not yet stepped inside to fully understand.
Her answer was clear.
“I want a building that reflects social work values,” Postmus said, with values of openness, transparency, and welcome.