Reporter Volume 25, No.19 March 3, 1994

By MARK WALLACE
Reporter Staff

The spirit and commitment of people in the 1960s led John Wodarski to
devote his life to social work.
	"I'm a product of the 60s, and the beliefs of those times,"
says Wodarski, who became the Janet B. Wattles Research Professor and
director of the doctoral program and research center in the Graduate
School of Social Work at UB in August 1993, after a distinguished
career at institutions such as the University of Akron, the University
of Georgia, the University of Maryland, Johns Hopkins University, and
several others.
	 "The reasons I went into social work are very different from
the reasons that people go into social work today," Wodarksi says.
"There was a sense in the 60s of having companions, of having
community. We believed that anything was possible, that we could get
people out of poverty, that we were 'our neighbor's keeper.' We really
believed we could make the world a better place."
	Wodarski began college in 1962, majoring in business at
Florida State University. But he felt uncomfortable in business, he
says, and soon switched to social work. His work in the years since
has been mainly in research "on all the social problems of society,"
he says, with a focus on the problems of children and adolescents.
	Wodarski has written numerous books and articles on a huge
range of social issues, including alcohol education, nutrition, the
mental health concerns of rural communities, and of children and
adolescents. Teaching has also been important to him, he says, and he
has received outstanding teaching awards from Washington University in
St. Louis and the University of Georgia.
	In the Graduate School of Social Work, Wodarski's duties
include the planning and developing of resources for the school,
facilitating student development and their work with faculty, and
coordinating such activities with various parts of UB and the
surrounding community.
	But for Wodarski, research on social issues remains a central
concern. "Unfortunately," he points out, "what we thought we could do
in the sixties didn't happen. The real threat to our society is not
the deficit, but our enormous social problems and the cost of solving
them. Teenage pregnancy is out of control, depression is far too
common, substance abuse is reaching epidemic proportions, and violent
behavior has become absolutely catastrophic. If anything, we need more
research than ever to get us out of these problems."
	Such problems pose serious threats to life in the United
States, Wodarski says, particularly because they are all interrelated.
"Let's say a young man drops out of school," Wodarski says. "He can't
find a job, and starts drinking, he has no control of his impulses, he
goes on drugs, he has no money and eventually he turns to crime to
support his habits. Too many people these days are doing that.
	"A prison inmate once said to me, 'Dr. Wodarski, when I killed
that guy, it was the highest rush.' That epitomizes where certain
people are in this society.
	"I think our judicial system has gone crazy--and this is
someone from the 60s speaking. We've developed a society that has a
whole list of excuses for life threatening behavior. Violence affects
every American--you're not immune to violence anywhere you are."
	One solution to social problems is education, Wodarski says,
but he adds that a lot more money needs to be put into education
before it can be truly effective. "Isn't it better to pay more up
front than to pay $80,000 a year to incarcerate someone beginning at
age 16?" he asks. "We must have education, and we must have prevention
too."
	Solving the problems of violence and young people will take a
"massive, comprehensive approach," Wodarski says. "We as adults must
say certain behaviors are unacceptable, but we must also control the
amount of drugs and alcohol that kids can get. We have to take a
preventative health approach."
	Preventative health approaches have been the focus of much of
his research, Wodarski says. They involve ways of equipping children
with the survival skills they need in contemporary America, he says.
He's interested in providing many of these skills through what he
calls the "classroom of the future"--multi-media technologies, self
instruction through interactive disks, various types of simulations.
	"My research is basically interventive--it may not be
productive to analyze why some people behave the way they do,"
Wodarski says. "We have to teach them how to live in this society.
	"An important problem is that adults don't spend enough time
with kids," Wodarski says. "I don't think the family is ever going to
be the same, I don't think we're going back. So who's going to
socialize America's children? Schools don't want to do it, but the
responsibility may fall on them. One solution may be to have schools
more involved in afterschool programs that could give kids more
stability."
	As an example of the way schools could take on greater
responsibilities, Wodarski suggests that they could stay open between
four and nine p.m., hours when parents may not yet be home. During
those hours, a variety of professional people could come in to the
schools to talk to children. "The kids could stimulate the older
people, and the older people could share their wisdom," he says.
	"The life skills approach can help about one-third of kids in
deep trouble," Wodarski says. "But we will need massive social change
to help the other two-thirds.
	"The role of an institution like UB has to be to become
involved with the surrounding community--universities have to be
leaders in these areas," Wodarski says. "Universities have long done
research for the sake of research, but now we need to do more applied
research. And we need to work more with politicians, who structure
society but may not understand the complexity of its problems.
	"Social problems have to be attacked in a multi-level,
interventive, comprehensive way. We need to look at education, at
welfare, at the criminal justice and mental health systems--at all the
systems in this society that interact with adolescents."