The University of Maryland School of Social Work (UMSSW) aims to bring everyone under the same roof with its new $120 million building, but the school almost needed a bigger tent to fit more than 200 people inside to celebrate the groundbreaking.

A capacity crowd listens to the Rev. Karen Brown of Maryland Family Network during the University of Maryland School of Social Work building groundbreaking on Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024.

The boisterous crowd received its first glimpse of the future for UMSSW at 600 W. Lexington St., where University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) faculty, staff, students, community members, and local dignitaries joined together Thursday, Oct. 17, to help put the first shovels in the ground as part of UMB’s Founders Week celebrations.

The new 127,000-square-foot building will be all-encompassing.

“I want a building that reflects our values — who we are as social workers, who we are as a profession,” said UMSSW Dean Judy L. Postmus, PhD, ACSW. “I want people to look at the building and say, ‘I see the values. I experience the values. I live the values.’ ”

The new home for UMMSW prioritizes sustainability with features like a high-performance building wrap, solar panels, green roof with trees, bike lockers with showers for commuters, and geo-exchange wells underneath the building that are part of a robust energy and emissions system that will make it the first net-zero emissions building in downtown Baltimore. If milestones are met, it is expected the building will be the first LEED-certified net-zero energy building in downtown Baltimore. It also is on track to achieve LEED Platinum for its sustainability construction, the highest level from the U.S. Green Building Council. Whiting-Turner will construct UMSSW’s new building designed by Ballinger.

“It’s important to have a healthy school and a healthy environment,” said UMB President Bruce E. Jarrell, MD, FACS.

In other spaces, it will have gathering spaces including a coffee lounge, a prayer and meditation room with a foot washing station, a lactation room, and flexible rooms for all sizes of team huddles and meetings, including simulation rooms and an assembly hall.

Beyond the list of firsts for sustainability features for UMB, downtown Baltimore, and even the state in some cases, the new UMSSW building will be a catalyst connecting the campus to the community on UMB’s north end when completed in 2027. Concurrently with the school’s construction, UMB is engaging with private developers to reimagine a portion of West Lexington Street, Jarrell said, adding research space, learning and living spaces, retail, and restaurants to activate the north end of campus all day long.

“This is a new beehive of activity that’s going to happen at UMB over the next couple of years, and social work will be at the center of it,” Jarrell said.

The new space will help meet the demand for more social workers across the country. It’s expected that job growth will increase by 7 percent over the next decade, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics, a faster than average rate. The school is helping more students affordably achieve that goal through a bevy of fellowship and scholarship options and now offers in-state tuition to Washington, D.C., residents for the MSW program.

“The opportunity for our young people to come into this building and see what opportunities are there for them — that is so impactful,” said the Rev. Karen Brown, DMin, family support director with the Maryland Family Network.

One future social worker will be UMSSW student and SGA president Courtney Fullwood, who is expected to graduate from the MSW program in 2025. Following his service in the Navy and working for federal contractor agencies, he discovered his passion to be an advocate for those who lack a voice for themselves.

“The work and advocacy that I have seen at this school have inspired me and trained me to continue pursuing a career in social work,” Fullwood said.

State Sen. Antonio Hayes, D-Baltimore, District 40, who serves on the school’s Board of Advisors and is employed as chief of staff for the Baltimore City Department of Social Services, has seen the results of social workers in the community.

“I’ve worked alongside people who in the middle of the night when all of the safety nets have fallen from underneath them, it’s those unsung heroes in social work that show up to the call,” Hayes said. “A lot of times when people are at their darkest moments and lowest time in life, these individuals rise to the call and give you the sense of healing and the sense of security to make it to another day.”

Hayes also presented Jarrell and Postmus with a citation congratulating the school on its groundbreaking.

Maryland Comptroller Brooke Lierman bolstered the support for more social workers, sharing the impact they can make on not only people’s lives, but the legal system as well.

“No offense to legal programs, but it does occur to me that if we invested more in social work, perhaps we would have fewer legal cases and fewer lawyers needed,” Lierman said, prompting a thunderous applause from the audience for the trained lawyer’s remarks.

The state’s and UMB’s investment in social work is a step in a positive direction.

“The School of Social Work trains individuals who are dedicated to improving the lives of others, to organizing communities to making a difference not just in this generation but in generations to come,” Lierman said.