Remembering a Baylor legend: Diana Garland

For many, “Baylor social work” and “Diana Garland” were virtually the same thing even before the school was named in her honor in 2015. Almost 10 years after her passing, Dr. Garland remains a titan in the world of social work — at Baylor, and beyond.

Garland and her husband, Dr. David Garland, joined the Baylor faculty in 1997 — Diana in the College of Arts & Sciences, where social work was still just a degree track, and David at Truett Seminary. Two years later, social work became its own department, and Diana was named department chair two years after that. When the School of Social Work was officially established in 2005, Garland was named its first dean — a role she would hold until pancreatic cancer forced her to step down in April 2015. (She would pass away just a few months later.)

Today, the Diana R. Garland School of Social Work has grown to include more than 300 students across its undergraduate, master’s (both in-person and online) and doctoral programs. The graduate program was ranked No. 51 nationally in U.S. News‘ most recent rankings.

But more important than the accolades and achievements is the school’s identity — a vision developed largely from Garland’s leadership, focused on infusing social work with Christian faith:

“Social work grew out of the church,” Garland told Baylor Magazine in 2011. “Our profession began with volunteer church women going into the slums during the turn of the 20th century. … My calling, as I’ve found it, is to help the church be the church, through my discipline of social work.”

And Garland’s impact isn’t only seen at Baylor. Her pioneering research on clergy sexual abuse of adults remains some of the best in the field on that subject — still regularly cited in both academic journals and mainstream media, and even attracting researchers to Baylor.

“I see my job, if it’s done well, to be one of investing in my colleagues,” Garland once said. “As important as my research and writing is to me, it has to be secondary to my finding the resources — whether that’s time, great students, grants or gifts — to support the work that the faculty and staff in the School of Social Work are doing, and investing in their lives, because they’re going to be here long after I’m gone.”

Those people, and that work, continues today — the perfect homage to Garland’s legacy.

Sic ’em, Dr. Garland!