A Tribute to the Legacy of Elsie Owens
by Bart Davis

To honor Mrs. Elsie Owens, the faculty, administration, and alumni of the School of Social Work respectfully create a graduate-level full academic scholarship to be awarded annually in Mrs. Owens’ name.  Owens Scholars will gain a highly specialized body of professional social work skills.  They will identify and analyze the nature and extent of human and institutional oppression; engage in social work practices that alleviate suffering; and continue Elsie’s legacy of individual strength, and the power of conscience, as the crucible of social change.
           
God loved Elsie Owens, and we loved her, too.  Everything she did was an expression of her commitment to a just society in which the benefits of equality and empowerment would be regarded as the basic and regular state of the human condition.  She was an enduring champion of individual dignity and freedom.  She resisted any system that sought to oppress the human spirit.  She rejected discrimination in all its forms.  She never stopped fighting to empower the victims of economic injustice.  She embraced the excluded.  With grace and heart and endless spirit, she fought oppression to the death.
           
Elsie Owens made us all a little bigger, better, and more honest and compassionate, more righteous and more humble.  Although she is gone, she has not left.  Elsie’s fight remains our fight – and her courage remains our courage.  Dean Frances L. Brisbane’s creation of this scholarship permits Elsie’s work to go on, and her stature to renew our commitment to the undeniable moral imperative and enduring historical truth that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
           
Now, as we move forward under Elsie’s watchful gaze we are united by one central idea; one all-encompassing belief – anywhere we find inequality and injustice part of the structure or ideology of our society, our obligation is to aid in their removal, denying oppression any resting place until the denial of human rights on the basis of class, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, age or disabilities, exists no more.
           
Specifically, the Elsie Owens Scholarship will prepare its recipients:

1. To support the development of human relationships that are grounded in social justice, human dignity and mutual respect;
2. To develop new and more just organizational forms;
3. To transform existing inequities within societal and political structures into systems that affirm and enhance human dignity and diversity;
4. To use Social Work’s unique resources and perspectives to support individuals, families, and groups encountering difficult life-transitions.
5. To influence social, economic, and political systems to distribute power, resources, rights and freedom so as to achieve greater social justice, cultural diversity, human dignity, and individual self-determination.

Respectfully submitted in the name of our friend, Elsie Owens.
Bart Davis, Class of 1976
To make a donation to the Elsie Owens Endowed Scholarship Fund on-line please go to http://www.stonybrook.edu/sb/giving/ or make checks payable to SBF/Elsie Owens Endowed Scholarship Fund and send it to:
Stony Brook Foundation
Suite 230
Stony Brook, NY 11790-4455

Bart Davis, www.bartdavis.com is a renowned author who has published 13 books throughout his career.  His latest is Closure: The Untold Story of the Ground Zero Recovery Mission a telling account of the recovery effort of 9/11.  For more information on this inspirational story please go to www.closure9-11.com