Venessa A. Brown Bio
Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville

Inclusion at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE) with a tenured faculty
appointment as professor in the department of social work. She also served as Associate
Provost in Academic Affairs and Executive Director of the SIUE East Saint Louis Center
(ESLC).

Dr. Brown began her academic career in 1993 as an assistant professor of sociology and
social work in the Department of Social Sciences at Greenville College (GC). Following in
her commitment to accredited social work programs, Dr. Brown accepted a position at
SIUE in 1995 as an assistant professor to start the Masters in Social Work (MSW)
program. She was tenured and promoted in 2001, full professor in 2006 and department
chair from 2006 – 2007. In this role, she contributed to the overall success of the
BSW/MSW program being fully accredited.

Dr. Brown is a native of Missouri, earned her B.A. in Social Work and Psychology at
Greenville College in 1983, MSW from Atlanta University School of Social Work in 1985
and a Ph.D. in Social Work with a Concentration in Statistics and Computer Science
from Clark Atlanta University in 1994. After attending her master’s program she worked
for the State of Georgia. She is a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.

Dr. Brown is nationally and internationally known for her commitment to public child
welfare. She has also been recognized for teaching and international activities. Her past
students have become leaders in the region. She is the author of “Child Welfare Case
Studies” published by Allyn & Bacon and in the process of completing a textbook with
Dr. Doris Houston on Community-Based Child Welfare with Multicultural Families.

Over the years, she has been a principle investigator on state and federally funded
grants. Under her leadership as the Executive Director of the SIUE (ESLC) she oversaw
grant funded programs totaling approximately $15 million. She also secured a $1million
dollar cash gift to the University to open a state of the art STEM Technology Lab for the
Charter High School.