University remembers academic
Posted on 22 September 2004
Professor Baldwin is remembered with great affection at the University as a forthright, funny and courageous woman, whose academic work had a great deal of influence on the UK's social policies.
Professor Baldwin died in October 2003 after a 30-year career at the University of York, which began when she took a Diploma in Social Administration with Distinction. She was subsequently appointed the first research fellow of what later became the University's nationally-regarded Social Policy Research Unit (SPRU).
She became Director of SPRU in 1987. Under her leadership the Unit doubled in size and established its reputation as a national centre for research on social security, disablement, and policies for carers. Her doctorate was a pioneering study of the financial costs of severe childhood disability, which helped bring in higher benefits and tax rates for disabled children.
The re-naming ceremony will be led by Sir Donald Barron, Chair of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation Trustees from 1981 to 1996, who played a central role in supporting the establishment of SPRU.
Professor Baldwin cared about and did much research into the needs and preferences of people receiving services; she also undertook research on informal carers of people with mental health problems, a stream of research on deafness, and community care policy.
In 1994 she became Head of the University's Department of Social Policy and Social Work and Director of the Institute for Research in the Social Sciences in 1998.
She was a keen supporter of women's rights and taught one of the first courses in the UK on women and money, and among many other roles, was locally a non-executive director of the York NHS Trust where she strove to translate research evidence into improved services. She was robust and determined in her advocacy of improved patient care, particularly in local cancer care provision and mental health.
She leaves her husband Joe Callan, daughters Emma and Julia, and grandchildren Theo, and Louis.
Notes to editors:
- The Department of Social Policy and Social Work embraces an interdisciplinary approach that encompasses the delivery of social services and the management of public services, political science, sociology, criminology, economics, psychology, history, philosophy and holds diverse thematic interests that include crime, social exclusion, the impact of digital technologies, racism, the politics of policy, human rights, and globalisation.