Biographical Sketch
Katherine Stuart van Wormer grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana and received her B.A. in English from the University of North Carolina and went on to get a postgraduate degree in English education from Queen’s University, Belfast, Northern Ireland, where she taught English for two years; a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Georgia (specializing in corrections and social psychology) and finally, an MSSW from the University of Tennessee-Nashville.

Active in the civil rights and peace movements in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and later, in Northern Ireland, Katherine van Wormer continues to work for peace. For two and a half years she worked as an alcoholism counselor in Washington State and Ohio, and for two years served as program director at Vangseter, a treatment center north of Hamar, Norway. Her academic work has been mostly in the area of women in prison and addiction treatment. Harm reduction and restorative justice are two of her favorite models and the subject of numerous articles. Today van Wormer is professor of social work at the University of Northern Iowa.

Dr. van Wormer is the author of two trade books and numerous textbooks. The trade books are The Maid Narratives: Black Domestics and White Families in the Jim Crow South (2012, LSU Press) co-authored with D.W. Jackson III and C.Sudduth. The second book is Death by Domestic Violence: Preventing the Murders and the Murder-Suicides (2009, Praeger).

Her most recent textbooks are:  Women and the Criminal Justice System (3rd ed.) (2010) co-authored with C. Bartollas, Pearson Publishing Co.;a two volume set: Human Behavior and the Social Environment, Micro Level, (2md ed.),and Human Behavior and the Social Environment, Macro Level (2nd ed.), Oxford University Press, 2011 (The macro text was co-authored with F.Besthorn); Working with Female Offenders: A Gender-Sensitive Approach (2011), Wiley & Sons; Addiction Treatment: A Strengths Perspective (3rd ed.,) (2012) co-authored with D.R. Davis, Cengage; Confronting Oppression, Restoring Justice: From Policy Analysis to Social Action. (2nd ed.) (2012).co-authored with L. Kaplan and C.Juby, CSWE; and Restorative Justice Today: Practical Applications (2013) SAGE, co-editeded with Lorenn Walker.

She writes a blog on issues related to crime and the law at psychologytoday.com, has many of her published articles at http://scribd.com/vanwormer. See also The Maid Narratives Facebook. 

Graduate Course
Human Behavior and the Social Environment
 

Undergraduate Courses
Addictions Treatment
Social Welfare: A World View                                                                                           Human Behavior and the Social Environment

All available by correspondence. Call 319-273-2123

Contact van Wormer at vanworme@uni.edu