Rocco D'Angelo

Rocco D'Angelo, PhD
Professor Emeritus

dangelo.1@osu.edu

Education
PhD - Education Administration - Ohio University
MA - Economics - Ohio University
MSS - New York University
BS - City College of New York

Introduction
Professor Rocco D’Angelo came to The Ohio State University College of Social Work from New York University where he was directed Admissions and Scholarships. While there, he was active in social work recruiting, and in civic and professional affairs. Professor D’Angelo coordinated a Parents Federation in the City of Orange, New Jersey where he forged an alliance with the N.A.A.C.P. to challenge the education board’s defiance of the state desegregation order, assuming the role of “principal” of an interim (protest) school until the State Court ruled in favor of the N.A.A.C.P. case. He was appointed by the city’s mayor to an Advisory Council to oversee the restructuring process. D’Angelo served as president of the North New Jersey Chapter of the N.A.S.W. for 1965 and 1966, and was appointed as a career consultant to the U.S. Peace Corps (1964-1974). When he joined the College of Social Work faculty in the fall of 1966, he served as Graduate Admissions Director and taught half-time in the Research and Social Policy areas. After finishing his doctoral work in 1970, he shifted to teaching full-time and became active doing research with problem adolescents and their families; he also returned to family practice at the Interfaith Counseling Center. His research projects were funded by the Junior League, the Columbus Foundation and the College of Administrative Science Research Division (O.S.U.) and he organized a national conference on runaway youth. The conference took place in 1974, the same year his research monograph, Families of Sand, was published. That was followed by The Manipulators (1976) and Confrontations with Youth (1976). Numerous articles were published in refereed journals, book chapters, and the Encyclopedia of Social Work, plus many conference papers, book reviews and guest appearances on radio and television. He also served on boards of social agencies. He was appointed consultant to Mayor Tom Moody to mediate some problems in the Columbus Ombudsman’s Office. On Campus D’Angelo served on committees at the College and University level, and was selected as the Social Work liaison for the university’s General Education Curriculum Council. He received a grant and created and redesigned six (6) Social Work courses, which double as university service courses as well as satisfying College of Social Work curriculum requirements leading to a dramatic enrollment expansion in Social Work. D’Angelo retired officially for health reasons in 1992, but he has continued to promote and teach primarily G.E.C. courses in the College – his favorite being “Adolescent Parenting and Sexual Behavior – International Perspectives, for which he is close to completing a text on the subject.