Faculty and Staff Biographies

Serretta-Brooke Gordon is a native of Lexington, Kentucky. Serretta is currently a Clinical Associate Professor and is the Interim MSW Program Director for the Indiana University School of Social Work on the IU Southeast Campus in New Albany, Indiana. She oversees MSW faculty who provide Council on Social Work Education curriculum to students pursuing a Master of Social Work in Mental Health and Addictions. Serretta previously served as the MSW Field Coordinator working with students in the areas of mental health and addictions in field education for 7 years at IU in Bloomington, Indiana. Serretta is a proud graduate of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Kentucky State University where she earned a Bachelor of Social Work with completion of the KY Public Child Welfare Certification Program. A year later Serretta obtained a Master of Science in Social Work from the University of Louisville Kent School. During her college years her aspirations to gain new experiences lead to her study abroad on various trips to the March of Remembrance Voyage to Poland for Holocaust Studies. She also studied in London, England and Dublin, Ireland for European studies. She has worked with the KY Public Child Welfare system, Eastern State Psychiatric Hospital in Kentucky, facilitated family connections with foster care’s loneliest kids through the Family Finding Project Match KY Initiatives, worked with homeless and runaway youth at both MASH Services of the Bluegrass, now known as Arbor Youth Services in Lexington, KY and she served the community at Youth Services Bureau of Monroe County in Bloomington Indiana. Serretta also served as a committee member of the Kids with Absent and Incarcerated Parents of Bloomington and Thriving Connections Program. Since moving to the IU Southeast campus, Serretta has joined initiatives on mental health education including the IUS Mental Health and Wellness Group that facilitates various community events and resources and she is the Co-Faculty Chair of U Bring Change to Mind Program helping to reduce the stigma of mental health services in college settings. In 2023 Serretta was invited and now serves with Family Ark, Inc. of Jeffersonville, Indiana and Weathering Storms, Inc in Louisville, KY as a board member. Serretta is proud to have worked with families and children for over 20 years. Serretta has also been part of research initiatives addressing issues around Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in academic settings and is doing research and presented at state level and national conferences on the partnerships between Law Enforcement and Social Work as it relates to mental health services in the community. Serretta is proud of recent publications including being a co-author of, It Takes A Village Anthology of Black Female Social Workers, and A Woman’s Legacy Volume Three books. Since 2017 Serretta has facilitated initiatives to raise awareness around Multiple Myeloma Cancer and promotion of health and wellness in the community through her initiative, The Brave Mary Family in honor of her mother who passed away from blood cancer. As a lover of the butterfly effect, Serretta says she loves a quote from the famous late Maya Angelou believing, “We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.” Serretta says she delights in the gifts of life (the challenging ones and the ones that made her smile!) she has been given, the beauty in the people she connects with, and loves to share those gifts with the world!