School Alumni Associations

IU School of Social Work Alumni Association

Alumni Profiles

Susan Eichelberg Glendening

“Social Worker and Collector” 

I was born and raised in Elkhart, Indiana. I went to Kalamazoo College and graduated in 1960 with a major in psychology and another is sociology. It was there where I first heard about “Social Work” and took a course in it with a wonderful professor, Mrs. Mills.

Immediately I knew that Social Work was for me and I applied to the Indiana University Division of Social Service which, in those days, was in Indianapolis only. I enjoyed those two years very much. I made many friends there. I have lost track of John Valentin and Portia Kelley and would love to hear from them if this reaches them. I have stayed close friends with Lea Garling Horn.

My field work placements were in a public school the first year and in a child guidance clinic the second year. Looking back, it is interesting to remember that we had, as I was told, the first clinic for autistic children. We were just then beginning to learn about this most difficult disorder.

After graduation in 1962, I worked for a year at the Larue Carter State Psychiatric Hospital in Indianapolis with adults and Ted Alex was my supervisor. We were friends and stayed in touch until his recent passing. I then spent a year working at the Children’s Home Society in Spokane, Washington counseling unmarried mothers, doing adoptive placements and supervising those placements. Subsequently, I took a job at West Point Military Academy in NY where I worked with Chaplain Jack Wilson. We planned and conducted intensive weekends of group pre-marital counseling for cadets and their fiancées and we published this original work in the Journal of Social Casework in November, 1972.

Over the years, and in the different jobs I had, I became increasing aware that I was undertrained. So I went back to school. I attended The Post Graduate Center for Mental Health in New York City where I spent four years in the adult program to learn how to do individual psychoanalysis. I did a two year program to learn about group therapy, a year in the child therapy program and a year learning about community organization.

Since then, I have been in private practice as a psychoanalyst for almost 39 years. I love my work and see how it affects my patients and so many people in their lives. I have no plans to retire.

I love learning about history. One form this has taken is reflected in my passion for patent models. In 1790 the patent act was passed in the US which established the requirement that a working model, in miniature, be submitted with each application for a patent. I am an avid ice skater and began collecting antique ice skates. When I learned about patent models, I decided to buy one model for an ice skate. That purchase launched my 30 year quest to build a museum quality collection of 250 models. The stories that patent models tell about our American history and the stories of the inventions and the inventors is fascinating. For example, did you know that Kathy Greene suggested the critical component, metal tines, for Eli Whitney’s cotton gin? However, she was never given any credit for this. Patents by women were rare because women were generally uninformed about patent law. Some states did not allow women to own property. They were taught to be subservient and willingly handed over their creations to men. Sometimes, their ideas were stolen outright. Susan Hibbard’s patent of the feather duster in 1876 was hard fought. She had to fight her own husband in court before she was justly awarded ownership of the patent. In my own small way, my collection seeks to right these wrongs. It contains a large number of models for patents issued to women. Another interesting patent fact is that Abraham Lincoln was the only President granted a patent which was for a device that would lift a boat off a sand bar. In addition, some commonly used expressions stem from the patent process. Once a patent was granted, a tag was attached to the model giving it a number. These tags were attached with red tape and thus originated the expression “red tape” regarding the government and other organizations. Also, Elisha McCoy invented many railroad devices and people were so taken with his inventions that when they went to buy them, they asked if they were the “Real McCoy.” Seventy-seven of my models are on exhibit at the Harvard University Science Center in Cambridge, MA, near Boston, through December 11, 2009. For further information about the exhibit and my collection, please contact me at glendeningsusan@hotmail.com or 845-534-9124.

Susan Glendening

See the IUPUI Office of Alumni Relations Calendar of Events for upcoming School of Social Work alumni programs.

School of Social Work web site 

IUPUI Office of Alumni Relations contact:
Karen Deery, (317) 274-8959 or kdeery@iupui.edu