School Alumni Associations

IU School of Social Work Alumni Association

Alumni Profiles

Beverly Ott

"Social Worker Without Borders"

Beverly Ott got interested in social work before she knew what social work was.  She wanted to work with the poor and save or change the world.  However, she has learned that it is more the poor who have changed her tiny, limited world and have opened her understanding of life and living.  She has learned about giving, patience, hurt, faith and continuing on from them. 

Bev earned her BSW at Manchester College in North Manchester, IN in 1980. Her field work placement there was with the NASW in Indianapolis as a lobbyist in the State Legislature. She then spent two years abroad in the Peace Corps and returned to IU to get her MSW degree. After the Peace Corps, she wanted a focus on international program planning and management.  Her first year field work placement was with the Hispano American Center, after which she was recruited for a part time job.  The staff at the school was very helpful in her search to find a second year placement (Egypt) and they provided a great deal of support. Her classmates and the returned Peace Corps Volunteer Group in Indianapolis were also very supportive and helped her reintegrate into the US culture. Dr. Howard Hess was important to her as a professional support and she worked with him as a graduate assistant. Other professors who especially touched her life at IU were Gayle Cox, Ray Kolevski and  Karen Haynes. What she appreciated at IU was the flexibility to take her, a hybrid of a person, and accept her ideals and desires to look further.   IU helped her find the field placements and the opportunities necessary for advancing in her life. She is very appreciative of the quality of the education that she had, and the leadership and support provided by those around her.  Bev graduated in 1985.

Beverly’s entire social work career, post MSW, has been carried out abroad,  first through development work in war torn and famine touched Chad, then in Togo and Bénin.  Her work has brought her into many situations of working with the very, very poor, and also into working in policy arenas and in the changing of politics. She currently works in France as the director of an association that she and her husband created 18 years ago in order to help the very poor in urban settings in Togo. Today, the work takes her also to farm communities in France looking for economic alternatives and into fair trade – all this is part of creating an economy that considers the social aspects of human beings as well as the economical necessities.  Bev never left social work. Everything she has ever done has been centered around looking at the person in his or her own environment.

Born and raised in a small Northern Indiana farm community Beverly Ott learned by her travels and by putting her own ideals and culture into question. These are things she would like to share with others perhaps via the Alumni Association or more with the University itself.

Bev has supervised students in a number of domains, both French and American.   Her students have varied in their study areas from non-governmental organization management to French language training.  Her association in Togo and Benin employs about 10 social workers locally.  These social workers began under her supervision and today they are training others. Bev’s work and her program have created dynamic, caring social workers, a process which she says she needs to multiply in order to increase the program activity and look into the long term.  It is this experience and process of analysis that has been provided by ECHOPPE (Exchange for the Organization and the Promotion of Small Entrepreneurs), the association that she and her husband created.   

Today Beverly and her husband, Olivier, live and work in France. Both continue to work with ECHOPPE following up programs in Africa via small loans, social support to women, and support to small farmers and craftsmen.  They are also involved in the local community creating alternative commercial networks for farmers and fair trade from the developing world.  In all their work, they see the economy as a means to address basic social issues that can change with exterior support.  Another part of their life in France is as small farmers who also raise sheep. In addition, they provide a guest house. In the future, they hope to provide a place for groups to gather, share, build and initiate changes for the world tomorrow...a sort of Open Air University where change is the goal. See www.lagaucherieauxdames.com where you can visit a small part of that dream. When you ask Bev “Why raise sheep?” her reply is, “In order to raise shepherds!” This, in short, is the next step in Bev’s social work career.

Written by Irene Weinberg    

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