Turning a Love of Elders into a Life’s Work

Tracy A. Schroepfer, PhD

Assistant Professor of Social Work
University of Wisconsin, Madison
Hartford Doctoral Fellow 2001-2003
Hartford Faculty Scholar 2004-2006

(Above) Dr. Schroepfer dispels misperceptions about working with older adults among social work students.

“I’ve always loved elders,” says Tracy A. Schroepfer, PhD. “My grandparents were the kindest, warmest people I knew and that set the tone for my attitude toward older adults.” Dr. Schroepfer learned about the field of gerontology while a college undergraduate and she immediately knew she wanted a career focused on aging. Today, as an assistant professor of social work at the University of Wisconsin, Dr. Schroepfer observes that many social work students don’t give the field of gerontology a chance.

In the hope of getting more students interested in aging, Dr. Schroepfer volunteers to give guest lectures in undergraduate classes. She finds that many students have misperceptions about working with older adults. “I’ve had students tell me that old people smell funny and they’re all frail and ill,” she says. “But if students spend time with older adults and listen to the curriculum content on aging they find out it’s not like what they think.”

These undergraduate lectures are a side line to Dr. Schroepfer’s main work, which is research and teaching at the graduate level. Her research focuses on improving end-of-life care for terminally ill older adults, which she began studying as a doctoral student. A mentor told her about the Hartford Doctoral Fellows program.

“That was a huge turning point for me,” says Dr. Schroepfer. The financial award allowed her to collect the data for and write her dissertation, which involved long qualitative interviews with 100 terminally ill older adults to assess their needs. Being a Hartford Doctoral Fellow had other equally important benefits. For example, being part of a cohort of colleagues provided important connections with aging-focused social workers across the country.

After receiving her doctoral degree, Dr. Schroepfer took her current position at the University of Wisconsin. She was accepted as a Hartford Faculty Scholar in 2004. With this award she took her doctoral research to the next stage, which involved determining the best strategies to meet the psychosocial needs of terminally ill elders. She is creating an assessment instrument for social workers to use in the field, which asks older adults about what is important to them, such as feeling useful or exercising control over the dying process.

Dr. Schroepfer praises the two programs for helping her to move forward in her career so she can be an effective and influential advocate for older adults. The Hartford programs put her in touch personally with people she only knew by reputation. Through these connections she has been able to publish and advance her research. She has also become a leader in her field, serving on the boards of several organizations, including the Association for Gerontology Education in Social Work and the Social Work and Hospice and Palliative Care Network.

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