Hannah Studer MSW ’16 learned early in her Pacific University education that a career in social work is about more than providing services.
A graduate of the first cohort of Pacific’s Master of Social Work program in 2016, Studer learned that social work is also about advocacy, justice, community building, and championing change. It is about meeting people where they are to help them thrive in a challenging world.
“We operate for justice and support for a variety of communities,” Studer said. “And social workers who graduate from Pacific are experts in that. They go out into the world to make change.”
Today, Studer lives that mission while leading one of Portland’s largest nonprofit social work organizations.
In 2024, Studer was named chief executive officer for Bridges to Change, which provides behavioral health services, addiction recovery services, housing, peer services and workforce training in four Oregon counties. It’s an organization that she first became acquainted with at Pacific, where she interned for a re-entry program that partnered with Bridges to Change.
Five years after that internship, Studer became the organization’s first full-time social worker and clinical director, helping Bridges expand its reach of services.
“When I was thinking about my role as a social worker and the impact I could make, I understood that Bridges had the capacity to make that change,” Studer said. “They were small enough at the time. They were nimble enough. And I could really get in there and make some change.”
Founded as a prison re-entry program in 2004, Bridges To Change has grown as the need for social services in the Portland Metro Area continues to evolve. The organization manages several drop-in service centers as well as 450 transitional housing beds in Portland and The Dalles.
“I am really focused on culture,” she said. “Right now, I am looking through the framework of radical hospitality, the idea that everyone is welcome just as they are, and that we can meet them with compassion. And in my role as CEO, the culture change I can enact is beyond all of the programmatic and funding things that we can achieve.”
Studer also extends that culture to future social workers through her alma mater.
Pacific’s Claire Argow Social Work Program offers both Bachelor of Social Work and Master of Social Work degrees, with accelerated options for students to advance through both quickly. The MSW program has moved from Eugene to Forest Grove since Studer’s days as a student, and Pacific is currently exploring ways to expand it to an online program to reach more potential students.
