Nearly 50 years after she first set foot on the Forty Acres, Julie McElrath (BSW ’12, MSSW ’14) is coming home.
McElrath returns to UT Social Work as the school’s new director for community partnerships and strategy. The newly created senior leadership role is a strategic position designed to deepen and expand the school’s ties to communities across Texas and beyond, ensuring that research, practice and community partnerships move forward together with action and meaningful initiatives.
It’s a fitting next chapter for someone whose career has spanned both the for-profit and nonprofit worlds. McElrath brings more than 30 years of leadership experience, including the past decade in chief executive and board roles, where she became known for building partnerships and engaging stakeholders to deliver real outcomes.
Most recently, she served as president and chief cause officer of Cause CHANGE Collaborative, a nonprofit focused on transforming the recovery housing sector through financial sustainability, best practices, research and systems change. Her work there — and previously as CEO of Austin Recovery Network and executive director of University High School, Central Texas’ first recovery high school — reflects a career dedicated to bridging addiction recovery and community systems at both the local and national level. That blend of backgrounds — including her non-traditional experience as a student — is central to why she’s a strong fit for the role.
McElrath, a sixth-generation Austinite, first enrolled at UT’s business school in 1979, before leaving to start a family and pursue other goals. Decades later, she returned to the Forty Acres to earn two degrees from UT Social Work, including an MSSW with a concentration in nonprofit studies from the RGK Center for Philanthropy and Community Service, launching a deeper connection into her leadership in the nonprofit sector.
“Along my career journey, I was doing great things without a formal education, but the path wasn’t always clear. What I came to understand, however, was what I truly valued in leadership — sitting with people, listening to them, and understanding what was most important to them. That realization led me to explore social work, and it was an immediate fit.”
As a student at UT, McElrath studied under Dr. Lori Holleran Steiker, worked as a teaching assistant, and collaborated on work that helped establish the recovery high school. Those early ties kept her connected to the school long after graduation — through committee work, supervising MSSW students, and, most recently, a research partnership between her organization, Cause CHANGE Collaborative, and UT Social Work’s Addiction Research Institute on the Recovery Housing Sustainability Project, an initiative developing innovative business models to address the financial barriers facing recovery housing providers.
“What I learned from UT is that it grounded me in what to expect in real-world experience,” she said, citing lessons on diversified funding, nonprofit lifecycles, and the discipline of strategic planning. “Passion is not enough. In this field, people are counting on you to follow through. You have to embrace process and work the plan — that’s where real impact happens.”
Soon after the passing of Dr. Holleran Steiker in 2024, McElrath worked on the memorial service with Allan Cole, dean of UT Social Work. Cole noticed McElrath’s skillsets and found an opportunity to expand the footprint of the School beyond campus.
“Social work invites partnerships formed in community,” he said. “Julie is a respected leader in building strategic partnerships for social workers and community stakeholders, both in Austin and beyond. Her extensive leadership in nonprofit organizations and the private sector, as well as her experience as a UT Social Work alumna, enhances and advances our School’s collaborations and societal impact beyond the Forty Acres. I am excited to welcome Julie back to UT Social Work, and I look forward to the many ways she will make us better.”
For McElrath, her hopes for the role are to further root UT Social Work’s impact by building a stronger connection between UT Social Work and the communities it serves.
“Ending my career where I started it is the biggest gift,” she said. “I pinch myself every day. I’m excited, energized and ready to support the incredible work happening here.”