Mary Beer, LCSW-S

Mary Beer, LCSW-S, is a Clinical Associate Professor and the Assistant Dean for Practicum Education. Before joining the faculty, Mary worked in residential treatment centers, emergency rooms, inpatient hospital settings, and spent sixteen years as a school social worker. During that time, she supervised numerous MSW interns and discovered her passion for teaching and mentoring new social workers. She began teaching at UT in 2012 and now leads the practicum education program for the school, bringing relational, compassionate, and experiential approaches into both the classroom and the broader practicum curriculum.

Mary is a Provost Teaching Fellow whose work centers on Compassionate Pedagogy, Alternate Assessment, and Experiential Learning. She holds a Certificate in Effective College Instruction from the Association of College and University Educators, is trained in the Neuro-Sequential Model in Education and is a Practitioner and Educator for the Trust-Based Relational Intervention program. Her teaching portfolio spans generalist and advanced practice courses, group intervention, experiential leadership, child and adolescent treatment, introductory social work, and the MSW integrative capstone. She is also an active trainer and speaker, presenting on topics including compassionate pedagogy, ethics, TBRI, suicide prevention, sand tray therapy, AI literacy, and practicum instruction.

Mary’s leadership within the university and the wider social work community reflects her commitment to supporting both students and practitioners. She chaired the Texas School Social Workers Conference for nine years, coordinates the Leben Play Therapy Scholarship Program, and chairs the Texas Practicum Education Consortium. Mary is the recipient of multiple teaching awards, including the Lecturer Teaching Excellence Award, the Lora Lee Pederson Teaching Excellence Award, the Diana M. DiNitto Peer Mentorship Award, and the President’s Associates Graduate Teaching Excellence Award. She is a board-approved clinical supervisor and a member of NASW, the Council on Social Work Education, and the School Social Work Association of America. Outside of work, Mary is an avid runner and can often be found paddle boarding, traveling, or spending time with her dog, Summer.