Hobart A. Burch, author of What's Right?: Social Ethics Choices and Applications
Hobart A. Burch is Professor Emeritus and former Director of the School of Social Work, University of Nebraska.

His education is somewhat diverse: a dual major in literature and American civilization at Princeton University; a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary, where he studied under Ethics professors Reinhold Niebuhr and John Bennett; A Master of Social Work from Columbia University, where his specialty was community organization, and a PhD in social planning and policy analysis at the Heller School of Brandeis University where he studied under Charles Schottland: lawyer, social worker, and former U.S. Commissioner of Social Security.

During the “War on Poverty,” Burch variously planned Economic Opportunity Act and other social programs in the Office of the Secretary, Department of Labor, the Office of the United States Commissioner of Welfare, and as head of program liaison for the National Institute of Mental Health.

Subsequently he was General Secretary for Health and Welfare of the United Church of Christ and Executive Secretary of the National Social Welfare Assembly before moving to a “second career” in academia as Director of the University of Nebraska School of Social Work.

He has been formally honored by the National Association of Social Workers as a “Social Work Pioneer” for his work in “advancing social work” in such areas as the Federal Government and “the Church“.

His perspectives have been widened by his three children and his wife. One son is president of a business corporation, another is a senior military officer (medical), and his daughter has taught in, and administered, overseas American schools in Teheran, Riyadh, Prague, and Bucharest, in addition to Western Europe and South America. Before their marriage, his wife, Jan, served as a professional worker in the hospital sponsored by present King of Saudi Arabia.

He has published textbooks on social policy analysis and social planning in the United States and in China (coauthored with a Chinese professor) - but he says his favorite published book was a joint venture initiated by his wife Jan, Bubba Justice in Key West: Pooping on the Public in Paradise, a satirical exposé of (real) corruption in the Florida Keys that cost some actors their jobs.

He professes to write “scholarly books in conversational language.” If this book isn’t, blame his wife Jan! She edited all of it. He also claims to have an ironic sense of humor. If that does not show up occasionally in the book, it is not Jan’s fault.

He says this book, and the research for it, was “a labor of love” (double entendre intended) when he retired.