For more than four decades, Richard Belson, DSW ’77, has taught and inspired students in the School of Social Work with an unmistakable presence—the kind of professor whose influence follows students into careers, therapy rooms and complicated corners of human relationships.
Dr. Belson’s path to Adelphi might be considered nontraditional. Before arriving as a member of the faculty at the School of Social Work in 1984—a role he would hold for the next four decades—he had already accumulated a remarkable range of professional experiences. He served as a first lieutenant and chaplain with the U.S. Army Combat Engineers, which brought him face-to-face with the psychological costs of stress, crisis and trauma. That service instilled in him a practical understanding that led him to pursue psychoanalytic training at the Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, where he earned his Master of Social Work degree and became a licensed social worker.
“After becoming a social worker, I ran into a priest at a party who said I should try teaching as he did,” said Dr. Belson. “I enjoyed teaching too. So I became a DSW and a professor at Adelphi, and I love it. I realized that teaching is my specialty. I called that priest every year until he passed away to thank him.”
The Art of Teaching
In 2003–2004, Dr. Belson received Adelphi University’s Presidential Award for Teaching Excellence. This recognition was inspired by his vibrant teaching style that balanced intellectual seriousness with humor. He once delivered a keynote titled “Intensity, Chaos, Humor and Redemption: 30 Years of Working With Couples and Families,” a title that gives some indication of his pedagogical approach. He taught students not just how to intervene, but how to be present, how to listen for what isn’t said and be comfortable amid complexity.
Dr. Belson’s retirement does not mark an ending so much as a consolidation—a life’s work that will continue through the practitioners he trained, the papers he wrote and the questions he taught an entire generation to ask. The Adelphi University School of Social Work will miss him, but the field he served is richer for everything he gave.