Kuyper Alumna Receives NASW’s Student of the Year Award

Kuyper Alumna Megan Dyke (2019) received the National Association of Social Workers’ (NASW) Student of the Year Award this spring.

Dyke’s life has been influenced by social workers from a very young age. Growing up in a family that had little money, she was afraid of social workers at first. To her, the presence of a social worker meant that something was wrong or that her parents were in trouble. But as she grew up, she realized how much they helped. She remembers times when social workers would bring her and her siblings to the store to buy winter clothing when they couldn’t afford it on their own.

Dyke chose the Social Work program at Kuyper College because she wanted to be there for others to make the small differences in their lives that social workers had made in her life. “I came into social work as someone who is super thankful for the way that my life turned out, because it could have turned out so much different.”

To win the NASW’s Student of the Year Award, Dyke had to maintain a minimum of a 3.5 GPA in her social work classes and had to be nominated by her professors. The award ceremony was held at Western Michigan University, and in her acceptance speech, she spoke about viewing social work as a way to serve and love God. She said that social work is about “Recognizing God’s redemptive and restorative work through His people.”

Dyke, who is passionate about the relationship between the church and social work, wants to explore how social workers can help the church, and how Christianity can help social workers better care for people. She was able to implement this idea during her internship at a local church, and she hopes to explore it further as she moves toward getting her Masters’ in Social Work or Masters’ of Divinity.