60 Faces of Social Work: Tim Tyler — the fiery founding dean of the Faculty of Social Welfare

The fledgling faculty began when the University of Alberta decided to develop two new programs: library sciences, which stayed at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, and social work, which went to the new University of Calgary, making what was originally named the Faculty of Social Welfare one of UCalgary’s founding faculties. “Of course, nobody in the new university had a clue about what social work was or whether they even wanted it!” recalled Dr. Tim Tyler, PhD, the faculty’s fiery founding dean. Tyler was the catalyst and, even when interviewed for this article at age 92, he was an imposing, and somewhat intimidating personality — principled, unbowed, unrepentant and, above all, unapologetic.