“You put politics in the scale:” Stewart L. Udall and excess land law in California, 1961–1968

During the 1960s, Interior Secretary Stewart Udall faced controversy about enforcement of federal reclamation’s excess land law on California’s San Luis Project and the Imperial Irrigation District. The San Luis Project was a complex mix of state and federal funding and operation, and Udall ruled that excess land law did not apply to the state service area. Yet he overruled past practice on the Imperial Irrigation District and called for enforcement of land limits. This paper examines Udall’s effort to balance politics and principle.     

“Strivers”, “doers”, and “seekers”: Social workers and their commitment to the job

Amid considerable interest in the experiences of early career professionals in social work in England and internationally, and the relationship between these and retention and progression, this article reports on the findings of one element of a larger evaluation. It reports the findings and analysis of interviews with 42 relative newcomers to social work, some 3 years following qualification, focusing on their current career orientations, and how these appear to affect their future intentions. We identified three distinct groups, designated as “strivers,” “doers,” and “seekers.” Each of these groups demonstrated a different kind and level of commitment to their social work role and identity: Strivers were oriented towards career progression and taking on senior roles; doers were committed practitioners who saw themselves as continuing in front line service delivery for the foreseeable future; and seekers, although still committed to social work in principle, tended to be more unsure about their future place in the profession. This typology appears to be reasonably robust on the basis of our investigation and has implications for career planning and supervision of social work professionals, especially at the early stages of their careers.