Shirley M. Buttrick

November 11, 1924 ~ April 30, 2023

Shirley Miller Buttrick passed away peacefully on April 30, 2023 at the age of 98. She was born on November 11, 1924 in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Anna and David Miller. They were first generation immigrants from eastern Europe and not wealthy but believed strongly in the value of education and hard work as a path to success. Shirley attended Brooklyn College graduating Magna Cum Laude. She subsequently received a MA in economics from the University of Michigan and joined the staff of the Labor and Management Center at Yale University where she met her husband to be, John Buttrick. They were married in 1948.

Shirley and John moved initially to Chicago, where he was an instructor at Northwestern and she continued her graduate studies receiving a second MA, in social work administration from the University of Chicago. They welcomed their only child, Peter Miller Buttrick during this period and eventually moved to Minneapolis where John continued his career as a member of the Economics Department at the University of Minnesota.

The marriage ended in divorce and Shirley and Peter moved to Washington DC where she launched her meteoric career in academic social work and social policy research. She completed a PhD in Social Work at the Catholic University of American and subsequently joined the faculty at the University of Maryland while also working part-time for the federal Office of Economic Opportunity. She subsequently was recruited to Chicago as the Director of the Center for Social Policy at the University of Illinois, Chicago and then to Minnesota where she was Professor and Acting Director of the University of Minnesota, School of Social Work. She returned to Chicago where she served as the Inaugural Dean of the Jane Addams School of Social Work at the University of Illinois. Her contributions to the field were substantial. serving on statewide commissions redesigning the public aid code in Illinois. She wrote the initial guidelines for the MacArthur Foundation, suggesting priorities for social service funding in Chicago.

After stepping down as Dean, she returned to Washington DC, serving as an educational liaison between the University of Illinois and federal social service agencies, with a particular emphasis on facilitating the advancement of women and underrepresented minorities into leadership positions focused on social policy.

Shirley was always a force of nature, fiercely ambitious but also driven by a desire to improve the world in which we live. She was dedicated to liberal causes and to social justice. She is survived by her son, Peter, an academic physician at the University of Colorado, and by her grandchildren, Nicholas, assistant professor of social psychology at the University of Wisconsin, and Alice, legal associate at Shapiro, Arato and Bach, in New York City. 

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that contributions in Shirley Buttrick’s name be made to The Public Citizen here