Ruth Spencer joined Connecticut State Community College in February 2026. Prior to this, she served as the AVP for Human Resources at Vassar College, where she specialized in labor and employment law.
Spenser is also an adjunct professor with a long teaching history at the Smith College School of Social Work. She has taught courses on family law and its relationship to macro and social justice issues in social work practice in the policy sequence. Her latest courses focus on ethics and the law in social work practice in the practice sequence.
Spencer has worked as an individual and family therapist in both community and private practice settings. She practiced law at Cleveland Legal Aid, focusing on family law and long-term mental health litigation.
Spencer earned her B.A. from Oberlin College, M.S.S.A. from the Case Western Reserve University School of Social Work and Doctor of Jurisprudence from the CWRU School of Law.
In addition to her other positions, Spencer's community service work has focused on board of trustee participation for social service agencies and advocacy organizations in Cleveland, New York City and Poughkeepsie, NY. She and a Smith College colleague published in Smith College Studies of Social Work on cross-cultural supervision. She is currently working on a chapter on the issue of “consent” for a mental health policy publication. The latest paper she presented was in March 2025 at the Black German Heritage and Research Association’s International Conference, Rekinning, Reckoning, & Justice, “Reparations for Black German Adoptees: What Does That Mean?”
