David Allen Patterson, Silver Wolf is a professor, researcher, author, and Native American advocate. He is the first American Indian professor in the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis. He is known for his research and active involvement in Native American health, retention of Native American college students, treatment retention for alcohol and drug addiction, and finding solutions to barriers to best practices adoption in community-based organizations. David Patterson writes a blog on Native American wellness and continues to publish academic work on the subjects of education, mental health and addiction.
Biography
David Allen Patterson was born in Kentucky to Betty and Coleman Sidwell Patterson, the youngest of their three sons. He is of Cherokee and Irish heritage. After dropping out of high school in 1982, David struggled with alcoholism, drug addiction, depression and a suicide attempt at age 18. He entered a psychiatric hospital in 1989, where he stayed for five weeks. David earned his GED and began working as a garbage man for Waste Management in his mid-twenties. In 1990, he considered taking college classes and sought assistance through Vocational Rehabilitation in Kentucky. He was evaluated as having dyslexia, ADHD and learning disabilities, labeled mildly mentally retarded and was told he was not "college material." Ironically, this became the starting point of a new life for Patterson, one devoted to education, addiction treatment and rehabilitation, and advocacy.
Education, career, and community contributions
Going against the advice of Vocational Rehabilitation, David Patterson quit his job, sold most of his belongings and entered Volunteers of America as an unpaid resident manager in 1991. He began taking classes at Jefferson Community College in Louisville, KY. He lived at the VOA for over two years while attending community college. He went on to attend Spalding University, and graduated with a Bachelor of Social Work in 1996. Patterson completed a master's degree in Social Work in 1997 and became a certified social worker in 1998. He graduated with his Ph.D from the University of Louisville’s Kent School of Social Work in 2006. During his tenure at the University at Buffalo, he founded a number of programs to benefit Native American students, most notably the Native American Center for Wellness Research, the Wolf-Fire scholarship, and a Native American living and learning community. Patterson is currently an assistant professor at the George WarrenBrown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis, where he works closely with the Buder Center Scholars. He is also an IHART fellow.
