Dianna Jones, Ph.D.

Dr. Dianna Jones is both a successful businesswoman and a professional educator. She has owned the company Positive Pursuits since 2013 and has taught at the collegiate level since 2009.

Dr. Jones joined UTA in 2016 as a community and administrative practice practitioner in the School of Social Work. She has worked with various community partners in the past which is how she heard about service learning.

She enjoyed the challenge of implementing service learning into intro to bioethics which led her to redesign the course. She believes that service learning gives students experience applying what they are learning about in class to the real world.

Dr. Jones wanted to learn more about the scholarly side of service learning. The faculty fellows program has helped her establish an academic aspect to service-learning by introducing the students to their surrounding community. She engaged her students in service learning by encouraging them to communicate with the community to understand the underlying social needs.

She believes that service learning will create a culture of service for the students at UTA and will aid in the integral development of the student learners. She expresses that UTA will gain more if the students are able to give back and engage with community. She believes that these elements are critical benefits that can only be derived from service learning.

She highly recommends the faculty fellows program to all the faculty members who are considering it. She advises future faculty fellows to jump right into it because it will be worth it.