Dr. Barbara Jones has been selected a 2014 Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award recipient.

Barbara Jones
Dr. Barbara Jones

Jones is the assistant dean for health affairs and co-director of the Institute for Grief, Loss, and Family Survival at the School of Social Work. She teaches courses across the curriculum on topics such as grief and loss, social work in health care, psychosocial oncology and interprofessional education. She is a leader in the development of an Inteprofessional Education collaborative (IPE) in Austin that brings together faculty and graduate students in social work, medicine, nursing, pharmacy, and psychology.

“As a social work professor, I believe it is my responsibility to demonstrate the qualities of genuine interest, humility, authenticity, empathy, skilled listening, and intentional communication for all my students. My goal is to empower students with the knowledge, skills, motivation, confidence and concern to help individuals and families, create community change, and develop their utmost potential here at The University of Texas and beyond,” Jones said.

The Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Awards are the Board of Regents’ highest honor. They are offered annually in recognition of faculty members at the University of Texas System who have demonstrated extraordinary classroom performance and innovation in undergraduate instruction. Faculty members undergo a series of rigorous evaluations by students, peer faculty and external reviewers. The review panels consider a range of activities and criteria in their evaluations of a candidate’s teaching performance, including classroom expertise, curricula quality, innovative course development and student learning outcomes.