about Annie Jonas
Dr. Annie Jonas has embraced innovation throughout her 25 years in education with a consistent thread of student-centered learning at the heart of her practice. Annie currently serves as chair of the Education department at Warren Wilson College and also as Director of Faculty Community Engagement and Director of the First Year Seminar at Warren Wilson College. Warren Wilson has a history of leading innovation in experiential education and applied learning through a curriculum that integrates academics, work and community engagement. Her college courses feature long-standing community partnerships that place her students in real-world experiences connected to their academic study.
She is the associate editor of the Journal of Experiential Education and presents on experiential education, community engagement and the development of civic identity in higher education. Recent presentations include Experiential Education in Higher Education: Challenges and Opportunities in the College Classroom at the AEE International Conference in Minneapolis, MN and Community Engagement and First Year Students: Exploring Initiatives That Deepen Impact at the Gulf/South Summit in Savannah, GA. Annie leads the service-learning faculty fellows program at Warren Wilson College and also designs faculty workshops on experiential learning in higher education. In 2018, she was honored with the North Carolina Engaged Faculty Award from Campus Compact.
Annie’s professional work is grounded in experiential pedagogy which was inspired by her early career as a wilderness instructor at Outward Bound. In addition to traditional wilderness programs in the USA, Mexico and Costa Rica, her work with Outward Bound included four summers instructing and leading an intensive academic intervention program, the Summer Scholarship Program, for students from South Bronx High School. Annie’s time at Outward Bound led her to pursue a Masters in Education from Harvard University and a secondary teaching license in History and Social Studies. Her teaching and leadership in public schools included work in cross-curricular teams, the implementation of senior exit portfolios and student-led conferences, and the use of Socratic Seminars.
Her engagement in public schools led her to pursue broader youth development work including the start up of Project POWER, a now 20-year old community organization that offers tutoring and mentoring to youth in schools and after-school programs throughout Buncombe County. Annie’s successful grant writing demonstrates her consistent focus on youth and innovation in schools and organizations. These grants include funds to start programs including GO TO GOAL!, an organization that provides free soccer and life-skills programming in underserved communities as well as the PEECE program, a $500,000 grant connecting public high schools, community colleges and higher education in support of early childhood educators and early childhood centers. She has also written successful grants including a 1000 Points of Light grant, a grant from the Mia Hamm Foundation to sustain a non-profit youth program as well as a grant from the American Association of Colleges and Universities to support faculty professional development in service-learning and community engagement.
Annie has developed and evaluated curricula for public high schools, private K-8 schools, higher education, and non-profit organizations. She has led professional development workshops for college faculty, public school teachers, and nonprofit youth organizations and worked on projects as varied as evaluating curricula for the Teaching Foundations Project of Arizona State University, led experiential workshops for high school teachers in the Dominican Republic and designed professional development for the Daoist Traditions Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture School. Annie’s dissertation, Experiential Teaching Practices of Secondary Teachers in an Age of Accountability, uncovered the factors that challenge and support an experiential pedagogy in a public school system within the countervailing pressures of standardized testing.
She founded Annie Jonas and Associates to inspire, design and sustain innovation that transforms lives. Annie holds a Doctorate in Education from Western Carolina University, an M.Ed. from Harvard University and a B.S in Psychology from Guilford College.