Dr. Jana Flowers always knew she would be a teacher. Growing up in a family with five generations of educators (her great-grandfather was president of Alcorn University), she first practiced teaching on her four younger sisters. “I always felt like I had a gift for teaching and being able to explain things well,” she says. With several family members also psychologists, it seemed like a natural move to combine the two fields.
She earned bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in psychology from the University of Southern California, then served as adjunct faculty at California State University-Dominguez Hills and as chair of the psychology department at Los Angeles City College. She has taught psychology at Richland College for more than 20 years.
Though psychology is a core requirement for most students, Dr. Flowers wants to make sure that her classes go way beyond the basics. It helps that she views her teaching material as a fundamental life skill. “My goal is to try to make students critical thinkers," she says. “Everything I do is geared toward helping them think from a critical perspective to gain respect and patience in being able to understand others, not judge them.”
Dr. Flowers’ commitment to excellence in teaching has been recognized throughout her career. In 1989, she was honored as Richland College’s Innovator of the Year for her development of the college’s mentoring program, pairing new minority and at-risk students with faculty and staff to help guide them through the maze of college life. Always interested in how she can help bring educational opportunity to all, she sits on the Plano ISD’s Multi-Ethnic Advisory Board and its Advisory Board for Practical Parenting.
Over the years, thousands of her former students have stayed in touch to let her know when they earn advanced degrees, or when they realize that a lesson learned in her psychology class has rung true in real life. “I’m always surprised at the number of students who take the time to come back and tell me what they’re doing,” she says. But perhaps she shouldn’t be surprised at all, because beyond her role as a community college professor, she offers a huge dose of inspiration in using the subject of psychology to grow and learn not just as students, but as human beings.
“I want to give my students a sense of empowerment because behavior can be changed,” she says. “There’s always hope and you can always change. Tomorrow’s another day.”
For Dr. Jana Flowers, it all began here.