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Student picks up diploma 30 years later
May 7, 2004
CARROLLTON,
GA - After 30 years of working in the mental health field, Johanna Smith
knows the value of her college education. It means so much to her that
she returned to her alma mater to don a cap and gown and formally receive
her diploma.
A family emergency prevented Smith from participating in the commencement ceremony at the University of West Georgia when she earned a masters degree in psychology in 1974. She recently contacted UWG President Beheruz Sethna to request permission to march in this year’s ceremony.
“Now that I am 52, I understand that the University of West Georgia gave me a great educational experience that I draw on every day of my life, “ she wrote.
What an exciting life Smith has led! Following graduation, she joined the Peace Corps and taught English as a second language in Sierra Leone, West Africa. From there she moved to Rabat, Morocco and taught at the American Embassy.
After returning to the U.S. she became interested in marriage and family therapy and trained at the Houston Family Institute. Smith worked in two hospital emergency rooms counseling rape victims and served as a psychotherapist with a mental health agency.
Her next stop was Washington, D.C. to train with Jay Haley, an originator of the family therapy movement. There she was the clinical supervisor of a mental health agency.
The following nine years found Smith back in her home state of North Carolina working as an adjunct staff giving feedback to executives at the Center for creative Leadership. She also maintained a solo private practice in individual, couples and family therapy.
Smith is currently in Philadelphia working for Child Guidance Resource Centers as the program coordinator for Truancy and Delinquency Prevention Services.
“I have worked in mental health almost my entire career and owe much to my psychology courses and psychology professors,” Smith noted.
She has become involved with the research on dissociative disorders and hopes to co-author a book on the subject. On the artistic side, Smith wrote and presented a clinically oriented one-woman play entitled “Fragmented” at several conferences.
“I deeply regret I was unable to attend my commencement exercise in 1974,” she said. “It is a wonderful honor for me to participate in 2004. It is a celebration of everything I have achieved in the last thirty years and all that I hope to achieve.”
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