- March 9, 2011
- 12:56 pm
- Cara Young
- no comments
Meet Deanna Guthrie: A Person for Others
Upon witnessing clients directly benefit from her work done at the master’s level, Deanna knew she wanted to do more. Soon after graduating from Loyola’s MSW program in 2006, she transitioned into Loyola’s PhD program with the encouragement and guidance of influential faculty members. Now in her second year of doctoral studies, she is focusing her research on the development of hope among inner city youth and how their experience with compassion can help them to develop a sense of hope.
“The purpose of my research is to explore the strengths of a client population, rather than just pinpoint the deficits or disadvantages of that group,” Deanna explains. “I wanted to stay at Loyola because this type of clinical research is encouraged, and without the opportunity I’m given here to serve, the youth I work with would otherwise not receive any treatment at all. For me, that’s just not an option.”
When she is not working on her own dissertation, Deanna teaches social work courses at the undergraduate and graduate level, advises undergraduate social work students interested in Loyola’s five-year BSW/MSW program, supervises current master’s students clinical work, and is the editor-in-chief of Praxis, one of the only student published journals of social work in the nation.
Her longstanding efforts at Loyola earned Deanna the Schmitt Foundation Scholarship for Research in 2010, and she will complete her PhD with the support of this scholarship in 2011.
“Loyola’s service-learning methodology and the counseling I’ve been able to provide to real people as a result is the only way I could become the person I came here to be–a person for others,” Deanna admits. “Make an impact and see the change. That’s the focus of the Schmitt [Foundation] and that’s what Loyola has enabled me to do.”
