By Samantha Miller

After more than 20 years as a school social worker, Emily Donovan knows that students arrive at school with different needs, challenges, and circumstances. Now, as a clinical associate professor and Des Moines practicum administrator at the University of Iowa School of Social Work’s Des Moines Center, she is bringing that experience into the classroom and supporting MSW students as they develop their professional skills.

Much of Donovan’s career was spent on a challenging behavior and autism team, where her work focused on advanced assessment and individualized intervention plans for students with developmental and behavioral disabilities. More recently, her work has expanded to support the social-emotional development and mental well-being of students and staff across K-12 education.

“I want all students to love learning,” Donovan said. “I recognize that for some students, learning is more difficult than it is for others.”

Those difficulties can stem from behavior, disability, trauma, relationships, or circumstances outside the classroom. Donovan wants schools to be places where students and staff feel “safe, seen, known, valued, and loved.” Her work focuses on building sustainable, evidence-informed systems that strengthen relationships, promote resilience, and support positive outcomes for students and educators.

Donovan sees teaching as an opportunity to extend the impact of the work she has spent her career doing.

She is especially looking forward to learning about her students’ goals and helping them determine where they want to take their careers. She plans to connect course content with her professional experiences while encouraging students to draw on their own lived experiences. Her goal is to help students make their learning applicable across different areas of social work practice.

“As an individual social worker, I can make a ripple of difference,” Donovan said. “But by teaching many social workers to do this work, we can make waves.”