Bio
Professor Smith's classes include core courses such as Introduction to Religion and Studies in World Religions along with exciting new offerings in Faith in Social Justice, Religion & Fantasy, and Religion & Science Fiction. She has also recently designed an Honors College class entitled Thou Shalt Not Steal: Wage Theft & Moral Thought. She engages her students with innovative assignments and activities, often promoting community-based learning through her involvement with several local and national organizations, including South Florida Interfaith Worker Justice, the MCCJ Interfaith Clergy Dialogue, and the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health. Jeanette, who holds a law degree, is a worker justice advocate who has helped to pass several wage theft ordinances throughout the state, including a 2010 Miami-Dade County ordinance that has served as a model nationwide.Professor Smith's has also extensively studied abroad, first in Mexico, Italy, and Greece during her undergraduate program and then in Singapore as a law student and then again in Jamaica as an attorney. These opportunities have fueled her interest in FIU’s Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) program. She was recently appointed the university’s inaugural COIL Faculty Fellow in January 2021 and is enthusiastic about the possibilities that COIL brings to both students and faculty. In addition to working closely with faculty and students on COIL courses and projects, Prof. Smith is also a hybrid faculty fellow who regularly works with professor cohorts so that they can convert their classes to hybrid, which opens up a world of possibilities for students. Currently, she is involved in a pilot project to integrate elements of “understanding emotional intelligence” into her Introduction to Religion classes as part of FIU’s identification of critical skills needed for the twenty-first century.