Donna Younger, Ed.D. Email and Phone Number

Some people wake up one day and decide they want a career change. I simply segued into one. Early in my career, I was teaching and doing soft skills assessment and development. Over time, that morphed into emotional intelligence (EI ). Always intrigued by learning something new, I pursued EI certifications. And voila….here I am teaching EI skills and coaching people on how to use them to improve their lives.I’ve taught at DePaul's college designed for adults (originally School for New Learning, recently renamed School for Continuing and Professional Studies) for 40 years, working in student-centered programs that have mentoring at the center. I’ve mentored hundreds of students from the time they started the program til they graduated AND HAD THE PLEASURE OF SEEING THE IMPACT OF MY COACHING ON THEIR UNDERSTANDING OF THEMSELVES AND THEIR EFFECTIVENESS AT WORK.Working in this teaching and mentoring environment made me curious about (assessments of) soft skills (the term Emotional Intelligence didn’t exist yet). So I got involved with The Council for Adult and Experiential Learning that sponsored an interview-based assessment of soft skills. I became an assessor, trainer, and internal SME subject matter expert.) which launched This led to a specialty in assessment of skills and competencies. As I understood the broad scope of EI and how it not only related to but transcended my teaching, it became the centerpiece of my work. In the late 90’s, I started teaching courses in EI at DePaul.