Following in the footsteps of her family, Dr. Jones values the learning process-intellectually, spiritually, and in practical terms. After doctoral studies at Emory University, she rose through the ranks to senior professor at Allegheny College from which she took early retirement in the year 2000 to return to her native Kentucky. From 2004-present, she has taught comparative world religions and directed travel seminars to India for the Honors Program at the University of Kentucky. In 2013, following ordination by The Interfaith Temple of New York City, Dr. Jones aka Swami Shraddhananda joined the Faculty of The New Seminary as Professor of World Religions and Curriculum Adviser. In November 2012, Dr. Jones was inducted into the Saraswati Order of Meditation Masters and Monastics. In the sacred village of Ganeshpuri, India, she was given the name Swami Shraddhananda, which means "the bliss of faith." As Swami Shraddhanana, she serves as Spiritual Director of Slate Branch Ashram, home of Adishraddha or Sacred Feet Yoga. Much as she focused on interdisciplinary education for three decades in the college classroom, Dr. Jones aka Swami Shraddhananda brings an expansive Interfaith approach to the retreats and programs she directs at Slate Branch Ashram as well as to academic and seminary settings. She is in the process of helping to pioneer the discipline of Interfaith Studies within the larger context of Religious Studies. Shraddhananda has presented at meetings of the American Academy of Religion, the American Culture Association, the Asian American Association, and the Modern Language Association. She has lectured on six continents at prestigious universities in Africa, Asia, Canada, and Europe as well as the United States. She has traveled around the world as part of the Faculty of Semester at Sea, and she believes, with British novelist and feminist Virginia Woolf, that her purpose as an educator is to help create "world citizens" who are capable of seeing beyond the polarities of us and them. Dr. Jones has traveled and studied widely in India and welcomes each opportunity to return to the country that has, in her words, "given the world so much wisdom."