SVCC professor helps students glow up into rad tech careers

A Dixon professor has spent over two decades helping students produce clear images of their futures.

Dianna Brevitt is Sauk Valley Community College’s radiology program director, its Outstanding Faculty Award winner, and is being nominated for the 2025 Illinois Community College Trustees Association Outstanding Full-time Faculty Award.

She started her career at SVCC in 2003 as a radiologic technology professor.

“Professor Brevitt embodies everything that Sauk Valley Community College stands for – scholarship, excellence, quality and genuine care,” Jon Mandrell of SVCC said. “Her dedication has made a lasting difference in the lives of her students and colleagues alike. Not only has she been pivotal to the success of the rad tech program, but she was also a key driver in the creation of the sonography program. We are proud to have her at SVCC.”

Brevitt has dedicated herself to the field of radiography for the past 25 years, covering a range of areas, including the emergency department, fluoroscopy, pediatrics and portable radiography.

She earned her associate’s degree in radiologic technology from SVCC before going on to finish her master’s degree in elementary education in 2005 at Rockford University.

“I also worked at KSB Hospital for 15 years doing X-rays and helping Sauk students as one of their advisers,” Brevitt said. “A few years went by, and I decided I wanted to teach. I thought I would be teaching middle school, science, math or English. Then, right when I was about to graduate, the job came open out here and it was a nice fit.”

SVCC’s rad tech program is a two-year associate of applied science program that prepares students for a career as a radiologic technologist through classroom instruction, simulation testing and hands-on clinical experience at various health facilities. First-year students complete two eight-hour clinical days per week on-site, while second-year students spend three clinical days, including potential evening and weekend shifts for trauma patient exposure.

“When you start in the program, we have you at the college for about six weeks, and we make sure you know how to do this list of X-ray exams,” Brevitt said. “You’ll get to practice with a partner and then we test you, and if you pass all the tests, we send you to the clinical site where you’re doing those on real patients.”

After completing the program, graduates must take the American Registry of Radiologic Technologists certification exam. This national board registry test evaluates the knowledge and skills needed to work as a registered radiologic technologist.

“We’ve had a 93% first-time pass rate for the last five years,” Brevitt said. “It was always 100%, but then COVID hit and we dipped down, but we’re building it back up. We’re definitely above the national average.”

Brevitt has watched the program, which first received institutional accreditation in March 1972, technologically evolve over the years, moving from film to digital imaging. However, it is her students’ evolution that truly captivates her.

“You see them come in, you watch them develop, and then they’re usually hired at one of our clinical sites that I still visit,” Brevitt said. “One of my students from 2005 works at the Mayo Clinic doing research, and he also does some publications.”

Brevitt enjoys working in her garden, biking, running, kayaking and playing with her four grandchildren when she is not in the classroom.

For more information on SVCC’s Rad Tech program, contact Mandy Aldridge, Health Professions academic adviser, at mandy.m.aldridge@svcc.edu.