As Western grows and changes, my job is to be certain that the needs of faculty who are expected to make changes are met. At the same time, my role is to keep us grounded within the scholarship of teaching and learning and to serve as a voice for faculty.

Areas of Expertise

• Personalizing online classes
• ARE/TPR File Preparation
• All Faculty Teaching Awards
• Provost's Instructional Improvment Grants

Interesting facts

I am a native of South Carolina and spent my K-12 professional career in School District Five of Lexington and Richland Counties in the suburbs or Columbia. I was employed at Irmo High School as an English and Journalism teacher for 11 years. For four of those years, I also served as a department chair. I spent three years as Assistant Principal for Curriculum and Instruction at the school. While finishing my doctorate, I worked in the central office as Language Arts Coordinator K-12 and then went back to Irmo High School where I served as the district's first female high school principal.

I came to Western in 1996 and have coordinated the Master of School Administration Program and the Principal Fellows until moving into the role of Department Head in Fall 2004. In the Fall of 2005, I was named Interim Director of the Coulter Faculty Center and then Director.  This is my thirteenth year at Western Carolina University.

I love the support role of the Coulter Faculty Center because we know that by helping faculty, we are helping students. My desire is that through the center's work with faculty, we impact significant student learning.

I chose to come to Western because I have been in the education profession for 35 years and I was attracted by the emphasis on teaching at this university. In addition, I love the fact that Western traces its roots to its beginning as a teacher's college.

• Degrees: B.A., Columbia College; MaEd., University of South Carolina; Ph.D., University of South Carolina
• Has published three books: Leave No Angry Child Behind: The ABC's of Anger Management for Grades K-12 with Kathy Cooper, The Social Construction of Educational Leadership: Southern Appalachian Ceilings with Penny Smith, and Speak Softly and Carry Your Own Gym Key; A Female High School Principal's Guide to Survival
• Research interests: Women in Educational Leadership; The Social Construction of Educational Leadership; The Impact of Race, Gender, and Geography on the Selection and Behavior of Educational Leaders, the Pedagogy of Online Teaching
  Teaches one class a year in the Department of Educational Leadership:  School Community Relations
• Married to Dr. John W. McFadden, Jr., Professor Emeritus at Western Carolina University
• Has six grown children and seven grandchilren
• Enjoys reading--particularly regional fiction as well as cruising, especially to Bermuda