Retirees Represent 137 Years of Experience in College of Education and Health Professions

University Relations

Roy Farley, clockwise from top, Jim Hammons, Carleton Holt and Susan Mayes

Four faculty members of the College of Education and Health Professions will retire at the end of the spring semester, taking with them a combined 137 years of teaching at the University of Arkansas.

"Each year, we are sad to see valued and dedicated members of our faculty leave the college but it gives us the opportunity to thank them for their service," said Michael Miller, dean of the college. "We wish them well and hope they enjoy this next phase of their lives. And, we encourage our remaining faculty members to emulate these veterans because we know the ultimate beneficiaries are our students."

All but one of the retirees joined the faculty before the college changed its name from the College of Education in 1997.

The retiring faculty members are:

Roy Farley, a professor of counselor education, joined the faculty in 1974. He is a Licensed Professional Counselor and is experienced in rehabilitation counseling, counseling education, research and supervision. He previously served on the Arkansas Board of Examiners in Counseling and was an Associate Fellow of the Albert Ellis Institute.

Farley's research interests include development and demonstration of mental health and career counseling interventions and strategies for promoting generalization and maintenance of learning. He has published more than 90 articles on his research, made more than 100 presentations and conducted more than 250 workshops and seminars across the country for national, regional and state audiences.

Over the years, he has participated on teams successful in developing grant proposals awarded external funds of more than $12 million.

Farley also served as head of the Department of Educational Leadership, Counseling and Foundations for three years. An Arkansas native, he holds three degrees from Arkansas higher education institutions, including his doctorate in counselor education from the U of A.

Jim Hammons joined the faculty in 1976 as a professor of higher education. Before coming to the U of A, he held administrative positions at Miami-Dade Community College and was founding dean of the College of Burlington County College (New Jersey). He also served as a research associate at both the National Laboratory for Higher Education and at the Center for the Study of Higher Education at Penn State University.

During his time on the faculty, Hammons coordinated the higher education program for over 25 years, developed and taught over 15 different graduate courses and chaired more than 100 doctoral dissertations. Four of the dissertations he chaired received national recognition.

His primary research and his personal mission have focused on improving the effectiveness and efficiency and the quality of experience for those who attend or work in higher education. He is the past president of the Council for the Study of Community Colleges and was selected as a member of the University of Texas' Community College Leadership Hall of Fame.

Hammons has spoken, consulted or provided training at over 250 colleges and universities in 41 states and provinces and spoken at more than 300 national conferences. He has authored over 100 publications, including two books and more than 90 refereed journal articles including five in the last two years.

Carleton Holt, an associate professor of educational leadership, joined the faculty in 1999 after serving as band director, coach and school administrator in public schools in Iowa and South Dakota for more than 30 years. He researched successful marketing of school bond issues and millage rate increases to overcome the national problem of aging school facilities and wrote a textbook for school leaders called School Bond Success: A Strategy for Building America's Schools.

Holt has written two other editions of the textbook with a fourth edition to come out this summer and numerous chapters, articles and papers for presentation. He also studied student learning preferences and school health programs to identify factors that may support improved student academic performance in K-12 schools.

He is past president of the National Council of Professors of Educational Administration and also served on the council's Executive Board of Directors. He has been honored as Most Outstanding Faculty Member twice by the Associated Student Government. He also won several college faculty awards and received the first Alumni Leadership Award given by the School of Education at the University of South Dakota, his alma mater.

Susan Mayes, an instructor of kinesiology, spent 10 years teaching in public schools before she joined the faculty in 1982. She has served as the Department of Health, Human Performance and Recreation undergraduate coordinator since 1993, providing support services to about 30 faculty members, two professional advisers and more than 1,400 students.

Mayes has won numerous awards from SHAPE America, formerly the American Association of Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance, and she has held office and served on multiple committees of SHAPE America and the Arkansas Association of Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance.

She also received an Award of Excellence in Recognition of Outstanding Teaching from the U of A Teaching Academy last year and was inducted as a Fellow. She was named the College/University Outstanding Dance Educator for SHAPE America Southern District in 2015, and won her department's outstanding advising award six times.

Mayes and a colleague participated in Adopt-A-Classroom, a program of the Education Renewal Zone, taking decades of dance experience to history and sociology classes in grades six through 12.

The college will honor the retiring faculty members at a reception at 4 p.m. Wednesday, May 3 at Carnall Hall.