Prof. McCarley retired from Georgia Southern University in 2022.

 — Biography from the 2022 Fall Commencement program —

Dr. McCarley earned her BA in Psychology (1984), her MS in Psychology with an emphasis in Clinical Psychology (1986), and her PhD in Educational Psychology with a concentration in teaching and minor in Clinical Psychology (1993), all from Mississippi State University. After a productive teaching career at Mississippi State University, including six years as the Director of the Shackhouls Honors College and a Visiting Associate Professor post at the University of Nicosia, Cyprus, Dr. McCarley brought her talents to Georgia Southern’s Armstrong Campus in Savannah. Dr. McCarley is an expert instructor who possesses a unique storytelling skill that engages students and helps them learn, consolidate, and apply important information for the discipline. Further, given her breadth of training, she reached students at all levels of our major, from introductory to capstone, through instruction across many different fundamental knowledge areas. Her pedagogical talents translated to student success for over a decade and will continue to do so in the lives of all the students she taught. Just as important, her teaching was not confined to the classroom; it shined in the research realm as well. She made research fun, for the students as well as faculty with whom she worked. She helped students learn to read deeply and more carefully, apply their knowledge from previous classes, write clearly, defend their ideas, create and deliver effective presentations, be confident, and understand the background and context of their laboratory work, among so many other things. In the past 12 years, she published 17 empirical articles, on which 28 undergraduate students served as co-authors, all while teaching four courses each semester. Her ability to successfully lead students through the high-impact practice of undergraduate research is exemplified by the fact that every student from her laboratory who applied for graduate school was successfully admitted. She served as a Consulting Editor for the North American Journal of Psychology. Dr. McCarley also served as a model of a successful and service-minded faculty member as she taught and mentored the faculty in psychology, fostering their success and strengthening the department. Indeed, over the past 12 years, she has been the glue that held our many faculty members together. Even before new faculty arrived on campus, she reached out to offer help, provide advice, and organize current faculty to help prepare new faculty for their transition. If there was ever a need for sound advice, Dr. McCarley was where all faculty turned. She is one of the key reasons faculty in our department on the Armstrong campus are successful in their many endeavors. She truly has been the heart of the Armstrong campus psychology faculty and has earned the title of Associate Professor Emerita of Psychology.*