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Teacher's Teacher Retires From CCU: Educator Has No Plans to Slow Down

Posted on: Sunday, 18 December 2005, 12:00 CST

By Sarah P. Kennedy, The Sun News, Myrtle Beach, S.C., The Sun News, Myrtle Beach, S.C.

Dec. 18--Sally Hare believes everyone is born with "birthright gifts," reasons why we're here on earth.

Hare was born to teach.

Hare, 58, who retires this month after more than 31 years on the faculty of Coastal Carolina University, has spent her life using her gifts to help other teachers discover theirs. She has no plans to stop.

"I'm very excited about what comes next," Hare said. "In a way, I'm graduating from college, but it's the opposite end."

The best thing about retirement, Hare said, is she gets to keep doing everything she loves -- teaching, learning, writing, reading, walking on the beach, spending time with family and friends -- and stop doing the thing she doesn't love: paperwork.

Hare is a teacher's teacher, educating those who teach young children, because she thinks it's the best way for her to affect the greatest number of children.

"The purpose of education," Hare wrote for CCU's Distinguished Teacher-Scholar Lecture Series, "is to enable us to know our birthright gifts, to recognize them, to learn to use them in fulfilling our life's purpose."

Hare helps teachers recognize, renew and sustain their passion and talent for teaching. She believes that who a teacher is, is more important in how she or he teaches than methodologies or lesson plans.

Carolina Forest Elementary School kindergarten teacher Marti Hancock, who earned a master's degree at CCU, said learning with Hare was awe-inspiring.

"If you are a teacher -- and I don't mean that you are simply employed as a teacher, but if you are the kind of teacher who is called to teach, that your purpose in life is teaching, that teaching helps define who you are -- then instinctively you know that you can't teach the mind separate from the heart and soul. Sally confirms that for you," Hancock said.

Hare also sees an inseparable relationship between learning and community.

"Learning is social; perceiving oneself as belonging to a learning community makes a difference for learners of all ages," Hare wrote.

With that philosophy in mind, Hare began CCU's Center for Education and Community in 1993. The mission of the center is to promote support and develop leadership for public education, parents and families, and lifelong learning.

Hare developed "Calling All Colors," a forum for children to discuss race and racism, and "Jump for the Sun," a program encouraging girls and women to pursue careers in math and science.

Anisa Kintz, the 8-year-old girl who came to Hare and suggested organizing what would become the nationally acclaimed "Calling All Colors," is now a 22-year-old college graduate who said Hare and the forum are part of why she has chosen to pursue a career helping young people get the same opportunities she has had.

"One of the things that was so cool about [Hare] is that she is one of the first adults that I would have called a friend," Kintz said. "I genuinely felt that we were friends and that, that was a mutual relationship, and I think that in itself was a really positive experience because not many 8-year-olds have many adults they consider friends. I think it's great for your self-esteem."

Hare gave Kintz confidence by believing Kintz could do anything she put her mind to.

Hare has had a similar affect on Kelli Barker, who has worked for Hare as an administrative assistant in the center for a year and a half. She said Hare gave her the courage to go back to school.

"I think the thing I'm so amazed by is the numerous people I meet on a weekly basis that [Hare] has touched their lives in a way that they will never be the same," Barker said. "She's very giving of herself, of her time, of her leadership, and it doesn't matter who it is. I don't care if it's the janitor or the president; she has that kind of respect."

The path to Coastal

Hare -- a soft-spoken woman who said she was an introvert as a child -- always knew she would teach, but where she wound up was much different from what she planned.

Born and raised in Charleston, the oldest of three daughters, Hare didn't want to go to college. Her parents hadn't. But Hare knew she needed a degree to teach, so off she went to Columbia and the University of South Carolina.

She never dreamed she'd end up with three degrees.

Hare went to work as a teacher after completing her bachelor's degree in 1969. After teaching first- through third-graders for a year, she was so alarmed by her students' poor reading skills that she returned to USC to learn more about teaching. She earned a master's degree in 1971.

"What I learned very quickly was the reason kids weren't learning to read was because we weren't teaching them," Hare said. "In order to foster change the world for kids, the best thing I could do was [teach] teachers."

She began teaching education students at USC. She started taking doctoral-level graduate courses because the university paid for them and because she felt a Ph.D. would open doors for her as a woman.

When her husband was offered a job in Myrtle Beach, she moved to Surfside Beach in January 1974 to be with him.

Their brick house was on a sandy dirt road and had a septic tank. Hare's favorite thing about the house? It's location: close to the ocean.

"I understand everything when I walk on the beach," Hare said. "It's calming. It's peace. The ocean is very important to me."

Hare began teaching graduate-level classes in early-childhood education at CCU when it was still a part of USC. Hare finished her Ph.D. in 1975. Her marriage ended in divorce in 1976, but Hare's career at CCU continued.

CCU President Ron Ingle said Hare is one of the most creative people he knows.

"Throughout her career and life ... she's constantly growing and evolving, and it's just been gratifying to see how she has evolved over the years ... always with the core of caring for other people," Ingle said.

Hare became dean of graduate and continuing education in 1980 and thought she would one day become a college president.

Then in 1990 she received a three-year, $30,000 grant from the philanthropic Kellogg Foundation to strengthen her leadership abilities and to explore the concept of community through travel and observation. She visited Bali, Ireland, Greece, Senegal, New Zealand, Australia and various places in the U.S. "I learned to see myself and my home ... with new eyes," Hare said.

During that time, she met education activist Parker Palmer, who helped Hare reconnect with her teaching gifts. She realized she didn't want a career of fundraising and politics, so she resigned her deanship in 1993 and founded the Center for Education and Community to bring her ideas about community and education to CCU and the Grand Strand.

Hare has been directing the center ever since.

Her work at the center also connected her to another love: her husband, Jim Rogers, 70, who began work in 1994 as the center's parent and family-life educator after a 40-year career in radio, TV and motion pictures.

Love and respect grew between Hare and Rogers, and they married two years ago.

"What impressed me was her incredible brilliance and her vision and her desire to do some of the things I wanted to do ... to help children grow," Rogers said. "Our missions were married before our selves were."

Rogers said he plans to work at the center through June and then continue to do parenting and family-life workshops as a consultant.

What lies ahead

Rogers said if he and Hare can fit it into their retirement plans, they might visit Sioux City, Iowa, to see the spot where Meriwether Lewis and William Clark made camp in 1804. If they do, Rogers will have set foot in all 50 states.

Hare will continue to teach. She has created her own education-consulting and facilitation business, Still Learning. She facilitates retreats called Courage To Teach, based on the philosophies of mentor Palmer. The retreats promote personal and professional renewal of teachers, school administrators and counselors. Hare also will teach a Lifelong Learning course called "Healing with Words" next semester at CCU's Waccamaw center.

Emma Savage-Davis, who joined the Center for Education and Community in August, will take over its direction in January. Hare said Savage-Davis will bring her own gifts to the job.

"I think that when you're gone, you're gone, either when you retire or when you die," Hare said. "I don't want my name on a building."

Hare doesn't like the word "legacy," but she hopes she's made a difference in the lives she's touched.

"I think the best you can do ... it's like walking on the beach. I don't like to leave anything behind, not even footprints," Hare said. "I think that's the best legacy: They don't even know you were there, but you left it better than you found it."

Sally Hare

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Sally Hare

1969 | Earns bachelor's degree in elementary education, University of South Carolina

1971 | Earns master's degree in education, USC

1974 | Begins teaching at CCU

1975 | Earns Ph.D. in education, USC

1990-1993 | Receives Kellogg National Fellowship

1980-1993 | Serves as dean of graduate and continuing education

1992 | Leads first "Calling All Colors" conference

1993 | Founds Center for Education and Community

December 2005 | Retires from CCU faculty as professor emeritus

Contact SARAH P. KENNEDY at skennedy@thesunnews.com [mailto:skennedy@thesunnews.com] or 444-1718.

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Copyright (c) 2005, The Sun News, Myrtle Beach, S.C.

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Source: The Sun News (Myrtle Beach, S.C.)

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