Dr. Sara Hays began teaching at Cumberland University in the fall of 2011 as an adjunct instructor in English, and she became a full-time member of the faculty in the fall of 2018. She teaches courses mostly in children’s and adolescent literature, British literature, and composition. In addition to teaching at Cumberland, Dr. Hays was previously an adjunct professor at the International Academy of Design and Technology and at Volunteer State Community College. Then, as a doctoral student at Middle Tennessee State University, she worked in the College of Graduate Studies as the Thesis and Dissertation Coordinator helping graduate students fine-tune the formatting of their theses and dissertations.

Dr. Hays holds a Bachelor of Arts in mass media communications from Emmanuel College, a Master of Arts in English from Belmont University, and a Doctor of Philosophy in English from Middle Tennessee State University. Her graduate research focused on children’s and adolescent literature, culminating with her dissertation on young adult literature author John Green. She has presented several papers at national literature conferences and has had articles published in peer reviewed journals. Beyond her scholarly work, Dr. Hays’s interests also include all aspects of pop culture consumption, including going to the movies, binging shows on Netflix, playing video games, listening to podcasts, watching videos on YouTube, and reading books of all genres and subjects.

Dr. Fred Heifner began at Cumberland University in the fall of 1996 and teaches courses in the Oakley School of Humanities, Education, and the Arts. He primarily teaches courses in anthropology, philosophy, and religion. Prior to arriving at Cumberland, Dr. Heifner was a senior manager of children’s curriculum materials at the Baptist Sunday School Board, Nashville, Tennessee. Dr. Heifner is a prolific writer, has led national conferences on childhood education, and has served as a curriculum consultant for the Spanish Publishing House, El Paso, Texas, the Armed Services Curriculum Selection Committee, and the National Council of Churches. He taught in the Seminary External Education Program of the Southern Baptist Convention for twenty-five years.

Dr. Heifner holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in both psychology and philosophy, a Master of Divinity degree in religion, and a Doctorate of Theology degree in systematic theology. He has done additional post-graduate studies in anthropology at Middle Tennessee State University. He was named the Virginia and Guy Thackston Professor of Liberal Arts in 2020.

Stuart Harris joined the Cumberland University faculty in 1997. Before that, he taught English at Hunters Lane Comprehensive High School in Nashville for 11 years.  In addition to both a Bachelor of Science and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Belmont University, Dr. Harris holds a Master of Arts in Teaching degree from the University of North Carolina and a Doctor of Arts degree from Middle Tennessee State University.

His teaching responsibilities at the university include Composition, Sophomore Literature, and American Literature. In the past, he has taught a seminar course on the short stories of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe and a course on the fiction of William Faulkner and Flannery O’Connor as well as courses on Southern Literature, Writing Fiction, and the American Novel Since World War II. His greatest pleasure as a teacher is helping students discover their own writing voices and being present as they examine their beliefs through the discussion of literature.

Dr. Harris has published poetry in a number of small literary magazines, a story in South Dakota Literary Review, and a story in an anthology of Tennessee writers. He has also published a review of Clyde Edgerton’s novel Where Trouble Sleeps and an article on teaching World Literature in an interdisciplinary context in Tennessee English Journal.  He is currently working on a number of short stories and poems, as well as two critical articles—one on “Rappaccini’s Daughter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne and another on Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor.

Dr. Harris has served at Cumberland in a number of capacities, including Faculty Senate President for 2000-2001 and chair of the Professional Development Committee from April 2008 until March 2010. He also served as the chair of the University Committee on Courses, Curricula, and Academic Policy from March 2010 until May 2012. He served as the Program Director for English from May 2006-January 2024.

Dr. Richard P. Garvin, Jr. was born in Washington, D.C. and spent his formative years in Tennessee. He began a career in commercial real estate in 2005 when he co-founded Crown Park Development, LLC a multimillion-dollar commercial real estate company. During this time, he also served as
a VP of a healthcare company. Richard specialized in land development, developing physician office plazas, and commercial real estate leases in Middle Tennessee. After a few years in real estate Richard pursued a career in politics where he served on the planning commission and historic zoning commission in Tennessee. Also, during this time he became a Leadership Rutherford graduate, Rotary Club member, Paul Harris Fellow, and served on several community boards such as Court Appointed Special Advocates, Library board, and YMCA board and a few others. He later qualified to run for an unsuccessful bid for state representative in a newly formed district.

Richard earned his Ph.D. in Clinical Counseling from Trevecca Nazarene University in Nashville, Tennessee. Dr. Garvin’s clinical experience includes
working as a psychotherapist. Richard’s specialty is working with transracial adoption families. Transracial adoption (or interracial adoption) refers to the adoption of a child that is of a different race than the adoptive parents. For the past eight years Richard has worked with Monroe Harding a non-profit organization to provide healing and opportunities for vulnerable young people and children in foster care. Dr. Garvin focuses his attention on being a research scientist and professor in Clinical Counseling at Tennessee State University. His research interests are race-based traumatic stress, africultural coping, and academic self-efficacy. As a research scientist Dr. Garvin currently works with a multimillion-dollar National Institute of Health (NIH) grant in cancer research. He serves as a co-investigator on the cancer outreach core in a three-institution partnership with Meharry Medical College, Vanderbilt University, and Tennessee State University (MVTCP) https://www.mvtcp.org/.

In 2023, Richard and his wife, Dr. Natara Garvin decided to return to real estate and founded Capital City, LLC a multi-million- dollar multi-family residential company. When Richard is not working, he enjoys traveling internationally with his wife and their two children (Richard III and Harper),
and spending time with his Labradoodle fur baby, Rex.