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.