Born in Eschenbach, Germany, Jaclyn Jennings was raised in southern Tennessee on the Alabama state line. Mrs. Jennings grew up with a nursery behind her home, playing ball with her twin sister against a backdrop filled with blue-green, rolling hillsides, and visiting a neighbor across the field who split his time between Old Salem, Tennessee, and Paris, France, capturing a young girl’s imagination. Nothing beats the sound of that gray gravel driveway coming home.

Jennings came back to Cumberland in the fall of 2016 when she was hired as an adjunct instructor of English and became fulltime in August of 2017.

After graduating with an undergraduate degree in English from Cumberland University, Mrs. Jennings began her teaching career at a small, private Christian school in Robertson County. Three years later, she had a crisis of belief and switched fields opting for a job in customer service and perhaps a career with a different passion -travel. While working in an office setting at a travel agency with very memorable colleagues evoked memories of growing up playing on sports teams, Jaclyn missed the classroom. She especially missed the connections with her students.

So, Jennings pursued her master’s degree first online and then on ground in night classes. Working two part time jobs and going to school she relates to the student population today who are largely not ‘traditional’ university college students.

As a full-time instructor at Cumberland, Mrs. Jennings teaches Composition I, Composition II, Introduction to Literature, and FSL. Her activities at CU include sponsoring Sigma Tau Delta, meeting bi-weekly with Table of Comments, a book club for all, supporting any English Department events, and trying to catch her student-athletes outside the classroom in action on the field or court.

Mrs. Jennings’s interests include reading, writing, traveling, hiking, skiing, baking, and cooking as long as she doesn’t have to do the dishes. She is a novice rower, fiddler, and gardener (containers and planters count, right?). A dream day is waking up in a tent or hammock outside, fishing or sunbathing all day, and then sitting around the campfire with hotdogs and marshmallows as the sun sets, geese fly home, crickets serenade, and bullfrogs croak. Or…just sitting on the front porch of Memaw’s house on Neal Street in Huntland, Tennessee, swinging, sipping sweet tea, breakin’ beans into an old metal bowl, and watching the world go by again would be nice.

Jaclyn is a graduate of Huntland High School, holds a BA from CU, and an MA from WKU. She is an alumna of Sigma Tau Delta. Jaclyn is married to Drew Jennings, a CU alum.

Ever since reading Lauren Slater’s Lying in a writing class with Dale Rigby, Jaclyn has been largely stuck on reading nonfiction, but still manages to reread a few classics like Wide Sargasso Sea, The Awakening, and a little Hemingway on summer breaks. Mrs. Jennings’s latest kick is food writing which she discovered during her pregnancy when she was unable to eat much that agreed with her, finding comfort in words about food instead. Having recently discovered poets Frank O’Hara on YouTube and Jericho Brown in a Garden & Gun article during her Covid-19 quarantine Mrs. Jennings’s 2020 summer reading list is looking promising.

Jaclyn’s humble abode is in Portland, Tennessee, home of the Middle Tennessee Strawberry Festive, but that’s not why she and her husband live there. It is Drew’s hometown. She lives with him, their two dogs, and two daughters on a quiet cul-de-sac off the 8^th green of the local, municipal course. It’s not Sun-Drop country, but she’s not north of the state line either. They’re members and attend services at First Baptist Church where Mrs. Jennings prefers to sit on the back row.

After teaching ENG 216 Topics in Literature over Travel Literature last fall and reminiscing over her travels to the United Kingdom, Italy, France, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Ireland, and Iceland, Mrs. Jennings looks forward to the opportunity of teaching the class again. Maybe food writing will be chosen as the next topic.

Alan Hutchison joined the Cumberland University faculty in 2018 as an Instructor of Speech.  He holds an undergraduate degree in Communications from Lipscomb University as well as post-graduate degrees in Theology (also Lipscomb) and Corporate Communications (Austin Peay State University).  With over 25 years of public speaking experience in both corporate and non-profit settings he brings an academic and applied perspective to the classroom.  Mr. Hutchison has a passion for education having volunteered in primary education classrooms in Wilson County tutoring students.  As a corporate communicator, he is a member of the Public Relations Society of America and Sales and Marketing Executives International.

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.

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, World Literature, Sophomore Literature, and Studies in Drama.  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.

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.