Professor of Modern Languages Dr. Teresa Parrish Smotherman joined Wesleyan’s faculty in 2001. Previously, she served the University of Georgia’s Department of Romance Languages for eleven years after teaching Spanish at the high school and middle school levels. Serving at Wesleyan as an advisor for the Fulbright program and four-time faculty advisor for the Summer Leadership Institute, Smotherman also served on more than twenty committees including study abroad, athletic policies, and strategic planning.
During her illustrious career, Smotherman traveled extensively to attend and conduct workshops and make conference presentations around the world including visiting Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria, London, Dubai, Scotland, Colombia, Peru, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, and Mexico. She served as an instructor of Spanish for the elite Governor’s Honors Program and as a translator for the Clarke County Superior Court and for the Consul General of Argentina. She is a longtime member of the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese and the Latin American Studies Association.
Smotherman earned several prestigious teaching awards at Wesleyan including the Ann Munck Award for Excellence in Teaching and the Nonie A. and William F. Quillian Distinguished Teaching Award. She was named as one of the Governor’s Teaching Fellows in 2000 and 2001, and the Georgia Professor of the Year 2001 by the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese. She also served as president of Wesleyan’s Chapter of Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society for the last fifteen years.
Smotherman earned her Ph.D. in romance languages and her master’s degree in Spanish literature from the University of Georgia, and her bachelor’s degree in Spanish, magna cum laude, from Valdosta State College.
Professor of Communication Deidra Donmoyer said, “I have been honored to work with Dr. Smotherman throughout the years. From questions about pedagogy to informal socializing over many, many lunches in Hurdle Cafe, to a partner in leading the Summer Leadership Institute in Washington, D.C., I know she is someone who will provide me with insight and a full-bodied laugh. Dr. Smotherman is genuine and sincere in her care for students and love of life. I respect her deeply.”
Dr. Libby Bailey began teaching at Wesleyan in 1976, and, with the exception of a three-year hiatus for doctoral coursework, has served either as an adjunct or full-time faculty member ever since, attaining the rank of professor in 2002. Bailey is a teacher, art historian, artist, and art preservationist.
For more than forty years, Bailey taught drawing, painting, and art history to more than 2,000 students at Wesleyan and says her fondest memories are being in Murphey 104 discussing great works of art with her students. Under her supervision, art history students presented forty-two papers at The Georgia Undergraduate Art History Conference. In addition to being an oil and watercolor painter, she is also a printmaker and an artist of woodblock prints. In 2002, she created the Adopt-A-Painting program at Wesleyan with the philosophy that the College’s art must be conserved, displayed, and enjoyed by all.
Bailey earned three prestigious teaching awards at Wesleyan: The Ann Munck Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1997 and in 2018 and the Nonie A. and William F. Quillian Distinguished Teaching Award in 2005. In 2015, she was honored with the Governor’s Award for the Arts and Humanities. The award recognizes the value of the arts and humanities in the creation of a thriving economy and the recipient’s contributions to education, innovation, growth, and quality of life.
She earned her bachelor of fine arts and master of fine arts degrees in drawing and painting and her Ph.D. in art history from the University of Georgia. Her area of specialization in art history is Medieval/Renaissance art in Tuscany, but she also focuses on the issues of women, Native Americans, and African Americans represented in the arts.
Long time colleague and friend Dr. Frazer Lively, professor of theatre, said, “Dr. Libby Bailey has served as a shining example of how to be a Wesleyan professor. She has endless curiosity and a real ability to listen. These are just two of the qualities that enliven the many classes she has taught for Wesleyan over more than forty years. She is an evocative painter of complex pieces, and a published art historian. She takes pains to teach students how to think critically, present research, and write. In all of the many leadership roles she has held, Libby has been meticulous but never bossy: she manages to use her vast knowledge, but also to synthesize ideas drawn from the whole group. Libby is a gifted teacher, an inspired artist, and a kind and generous colleague. We will all miss her at Wesleyan.”
D. Abbott Turner Professor of Free Enterprise Dr. Glenna Dod Meyer has been a professor at Wesleyan College since 1983. Previously she held various positions at institutions in Mississippi, Texas, Kentucky, and New York, and from 1986 to 1997, she was a part-time adjunct professor of marketing at Mercer University.
In 1990 just after the Berlin Wall came down, Meyer served as a Fulbright Professor at Sofia University, Sofia, Bulgaria, as the first professor of free enterprise at a flagship university in that country. She is a two-time Fulbright-Hays Scholar, first in Malaysia and Singapore and later in Taiwan and Thailand. Among many other global experiences, she served as professor of business English and marketing at Peking University, Beijing, People’s Republic of China, and studied businesses in Copenhagen, Denmark, to compare Danish and American businesses through a Wesleyan College Summer Research Grant.
In addition to being published dozens of times and serving on many college and civic committees and boards, Meyer’s awards include the Marketing & Advertising Excellence Award for Best Marketing/Advertising/Media Professor from the Central Georgia Advertising Federation, 2003; Honoree inducted into the first Academic Honors Hall of Fame, Wayne County High School, 2002; and the Ann Munck Award for Excellence in Teaching, as the award’s first recipient in 1989 and again in 2007.
Meyer said, “My experiences with the intelligent, kind, and generous young women of Wesleyan have enriched my life beyond measure. I like to follow their achievements and cherish their friendships.”
Friend, colleague, and Emeritus Professor of Economics Dr. Philip Taylor said, “I appreciate this opportunity to join many others in expressing my gratitude to Dr. Meyer for her tireless and unending support of Wesleyan College, her students, and her colleagues (especially me). The successes her students have gone on to achieve in life can be traced to Glenna’s timely words of encouragement and confidence in their abilities. Personally, I cannot remember a time that seeing Glenna’s open door did not make me more happy I chose Wesleyan for my career. Glenna, you are and will be missed.”
The Glenna Dod Meyer Award was established in 2020 by the Department of Business & Economics to honor Dr. Meyer upon her retirement. The award goes to a deserving rising senior in the department of Business and Economics who is chosen on the basis of character and academic achievement.