Tony Galloway is hooded by Dean Valerie Rutledge, left, and Dr. Beth Crawford during UTC Graduate School commencement ceremonies on Friday, Dec. 15. Photo by Angela Foster.
It’s one thing to say you’re a life-long learner. It’s another thing to prove it.
At University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Graduate School commencement exercises on Friday, Dec. 15, at McKenzie Arena, 72-year-old Tony Galloway took part in a doctoral hooding ceremony—the recipient of a doctorate in Education: Learning and Leadership (Ed.D.).
“I’ve always wanted to have a doctorate,” he said matter-of-factly prior to commencement, “but I just hadn’t had the time to do it.
“I’m going to try not to break down and cry. It will probably be one of the grandest moments in my life when that happens. It’s an affirmation of my life in a sense—and what my professional life has been like for all these years.”
Galloway has had a long and storied teaching career at the high school and college levels.
After graduating from Dobyns-Bennett High School in Kingsport, Tennessee, and earning a bachelor’s degree from King College in Bristol, Tennessee, in 1974, he started down a path toward a master’s degree from the University of North Carolina—but left that school after one year. “I didn’t finish; I wanted to get to work, to be honest.”
He returned to his Northeast Tennessee hometown to teach local and regional history and advanced placement U.S. history and government classes at Dobyns-Bennett High. He spent 25-plus years teaching high school students and won numerous accolades—including outstanding teacher awards from both the Tennessee Humanities Council and the Tennessee Council for the Social Studies.
In 1983, he added adjunct faculty to his résumé. He made higher education stops throughout East Tennessee and Southwest Virginia, including ETSU, King College, Northeast State Community College, Walters State Community College, Virginia Intermont College and Tusculum University. He also served as co-director of the Governor’s School for Tennessee Heritage.
His history knowledge isn’t parceled solely to students. In January 2019, he was appointed county historian by the Sullivan County (Tennessee) Board of County Commissioners.
And it wasn’t just students he taught; he stopped teaching high school full-time in 2009 to work as a teacher-coach thanks to a Tennessee First Frontier Consortium’s Teaching American History grant.
“Back in that time period, they were offering federal grants for professional development improvement,” he explained, “and I took a position as a teacher-coach. I worked with teachers in a five-county area up here in Northeast Tennessee.”
Along the way, he resumed his college career, earning a master’s degree from East Tennessee State University in 1988. But he wasn’t done with his schooling, recalling a time when “a group of folks came up from UTC” and presented at the Kingsport Center for Higher Education.
“They told us that we could work on our advanced degree and not have to leave Kingsport. Basically, the professors would come to us,” he said. “That was so good to hear, and I decided it was time to pursue a doctorate.”
He took the plunge in 2011—at the age of 60.
UC Foundation Professor Beth Crawford stands with Tony Galloway, her former high school history teacher, before the Graduate School commencement.
Dr. Beth Crawford, who serves as UC Foundation professor and program advisor for UTC’s Learning and Leadership programs, came to Chattanooga after graduating from Dobyns-Bennett High School. “I moved here when I was 17 and never left,” she said.
A two-time alum of the University, she earned a bachelor’s degree in communication in 1985 and a master’s in psychology in 1988—along with a doctoral degree from UT Knoxville in 2001. She spent her first 24 years at UTC as a member of the Division of Continuing Education.
After Crawford transitioned into Learning and Leadership in fall 2011, she was scrolling through the course roles of a Kingsport-based Ed.D. class she was assigned to teach and stumbled upon the name Tony Galloway.
She found her high school yearbook and showed Galloway’s photo to Dr. David Rausch, the Learning and Leadership program director.
“Is this Tony Galloway, only 30 years later?” she asked. It turns out it was indeed her former high school history teacher.
“It was a bit daunting; I was going to walk into a classroom that August and teach not only all these people in the program, but my former teacher,” Crawford recalled. “It was a little bit intimidating at first, but it worked out great. There wasn’t any kind of ego. He wanted to learn and I wanted to provide information.”
“Tony was definitely a little bit of an outlier,” Crawford continued, “but this program was designed for the contemporary adult learners who are out there. It was designed to make it palatable for adults with all kinds of other things going on in life. These people are usually a little higher up in their careers, a little more established.”
It isn’t unusual for that weekend-based program to take an extended time to complete, and—in Galloway’s case—he ended up being a caretaker for aging parents. But he stuck with the program, culminating with his dissertation on June 6 this year titled, “Secondary teachers’ perceptions on their competency and self-efficacy levels associated with an integrated professional development approach to teaching United States history.”
“For me, it’s still fun being a student,” Galloway said, “but when I got to the point of the dissertation, that’s a lonely track; it’s just you. There would be some evenings when I would ask myself, ‘Why in the world am I doing this?’ And then I answered, ‘Because I want to do it.’
“It’s like the crown on top of years of working in education. I’ve always been a learner and I still have that appetite. I’m willing to do what it takes to meet that need.”
The dissertation was conducted via Zoom, which was appropriate to the changing modalities of teaching and learning. Crawford was chair of the Learning and Leadership committee overseeing his dissertation research.
“It’s just been an interesting relationship because she’s been my coach who’s got me through all of this and been real patient with this old geezer—and always encouraging,” Galloway said. “She’s probably one of the most affirmative people that I know.
“She was a very good student for me and I hope I was also a good student for her. At least I think I was.”
Receiving the doctoral degree, Tony Galloway said, was “an affirmation of my life in a sense—and what my professional life has been like for all these years.”
On Dec. 15, nearly 50 years after receiving a bachelor’s degree, Galloway heard his name recited again—this time as a doctor of education.
His family—wife Beth, son and daughter-in-law Marshall and Kristen, and grandchildren Brianna and Eli—were in the McKenzie Arena crowd cheering him on.
His former high school protégé, Crawford, was on stage helping put the hood over his head.
Even though one of them might refer to him as Dr. Galloway, don’t expect him to bestow that academic title upon himself.
“I look back at the hard work and the nights and the days I spent working on the end product here and it was worth every minute,” he said. “I’m not going to say, ‘I’m a doctor.’ I’m just a learner. I see myself as an enabler to help students learn their history; that’s what I want to continue doing.
“I figure as long as you love doing it, keep doing it. That’s kind of my motto.”
His grand plan: return to Kingsport to continue his life as a teacher, coach and mentor, a role, he said, “that defines me.”
He still teaches college students as an adjunct faculty member at Tusculum University and Walters State Community College. He still teaches high school students through a dual-enrollment program at Walters State for Hawkins County students. He often serves as a substitute.
And, of course, he will continue encouraging others to keep learning.
“I would suggest anybody, regardless of their age, if they’re looking for an advanced degree, don’t say no simply because you got a few years on you,” Galloway said. “Go for it while you’ve still got your mental faculties with you—and I’ve still got mine with me.”
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