SEBA Professor Rebecca Carroll Caps a Lauded 26-Year Career at SMC

Thursday, May 17, marked Rebecca Carroll's last day at Saint Mary's. A professor of rhetoric in the Management and Entrepreneurship Department of SMC’s School of Economics and Business Administration (SEBA), Carroll celebrated the enormity of the occasion by wearing the very same dress that she wore 26 years ago on her first day at Saint Mary's, along with a brooch that once belonged to her late grandmother who would have been 125 years old that day.

Originally from Lucinda, Pennsylvania, Carroll moved west on the recommendation of a Christian Brother classmate at the University of Pittsburgh, where she earned a PhD in rhetoric and communication. Her goal was to teach at a college that didn’t prioritize research over educating students, and she was particularly drawn to Saint Mary's Lasallian heritage and commitment to social justice.

A teacher first and foremost, Carroll said she thrived on the “lightbulb moments" of her students—points when a mind expanded with new knowledge or gained a new perspective. Over the course of her career, she taught courses focusing on political argument and persuasion, interpersonal communication, and communications in law and public policy, among others. This March, she received SMC’s 2018 Teacher Excellence award for outstanding teaching, service, and scholarship. Other Saint Mary’s honors have included the Faculty Service Award in 2013 and the De La Salle Teaching Excellence award in 2002.

Carroll’s intensive courses thrust her students deep into the world of management communications, teaching them to craft thoughtful and purposeful writing and speech. To this day, students overwhelmingly refer to her standards and expectations as “difficult but fair.” As one student noted in evaluating an Executive MBA (EMBA) course: "Professor Carroll's class causes me anxiety, makes me nervous and keeps me on edge. I LOVE IT.”

A pioneer in voice assessment, Carroll provided students with a verbal evaluation of their work via an MP3 file. "It's all electronic, so I haven't used paper in a class in a lot of years,” she said. “Students love the feedback, and I see more improvement in their work."

Carroll also taught several Jan Term classes, on topics ranging from gender and communication to public speaking to swing dance. She even took students to South Africa three times: twice to explore post-apartheid culture and once to hike the tip the continent while studying South African literature on the physiology and psychology of hiking and memoirs of famous walkers.

One of the hardest parts of retiring, Carroll said, is leaving her SMC colleagues behind; she has enjoyed working with them all. However, it gives her great comfort, she said, that she is leaving SMC in a much better place on many different levels, particularly in terms of cultural awareness. “We have made great strides,” she said, while acknowledging that there is still much work to be done on that front.

As Carroll enters "Act III," as she calls retirement, she looks forward to more reading, dancing, knitting, singing, and hiking. Colleagues, students, and other members of the Saint Mary’s community will miss her, and wish her the very best in this next phase of her life.