Retirements in JRCoE

The college is saying goodbye to several long-term faculty and staff in 2022.

Professor Sally Beach spent 31 years of her career at OU and has been a part of the education field as a student, teacher and researcher for 47 years. When asked what she was most proud of in her career, Beach said “it includes the many great teachers out there in schools that I was a part of preparing, either in undergraduate or graduate classes who are teaching children to read and love reading, the doctoral students I mentored who are out preparing teachers or working in other ways to improve education, the work in education for democracy in post-communist countries, and the school for women that I helped establish in northern Uganda.” And what will she miss most from her time in the Jeannine Rainbolt College of Education? No. 1 on her list was the popcorn at Tuesday Tea. But also, missing the daily interactions with her awesome colleagues, both faculty and staff, in the college.

Professor Rockey Robbins just completed his 21st year as a faculty member at OU, but his time as an educator stretches long before that, having spent the 25-plus years previously  working in Indian education throughout the country.

When reflecting on his time as a teacher at OU, Robbins recounted a time when he brought 15 of his students to a presentation in New Mexico with Navajos. At the end of the presentation, the elders asked the students to share some of their culture the way the elders had shared the Navajo culture. One student said she would and left to the room to get props. The elders and others looked at each other, wondering what was to come. She came back down with a song and costume … and did an Irish jig. It was an extraordinary moment for all there. But the elders … they just sat there. Until, one by one, all 50 of them got up to shake her hand and give her a hug. For Robbins, it was one of the most emotional moments he had as a teacher. He was told early on by a medicine person that he would be a bridge between the white world and Indians, and that moment captured what he has tried to do his entire career as a teacher.

Trudy Rhodes retired in December 2022 after over 30 years at OU and in the college working in the instructional leadership and academic curriculum department.