Martin Fowler

Martin Fowler is a senior faculty fellow in philosophy and will be retiring from Elon after being part of its faculty since 1996. 

Fowler said the student to faculty ratio and Elon’s efforts to retain and support students has made it a positive place to teach over the years. During the 2024-25 academic year, Elon had a student to faculty ratio of 11:1, according to the Elon University Fact Book.

During his time at Elon, Fowler has published two books, “The Ethical Practice of Critical Thinking” and “You Always Belonged and You Always Will: a Philosophy of Belonging.” Fowler credits Elon for providing him with a stable work environment while he wrote both books.

Fowler said he has taught a variety of courses at Elon including courses on ethical practice, the philosophy of leadership and a study abroad trip to Iceland. Fowler said his most memorable class was an environmental ethics class. During the final, Fowler had members of a local conservatory center bring in wild cats and assessed how his students interacted with the animals. 

“The people from the Conservatory Center came to the class, released the cats into the classroom, and the students had to figure out how to relate to them,” Fowler said. 

During his retirement, Fowler said his immediate plans were to drive across Canada with his husband. Fowler said this trip will allow him and his husband to visit friends and family they have been unable to see in person.

“I don’t have to worry about being back in time for classes,” Fowler said.

After the cross country trip, Fowler plans to spend his days being an active volunteer at his church, St. Philip’s Episcopol Church.

Nancy Harris

With a career spanning 44 years, biology professor and former associate dean of the Elon College of Arts and Sciences Nancy Harris has seen Elon grow and change into what it is today.

Harris came to Elon in 1981 after receiving bachelor’s degrees in zoology and horticulture, a doctoral degree in plant pathology and working at Greensboro College for a brief time. She said that when she first arrived at Elon, she was around the fifth or sixth faculty member in the biology department, and housed in the Duke building at the time.

As the school began to grow, Harris said that many changes were made in the early 2000s for the school to become more prestigious. These changes included becoming a university and creating the Elon College of Arts and Sciences.

With combining all the disciplines of arts and sciences into one college, Harris said the school felt there needed to be people acting as voices for the different areas. As a result, Harris took on the role of associate dean to represent the mathematical and natural sciences division.

“All the people that are in the college, they have special needs, have certain specific needs that need to be focused on a little bit, even though they’re part of the college,” Harris said. “Now we have three associate deans in the College of Arts and Sciences, supposedly one that — even though they all do everything — focus on their people.”

Outside of teaching, while in the dean’s office, Harris said she helped in many other areas around campus, including representing Elon’s Reserve Officers’ Training Corps chapter, serving as the president of the Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society for three years and working on the Voices of Discovery speaker series.

Across all her experiences at Elon, Harris said two were the most impactful to her and were things she recommends every faculty member participate in: study abroad and teaching the first-year foundation COR1100: The Global Experience course.

Harris led a winter term study abroad course to Belize many times, focusing on field ecology across both the rainforests and coral reefs of the country.

“I think that changed me a lot because it was such amazing things that we saw and did and you bring it back, and you find ways to kind of instill it into other classes that you teach,” Harris said. “It brings real life to reality for students, but also for faculty, it makes your discipline come to life because you’re seeing it right in front of you.”

Harris said that teaching COR1100 was impactful to her because it brings students together from all disciplines around campus and shows how interconnected the world is. 

“I love that class because it was a very stark contrast from the linearity of the sciences,” Harris said. “Yes, that’s beautiful, but we still need to show students how our field of interest is related to the world, and it is because a lot of people these days don’t think science is worth anything.”

Harris said what she will miss most about Elon is the teaching and all the faculty she has gotten to know through the years.

“You get to know people, the faculty, just as regular old folks that laugh and make jokes and have good days and bad days, and they’re happy and sad, just like everybody else,” Harris said. “It’s good to get to know a lot of people like that, it’s comforting.”

Going into her retirement, Harris said she is looking forward to enjoying the little things in life, such as watching the birds from the back porch of her house on the farm she lives on.

“It was time for me to go do other things, like work in the garden, and play with cats, and sleep late or read a book, or not have to do homework at night while my husband’s watching the television,” Harris said.

Betty Garrison

Betty Garrison was a business research librarian and assistant librarian at Elon University and retired in December 2024, after being part of its faculty since 2000. While at Elon, Garrison taught library instruction classes and a class at Elon’s New York campus. She also received the Martha and Spencer Love School of Business Dean’s Award for Exemplary Service in 2013.

During her time at Elon she presented a case study on ways Elon students can become permanent residents in Alamance County by using information found from the Elon archive. She co-authored two articles in the Journal of Business and Finance Librarianship. 

The articles focused on how libraries can maintain and increase membership by staying relevant and active in their communities and how the Coronavirus pandemic affects membership to the group Business Librarianship in North Carolina. She also co-authored an article in the journal Reference & User Services Quarterly about the behavior of undergraduate economics students searching for data and whether they approach librarians or library resources for data.

Garrison was a member of Elon’s Student Life Committee, Global Education Advisory Committee and the Staff Profesisonal Development Committee.

Pieter Swanepoel

Accounting is a second career and a passion for Elon accounting professor Pieter Swanepoel.

Swanepoel is originally from South Africa, where he worked as an attorney and investment banker. When his wife got a job offer to work for Labcorp in 1999, he and his family moved to North Carolina.

Before coming to America, Swanepoel said he was already appreciative and interested in the field of accounting. “I would always sit with all these engineers, and I was so impressed with them being able to crunch numbers and use math and accounting to do and explain what they wanted to do that I just realized I need more of this,” Swanepoel said.

After moving to North Carolina, Swanepoel attended Elon to get a master’s in business administration, graduating in 2004. Following graduating, Swanepoel took a job as an adjunct professor at Elon and taught at other local universities, including the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. Across all the schools he has taught at, Swanepoel said he noticed Elon always seems to be in the happiest environment out of all the places he has taught.

“I can really say something about Elon University, we are all blessed to be here, whether you’re a teacher or whether you’re student,” Swanepoel said. “Our students are content. They’re happy, and that makes it a wonderful environment for us to teach.”

Throughout his 20 years at Elon, Swanepoel said he has taught many of the various accounting courses Elon offers, but also enjoyed teaching the first-year foundation course COR1100: The Global Experience.

“You get to meet all of these different students out there that does all sorts of different courses out there, and that just colors in your environment so beautiful,”Swanepoel said.

Swanepoel said what he will miss most about Elon is the happy environment of campus and the resources the school offers.

“The university caters for the needs of each and every student, and how they do that is something beyond me,” Swanepoel said. “I cannot but compliment them for that, because it just makes for an incredible atmosphere to work in.”

After retiring, Swanepoel said he has plans to pick up hobbies he has always wanted to try, including piano and carpentry.

“I have to do it, but on the other hand, it’s almost as if it breaks my heart that I’m leaving Elon,” Swanepoel said.

Joyce Davis

Exercise science professor Joyce Davis gave her official last lecture May 8 to a room full of her students and fellow faculty members after 28 years of working at Elon University.

Davis said that this year the university offered retiring professors the opportunity to hold an official last lecture at a time of their choosing, and invite faculty and students who wish to attend.

After all that she has done at Elon, she said she didn’t realize how meaningful it would be to give a lecture for the last time.

“It was awesome to feel the love and respect and gratitude that I felt in the room,” Davis said.

After her lecture, Davis reflected on how she got to where she is today. Davis first went to college in 1975 at Mississippi University for Women, and has worked in higher education ever since, making her final year at Elon her 50th in higher education.

Davis started teaching at Elon in 1997 and looking back on the first class she ever taught here, Davis said although she felt some trepidation, she mostly felt excitement about starting on a new path.

“Nothing’s more exciting than working with students,” Davis said. “That’s what it’s all about.”

Now, with decades of experience, Davis said she feels like an expert in her field. She said the recognition she received for her career at her last lecture was well deserved — and meant a lot to her.

“The thing I excelled at, which is our highest calling at Elon as a faculty member, is teaching,” Davis said.

In her retirement, Davis is looking forward to gardening, reading for fun, building bird houses and traveling, but she will miss getting the opportunity to work with and learn from her students and her coworkers.

“My overall memory is going to be working with unbelievably talented colleagues and students,” Davis said.

Mary Jo Festle

After 32 years of working at Elon University as a history professor, Mary Jo Festle will retire at the end of this year.

Festle first started working at Elon in 1993 and has served in many different roles, in addition to teaching history, during her time at the university. From 2000 to 2003, Festle worked as the coordinator of the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality studies program. From 2003 to 2008, Festle worked for the honors program as assistant director, stepping up as director in 2004. From 2011 to 2022 she served as associate director of the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning.

During her time at Elon, Festle has seen the university go through many major changes.

There were less than 3,300 students enrolled at Elon during her first year, according to the university Fact Book, and many major landmarks — including the Carol Grotnes Belk Library and the Moseley Student Center — hadn’t been built yet. 

Though the student body and geography of the university have changed greatly, Festle said there are some important fundamentals, such as Elon’s dedication to supporting faculty and students, that have remained the same, and have kept her at Elon for so many years.

“I feel really fortunate,” Festle said. “I love teaching, and this is a place where they want faculty to put teaching number one.” 

As a professor, Festle said that even with 32 years under her belt, she still gets nervous about actually teaching a class.

“Nobody wants to embarrass themselves in front of 33 students,” Festle said. “But over time you learn to take more chances.”

In 2023, Festle was recognized for her skill and dedication to teaching as a Distinguished University Professor at Elon. Festle said it was very meaningful to receive this award, but that she also hopes for the many other amazing professors at Elon to be recognized as well.

“There’s a lot of really gifted and dedicated teachers here,” Festle said. Festle said she will miss talking to and sharing ideas with her colleagues, getting to know her students, and teaching her favorite classes.

In her retirement, Festle is looking forward to sleeping in late, going on the road with her camper van and volunteering in her local community.

“It’s bittersweet,” Festle said. “There are things that are sad about it, but things that are a relief and exciting about it too.”