Alumna’s Lifelong Love of Teaching and UK
Inspires Commitment to Furthering Education
STORY BY BETH GOINS
F
rom early childhood, there was little doubt
where Dr. Martha McCarthy would go to
college or what field she would pursue. Her
parents had met at the University of Kentucky, and
both were educators – her mother teaching fifthgraders and her father instructing future engineers
at UK.
“I was brought up with an incredible love of
teaching – and UK,” McCarthy said. As a girl,
McCarthy joined Future Teachers of America and
volunteered to read to kindergarten students. Those
experiences cemented her career; she unequivocally
wanted to teach. She completed high school and
enrolled at UK, then the College of Education.
From there, McCarthy’s life could be described
as serendipitous. Immediately after graduation, she
pursued a job at Ashland Elementary in Lexington.
She didn’t realize at the time the school had a large
population of underprivileged students, or what that
would mean to the path her life would take.
Those students sparked an interest in school
equity issues. “I really resonated with being with
the disadvantaged students,” McCarthy said. “I truly
loved what I was doing.”
McCarthy quickly blossomed as an exceptional
educator. Not long after her teaching career began,
McCarthy’s principal nominated her for a national
award for teaching disadvantaged youth – and to her
surprise, she won.
The award opened a series of doors for McCarthy.
Even though she was a young teacher, just three
years into her profession, she was tapped to
supervise teacher interns through the Teacher
Corps program, a partnership between UK and the
University of Louisville, in which people from other
careers were trained to be teachers in the Louisville
Public Schools. While in that role, McCarthy, who
had by then earned a master’s degree in curriculum
design and management from UK, began eyeing a
Ph.D.
She decided on a program in educational
administration at the University of Florida, with
the intention of returning to Kentucky. However,
one of the members of her doctoral committee
(which happened to include two people with close
Kentucky ties) had a keen interest in school law. With
this influence and her background working with
underprivileged students, McCarthy found a focus
for her dissertation: the right to an education under
the United States Constitution.
Thus began a long and notable career in school
law issues. Instead of returning to UK, McCarthy
was approached for a position teaching school law in
the Indiana University School of Education, where
she would remain for more than 30 years and would
see an institute named for her in 2013: the Martha
McCarthy Education Law and Policy Institute. She
authored several books on school law and became a
nationally recognized expert, traveling around the
country to speak about church/state issues, students’
free speech rights, bullying and harassment, teacher
evaluation, special education law, sex discrimination,
punishment, equal access and other legal issues
teachers and school administrators must navigate.
She also has conducted several national studies on
leadership preparation programs and their faculty.
But just as McCarthy thought she was retiring,
serendipity appeared on the scene again, by way of
an invitation to apply for the Presidential Professor
position in Educational Leadership at Loyola
Marymount in California. McCarthy eventually
accepted the position, where she remains with no
immediate plans to retire.
“I really like what I’m doing, and the students
seem to be enjoying my classes,” McCarthy said, “so
I’ll keep on doing it until I feel as though I’m not
offering something to my students.”
Despite her career path taking her elsewhere,
McCarthy’s love of UK has not waned. She has
connected with a group of UK alumni in the Los
Angeles area, where they watch UK football and
basketball games, celebrate the Kentucky Derby, and
often gather for dinner.
And because she is passionate about both the
Big Blue Nation and education, McCarthy chose
to invest in both by giving to the UK College of
Education. McCarthy funds an endowed fellowship
in Educational Leadership Studies, with plans to
include an endowed professorship and research fund
in her estate. McCarthy said she believes no field is
more important than education.
“We need to recruit and support the best and
brightest students in education.”
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