Shepherd University Center for Appalachian Studies and Communities Director Sylvia Shurbutt relaxes in her office on Friday afternoon. Tabitha Johnston

SHEPHERDSTOWN — After 37 years of teaching at Shepherd University, Sylvia Bailey Shurbutt has decided it is time to retire from her positions as the Shepherd University Center for Appalachian Studies and Communities director, Appalachian Heritage Writer-in-Residence Project director and professor of English.

“At a certain point, you want to step down. You don’t want to stay in front of a classroom past your prime,” Shurbutt said. “The Appalachian Studies program is now at a point that someone with passion for it can make it grow further, or even in another direction.”

Her retirement will officially take place at the end of this school year, although Shurbutt will still remain busy tying up a number of loose ends after her retirement, such as leading the Summer Teacher Institute 2024, “The Art of Storytelling: Teaching and Telling in the Classroom Across the Curriculum,” in July, helping with various aspects of the Appalachian Heritage Festival in September and organizing the next Celtic Roots Tour in summer 2025.

“Going back all those years ago, when it looked like I was in a dead-end job as an adjunct at Georgia Southern University, Ray, my husband, said to me, ‘Go find your dream job.’ That’s what I tried to do!” Shurbutt said of how she ended up at Shepherd in 1987. “I will honestly say, it has been a great career. It has been a really, really wonderful experience, being here at Shepherd, being able to start the Appalachian Studies program, being able to teach these amazing, terrific, wonderful, bright students — both undergraduate and graduate students.”

Shurbutt herself graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English from West Georgia University, a master’s degree in English from Georgia Southern University and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Georgia. It was during her time at West Georgia University that she met her husband, who was a year ahead of her.

“I finished college in three years, because I wanted to get married!” Shurbutt said with a chuckle, during an interview in her office on Friday afternoon. “While my daughter was little, I worked on my M.A. degree and my Ph.D. I taught in public schools for about five years, also, which I think was something good for me to do as an English teacher.”

When Shurbutt then began teaching on the collegiate level at Georgia Southern University, she thought that with some hard work, she would be able to be promoted to a full-time position like her husband, who was a tenured professor at the school. But prejudices against women in academia seemed to have prevented her career from flourishing there.

“I was someone who had done all the right things — gotten my Ph.D., was publishing and doing everything you have to be a success in this world of academia. But in spite of all of those things, I remained an adjunct professor,” Shurbutt said, mentioning she was likely overlooked, because of her husband being a tenured professor.

Her husband’s encouragement to find a better position, after their daughter Rae’s graduation from high school, led Shurbutt to Shepherd, interviewing for a position teaching grammar and serving as the specialization coordinator for English education students. Her previous experience as a public school teacher was a requirement for course accreditation, which meant she was almost immediately offered the job. And, she found no difficulty accepting it, after finding herself charmed by Shepherdstown and its Appalachian heritage, which made her feel right at home, as an Appalachian herself.

Over the years since she began teaching at Shepherd, Shurbutt and her husband have learned how to make a long-distance relationship succeed, by traveling to visit each other during breaks from school and creating a similar sense of home in Shepherdstown and Scarboro, Ga., by building houses with identical floor layouts in each place. Soon, the two houses will be reduced to one, as Shurbutt plans to sell her home in Shepherdstown and enjoy living full-time in a warmer climate. She said she plans to spend her retirement years traveling, especially so that she can visit her daughter, son-in-law and grandson at their home in New Zealand.

“My last day is May the fourth!” Shurbutt said.

She noted that the success of her program is, in large part, thanks to the support of Shepherd University’s administration and, in particular, its current president, Mary J.C. Hendrix.

“We have, in this program, wonderful support from the administration. Other Appalachian Studies programs in this state and in other states don’t have the luxury of having an administration that understands what the program is about and doesn’t denigrate it, because it’s an Appalachian program,” Shurbutt said. “There’s a lot of stereotyping that goes with Appalachia, and that stereotyping probably casts a shadow over the academic side of things, as well. People are misinformed what Appalachian Studies is.”