Lifelong Educator Focused on Helping Every Child Grow
Dr. Betty Duggan is a lifelong educator whose career spans classrooms, universities, museums, and community-based learning programs — all grounded in the belief that education should meet every child where they are and help them grow.
In retirement, Dr. Duggan continues to work directly with students across the region. Since 2018, she has served concurrently as a Reading Interventionist and Specialist in Hamilton County elementary schools, a Reading Teacher with the YMCA AfterSchool program serving North Georgia, and a Substitute Teacher in Catoosa and Hamilton County schools. Her ongoing, hands-on work keeps her closely connected to today’s classrooms, educators, and families.
Earlier in her career, Dr. Duggan taught as a professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss), Wake Forest University, and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. She has also held distinguished research and curatorial positions, including Curator of Ethnology and Ethnography at the New York State Museum and Visiting Research Curator at Harvard University’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.
Dr. Duggan’s academic background reflects a deep understanding of how culture, community, and education intersect. She holds graduate degrees in Anthropology from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and in Museum Studies from Harvard University, and earned a bachelor’s degree in Spanish from Carson-Newman University. The foundation for her long career in education began at Apison Elementary and Ooltewah High School, both Hamilton County public schools, giving her lifelong ties to the community she now seeks to serve.
Across decades of work — from early literacy to higher education, from research to real-world classrooms — Dr. Duggan has remained committed to one core principle: education grows every child when we put students first, connect families, and build strong communities.