Eagle Scholars professor shares his passion for teaching

Dr. Roger Mackey aims to inspire and impact students as a professor in LU’s two-year Eagle Scholars Program.

Mackey decided to become a teacher because of the significant impact his own teachers had in his life. 

“I had a couple of teachers who saw the gold in me and knew I had a good heart,” Mackey said. “I had teachers who went out of their way to make a difference in my life. I realized that I wanted to do the same thing.”  

To become a teacher, Mackey faithfully followed God’s guidance to Liberty University to earn an undergraduate degree in History Education. 

“I walked on to play football at Liberty, with $699 to my name,” Mackey said. “The coach called me in after the first two weeks of practice before the season started, and I thought, ‘Oh no, I’m going to get cut.’” 

“[The coach] said, ‘We’ve had some extra money that’s become available, and we really feel like God has told us that you need the money.’” 

“And so, that $699 was the last money I paid for my undergraduate degree at Liberty University.” 

After graduating from Liberty University, Mackey obtained his doctorate through a full scholarship and fellowship to the University of Virginia.

Mackey’s career in education took him to inner-city schools in New York and Miami. There, he used his talent for program creation and passion for children from under-represented families to construct programs that would benefit their education. 

Mackey also worked at Grove City College in Pennsylvania for 16 years, instructing future teachers. There, he developed the Oxford-London experience and the Urban Educational Ministries. Urban Educational Ministries helped to equip over 1,000 teachers to work with children from under-represented populations. 

Mackey’s passion for creating these programs lines up with his style of teaching.

“I believe my philosophy of education is to expose people to truth in an interesting, relevant way and then provide authentic experiences,” Mackey said. “[I want] to provide those authentic experiences where people have the opportunity to put truth into practice… And then they can see how God works through their individual strengths.”

This philosophy followed Mackey when he came back to Liberty University to teach in 2012. Mackey said that he returned to LU to give back to the place where God used faithful people to change his life. 

While at LU, he heard about the development of the Eagle Scholars program.

“There was talk about starting something unique,” Mackey said. “I felt like I wanted to use that gift [of program creation at Liberty] to provide authentic experiences for students to practice leadership truth.”

Mackey’s character and teaching style leave large impacts on many of his students.

“He is an amazing professor and an amazing mentor,” Amelia Park, Eagle Scholars Program alumni, said. “He cares about his students in a way that I have almost never seen or experienced before… He is someone who I would like to live a similar life to.”

Mackey teaches in the Eagle Scholars Program and LEAD classes. For more information on these courses, email him at rwmackey@liberty.edu. 

Ashleigh Brown is a Feature Reporter.