Coastal Carolina University English professor Sara Sanders has been named the university's Kearns Palmetto Professor. This endowed professorship was established in 1989 to honor Coastal faculty members who have demonstrated outstanding skills as a teacher and scholar, service to their university and profession, and who have enhanced Coastal's national and international reach.

Sanders joined Coastal's English faculty in 1987, and she has been consistently recognized for her innovative approach to teaching. She has written, published and presented extensively in the areas of linguistics and narrative. Sanders has served as director of Coastal's Honors Program and chair of the Department of English, Communication and Journalism. She was a senior Fulbright lecturer at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poland in 1989-1990 and a visiting professor at St. Michael's College in Vermont during the summers from 1995 to 2005. Through grants from the United States Information Agency, she has conducted teacher training seminars in Russia, Italy and Uruguay.

With her husband, Coastal distinguished professor emeritus Stephen J. Nagle, Sanders was awarded a 2003 Governor's Award in the Humanities for "preserving the language and culture of Southern English." Sanders is also the recipient of the 1996 Coastal Carolina University Student Affairs Division Award, the 1997 HTC Distinguished Teacher-Scholar Lecturer Award and the 1996-1998 Fetzer Institute Courage to Teach National Teacher Formation Award.

Sanders earned a bachelor's degree in English from the Baptist College of Charleston (now Charleston Southern University). She earned a master's degree and a doctoral degree in linguistics from the University of South Carolina.

Previous Kearns Palmetto Professors are: Richard Dame, 1991-1996; Richard Collin, 1996-2001; and Paul Gayes, 2001-2007.