[3][4] She pursued further studies, mostly during summers and sabbaticals, in Europe[5] and elsewhere in the United States, and earned her master's degree at Columbia University.

There were questions about her qualifications, as she was a recent graduate of the same school; several past teachers and colleagues wrote published letters in defense of Paslay's aptitude and training and added that she sought employment to contribute to the education of her orphaned younger sisters.

[8][9][10] In 1914, after clashes with the school's president, Henry Lewis Whitfield, Paslay was not nominated to continue on the faculty as head of the classics department.

She spoke on the importance of higher education for women, saying: "Overestimating the practical and underestimating the cultural and abstract is simply emphasizing the body and leaving out of consideration the soul; and as true living requires a balanced care of body and soul, so the best education system carefully distributes and emphasizes between the practical and the ideal.

[13] Paslay had a longterm personal relationship with fellow faculty member Pauline Van de Graaf Orr.