DSCC president to address UTM graduates

Posted: Wednesday, July 30, 2008 9:08 pm

Dr. Karen Bowyer, Dyersburg State Community College president, will deliver the summer commencement address at the University of Tennessee at Mar-tin at 11 a.m. Aug. 9 in the Elam Center on the UT Martin campus. Dr. John Petersen, University of Tennessee president, will attend the ceremony to congratulate the 200 summer graduates. Dr. Thomas Rakes, UT Mar-tin chancellor, will preside over the exercises and confer degrees. Dr. Jerry Gresham, Univer-sity of Tennessee National Alumni Association Alumni Distinguished Service Professor, will be the macebearer. Processional marshals will be Dr. Kathy Evans, faculty senate president; Dr. Elaine Harriss, faculty senate past president; Al Hooten, vice chancellor for finance and administration; and Len Solomons, vice chancellor for university advancement. Immediately following the commencement ceremony, a reception will be hosted in Sky-hawk Fieldhouse. Dr. Bowyer became interim president of Dyersburg State Community College in 1984 and president in 1986. She received a bachelor of arts in mathematics from Knox College, a master of arts in mathematics from Rutgers and a doctorate in mathematics education from the University of Alabama. She serves as a board member of the Southern Association of Community, Junior and Technical Colleges; member of the Executive Council of the Commission on Colleges for the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools; a board member of the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality/Integrity for the U.S. Secretary of Education; and a member of the Northwest Tennessee P-16 Council. Active in community life, she is a member and past president of the Dyer County YMCA board of directors; a member of the Dyer County Historical Society; vice president for education for the Dyersburg/Dyer County Area Chamber of Commerce; Dyer County United Way chair; and a member of the Kiwanis and Giving Friends clubs. She is a graduate of the Dyer County Leadership Program and a former member of the Education Foundation for Dyer County and American Heart Association Board for Dyer County. Published in The Messenger 7.30.08