Dyersburg State president presented service award

The Messenger 12.29.10

Dr. Karen A. Bowyer, president of Dyersburg State Community College, recently received a Meritorious Service Award from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) during its annual conference held in Louisville, Ky.
Dr. John Hilpert, chair of the SACSCOC Board of Trustees, presented the award.
Hilpert thanked Dr. Bowyer for “playing a significant role in sustaining the integrity and credibility of the commission’s decision-making process, for her advocacy for community colleges and for her total involvement in all aspects of the commission over the years.”
For SACSCOC, Dr. Bow-yer has served on 26 reaffirmation visits, chaired 21 visits and served on the Board of Trustees, its executive council and its Committee on Compliance and Reports. She has also served as a member of the Appeals Committee and the Chair Corps.
Dr. Bowyer received a bachelor of arts degree in mathematics from Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., a master of arts degree in mathematics from Rutgers in New Jersey and a Ph.D. in mathematics education from the University of Alabama.
In 1986, when Dr. Bowyer was appointed president of Dyersburg State Community College, she became the first woman president of a state institution of higher education in Tennessee.
Prior to Dyersburg, she served in a variety of academic and administrative roles at Shelby State Community College in Memphis, in-cluding instructor, assistant professor, head of the Department of Mathematics and Methodology, dean of instruction and interim president.
Active in other professional and civic work, Dr. Bowyer has served as a board member and officer of organizations such as the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity for the U.S. Secretary of Education, American Asso-ciation of Community Colleges, Southern College of Optometry Board and Tennessee Humanities Council.
Upon receiving the award, Dr. Bowyer said, “Chairing reaffirmation committees for SACSCOC has been a very rewarding professional development experience for me. Serving on the commission for two six-year terms gave me the opportunity to exchange ideas with college leaders from across the southern region.”
The Meritorious Service Awards are presented to those in higher education who have demonstrated extraordinary commitment to and understanding of accreditation processes, who are respected by their peers for their integrity and the meritorious quality of their service and who are recognized as models of competency, creativity and accomplishment. Nominations for the awards were solicited from those active in the accreditation activities of the Commission on Colleges, representing the 800 colleges and universities that are member institutions of the Commission.
Located in Decatur, Ga., the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges is the recognized regional body for the accreditation of degree-granting higher education institutions in the U.S. Southern states of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia and in Latin America and Dubai, Saudi Arabia, that award associate, baccalaureate, master’s or doctoral degrees.

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