Graduated from Appalachian State University with a B.S. and M.A. in English and from the University of Kentucky with an Ed.D. in Higher Education. She taught in public high schools at Fort Bragg and Cary, NC, and in Richmond, KY. Her college teaching experiences include Appalachian State, Ohio University, Eastern KY University, and the University of KY. She worked in Special Programs at EKU and in Conferences and Institutes at UK and served as State Director for KY Elderhostel in both offices. From 1983 until 1993, she led the Appalachian College Program at UK (later named the Faculty Scholars Program), awarding fellowships to faculty at small private colleges in central Appalachia. That program grew into the Appalachian College Association, which she led for fifteen years, raising almost $50 million, $25 million of which was for endowment. This book covers her experiences during those years.

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Since leaving the ACA in 2008 as president emerita, she has published, with Elizabeth Hayford, How Boards Lead Small Colleges, Johns Hopkins U. Press, 2019, with funding for the research from the Spencer Foundation; Staying the Course, a book she wrote in 2013 about the thirty-five years Jim Taylor was president of the University of the Cumberlands; Cautionary Tales: Strategy Lessons for Struggling Colleges, Stylus Publishing, 2011; Changing Course: Reinventing Colleges, Avoiding Closure, with Sandra Ballard, Jossey-Bass, 2011. She also prepared a confidential report, Seeking Clarity in the Briar Patch: The Almost Closing of Sweet Briar College, 2015, on a grant from the Spencer Foundation. Since retiring, she has also published eleven articles, most in Inside Higher Education, and The EvoLLLution, and most recently she has produced a blog for American Association of University Professors (AAUP).

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She has served on boards of the Skelly Foundation, the Southern Education Foundation, Colby-Sawyer College, HERS, Association of Collaborative Leadership, the Appalachian Studies Association and five other organizations. She has received six honorary degrees and six other awards, including Distinguished Alumnus of Appalachian State in 2010. As AWB & Associates, she has consulted with various universities and nonprofit organizations on fundraising and avoiding closure, including Lee University and Kansas Independent College Association.

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Her husband, Harry, taught English at Eastern Kentucky University for roughly 40 years; her daughter Jennifer, a nurse, and her family live in Virginia; her son is a professor in Criminal Justice at the University of Texas, Rio Grande Valley. She has three grandkids: Murphy, Hugo and McKenzie—all three of whom are beautiful and brilliant. She looks forward to pointing them in the right direction when they are ready to select colleges to attend.