Barbara Bailey Cowden is a native of Harlan, Kentucky, and a Harlan High School Green Dragon and University of Kentucky graduate. Cowden started out as a performance piano major at UK, but a summer job changed her course, and she earned a Bachelor of General Studies degree in 1977. Her first job in journalism was as a staff reporter for her hometown newspaper, The Harlan Daily Enterprise. Under the guidance of then Enterprise editor, Ewell Balltrip, she discovered her passion for journalism. After her first byline in the newspaper, she knew that she had found her desired career path.

William H. Turner, Ph.D., the fifth of 10 children, was born in 1946 in the coal town of Lynch, Kentucky, in Harlan County. His grandfathers, father, four uncles and older brother were coal miners. He earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology from UK and a doctorate in sociology from the University of Notre Dame. In addition, he attended the Foreign Affairs Scholars Program at Howard University and did postdoctoral work at the University of Pennsylvania and Duke University.

Gurney Norman’s relationship with the College of Arts & Sciences spans 66 years, from 1955 when he enrolled at UK as a freshman to fall 2021 as he begins his 42nd year teaching creative writing in the Department of English.