You are in for a treat if you are planning to attend commencement exercises on Friday. Our guest speaker is Dr. Betty Siegel, a long-serving university president who is passionate about education. She's a great storyteller and riveting speaker.
Dr. Betty Siegel, of Kennesaw, is Distinguished Chair of the Siegel Institute for Leadership, Ethics & Character and President Emeritus at Kennesaw State University. Dr. Siegel was the first woman to head an institution in the 35‐unit University System of Georgia and was the longest serving woman president of a public university in the nation. She was President of Kennesaw State from 1981‐2006. Under her administration Kennesaw State grew from 4000 students with 15 baccalaureate‐degree programs to an
18,000 student University with 55 baccalaureate and graduate degree programs. Dr. Siegel is a long‐time member and former chair of the Board of Directors of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU). She serves on the Commission on Women in Higher Education as well as numerous corporate and community Boards. Dr. Betty Siegel and her husband Joel have two sons who
are professors and two grandsons.
Since her retirement from Kennesaw State, Dr. Siegel has implemented many global initiatives that have taken her worldwide to spread the message of leadership, ethics and character. The signature program of Dr. Betty Siegel is The Oxford Conclave on Global Ethics, an initiative in higher education launched in 2005. The Conclave serves as a catalyst for a movement to renew higher education's commitment to the
development of ethical leadership, and to explore its role as a change agent for social responsibility. As a visiting scholar, Dr. Siegel spent three months in 2007 at Stellenbosch University, South Africa, developing new programs for leadership development and expansion.
