EDUCATION

Brevard College dedicates space, honors Barbara Boerner

Staff Writer
Hendersonville Times-News
Dr. B. Barbara Boerner

Recently, dozens of B. Barbara Boerner’s former colleagues and students crowded into a newly renovated space adjacent to the dining room in Myers Hall at Brevard College.

They were gathered to honor. Boerner’s long career as a professor and administrator, and to celebrate her generous gift to the College.

After her retirement in May, Boerner began a discussion with College President the Rev. David C. Joyce about her desire to fund an innovative space for “discourse, challenge, and learning” on campus. Her vision was for a comfortable, flexible, and technically adaptive space where students, teachers, and administrators could gather to ponder weighty issues and knotty problems.

Proximity to the dining room was desired should sustenance be required by either the weight of the issue or the length of the meeting.

The room, now officially known as the Boerner Conference Room, features a smart board and three walls of white board paint which turns the walls into a springboard for creativity and note taking.

The fourth wall features a photo measuring 35x100 inches on stretched canvas by Thomas Kennedy, Brevard College class of 2021. The photo of the Blue Ridge Mountains overlooking Brevard was taken from the Blue Ridge Parkway and just hints, as Boerner pointed out, at the lights of the town below and at the spark of intellectual activity taking place at Brevard College.

Over the course of 21 years, Boerner worked at Brevard College as an associate professor of Business and Organizational Leadership, coordinator of BORG program, and chair, Division of Social Sciences and professor of BORG.

Boerner received her Doctorate in Business Administration from Argosy University, holds master's degrees from American University and Loyola University, and received her B.A. University of North Carolina in Greensboro.

An active and engaged resident of the Brevard since 1995, Boerner was given the 2018 Governor's Volunteer Service Award from the North Carolina Commission on Volunteerism and Community Service.