Carol Swartz, M.S.W., has served as the first Director of UAA’s Kachemak Bay Campus (KBC) in Homer. Since 1986, she has overseen this comprehensive campus of Kenai Peninsula College/UAA, offering successful academic, life-long learning, and training programs. Today, the campus serves over 700 people each semester.

With her energetic, collaborative leadership style and with a dedicated staff, faculty, and community board, Swartz established accessible and diverse cultural and educational opportunities. She recognizes that education is the key to making a transformative difference in our world.

Under her leadership, with the encouragement of many mentors, she has championed expanding adult and youth access to education and has promoted the role of the campus in Homer’s economic development. Her efforts have helped create a better local trained workforce, fostering cross-cultural community discussions and responding to the changing needs of the residents of Homer and the surrounding communities.

With clear vision and determination, Swartz has enthusiastically spearheaded the advocacy, planning, design, and construction of its current facilities. She oversaw grant and budget development and management as well as student and support services. She implemented the establishment of programs including nursing, liberal arts, education, welding, GED/ABE, maritime technology, and business development, which have enriched the economic and cultural life of the community.

Under her leadership, the Kachemak Bay Campus also organized statewide women’s conferences in the 1990s, culminating with “Women 2000: Sailing into the New Millennium”.

Swartz is the founding director of the annual Kachemak Bay Writers’ Conference, a premier nationally recognized event sponsored by Kachemak Bay Campus. It features workshops, readings, and panel presentations in creative fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and the business of writing. Since 2002, the Writers’ Conference has hosted award-winning Alaskan and national novelists, essayists, and poets who have inspired audiences. With its focus on community and craft, this conference strives to celebrate the connection between writers and readers.

Within two months of arriving in Alaska in 1980, Swartz helped organize South Peninsula Women’s Service (now Haven House). She was hired as the first clinical social worker of the Homer Community Mental Health Center, but quickly realized broader community needs. Until then, Homer had only an informal network of safe houses for women seeking safety from domestic violence and sexual assault but had no formal safe home, counseling, or crisis-response system.

For a time, Swartz served both as the community mental health center clinician and as the executive director of the crisis center but then committed herself to the latter full-time. She and others developed the core services that exist today, working with hospitals, schools, law enforcement, and the judiciary. She has been an effective advocate for state services and shelter networks to address domestic violence and sexual assault.

In 1985 Swartz became the Kenai Peninsula’s first Guardian ad Litem through the Office of Public Advocacy, protecting the rights of children during court proceedings. For two years she also traveled across the state working with new rural shelter programs and developed child sexual assault intervention protocols.

Carol grew up in Providence, Rhode Island, and received her Bachelor of Arts from the University of Rhode Island. After graduation from college, her first job was with an adoption/foster care agency. After backpacking for a year around Europe, she packed her bags and drove across the country to Oregon, where she attended Portland State University, graduating in 1977 with a Master of Social Work degree. Swartz then briefly worked for the US Forest Service on trail construction and fire suppression crew, followed by work as a residential treatment center clinician and elementary school counselor.

Carol has been inspired by much of her family’s history that instilled in her a sense of history, integrity, public service, and personal responsibility. They also modeled a strong work ethic and commitment to do the best one can — to be a “change agent.” She values education, art the environment, and diverse cultures.

Her husband, Robert, has served as her primary cheerleader, encouraging her in all her endeavors and mutual adventures. Significant mentors include her parents and brother extraordinary friends, women, students, and writers; especially those who are true survivors of life’s uncertainties and challenges. Jane Goodall inspired her: “What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.” She believes it is, likewise, her responsibility to serve as a mentor to many women and young people.

Swartz is the quintessential community collaborator. There is a quotation taped above her desk that reads, “To love what you do and feel that it matters — how could anything be more fun?” That sums her up. Where there is a need, Carol helps to fill it. She has facilitated the initiation of several local environmental, human service, and cultural organizations.

Swartz serves and is a member of numerous non-profit organizations. She has served on several areas and statewide boards of directors, including Bunnell Street Arts Center (founding), Pratt Museum, KBBI, Homer Council on the Arts, Girl Scout Susitna Council, and the former Alaska Women’s Network. She currently serves as a founding trustee of the philanthropic Homer Foundation and sits on the Bunnell St. Arts Center Advisory Council, Haven House (SPWS) Honorary Council, UAA, and Homer area committees.

She is a 31-year member of the Kachemak Bay Rotary Club and was active in its and Homer’s international service “friendship” trips to Thailand, Japan, and Russia. Her sense of adventure and love of dogs led her to serve as a volunteer with the Iditarod in McGrath and Nome in the mid ‘80’s. For over 15 years, she and her husband cared for their own “family” of sled dogs. Many of her other interests include traveling, beachcombing, reading, gardening, cooking, and advocating for human rights and social justice.

A colleague of hers stated, “The most evident and outstanding aspect of her leadership here is her connection to the community.” She is a leader, a mentor, and a friend. She is a model of the “servant leader” — leading from behind, gently pushing others to succeed.

Carol has been the recipient of several awards and recognitions honoring her contributions and public service, including the 2009 South Peninsula Haven House Woman of Distinction, 2009 Alaska Center for the Book Contributions to Literacy in Alaska Award, 2012 Governor’s Award for Distinguished Service to the Humanities, 2013 University of Alaska Anchorage Meritorious Service Award in recognition of her significant commitment and service to the University and Homer, 2013 Homer Council on the Arts Educator of the Year, and the 2015 Alaska Adult Education Association’s John L. Hulbert Award for outstanding long-term contribution to lifelong learning. She was recently inducted into the 2016 Class of YWCA/BP Women of Achievement.