Karen Kotiw has been named director of global education at Greenville Technical College (GTC), while continuing in her role as assistant professor of sociology. The program she is responsible for was once called International Education but was renamed to reflect the global economy students are preparing to be part of while also recognizing the diversity of GTC’s student body, faculty, and staff.
Kotiw will coordinate study abroad program and cultural trips, plan a Global Education Week and related programming, develop an advisory council on global education, and create a Global Scholars program.
“We have many global perspectives here at Greenville Tech that can be honored and amplified,” said Kotiw. “I look forward to organizing trips and events while highlighting global themes throughout the curriculum.”
Kotiw earned a bachelor’s degree in cultural and interdisciplinary studies from Antioch College in Ohio, where she participated in a study abroad term focused on social and political systems in women’s lives, studying in Holland, Germany, Poland, and England. She later earned a master’s degree in sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. A member of the Greenville Technical College faculty since 2017, she previously served as an adjunct instructor and transfer advisor at Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College and before that, as director of the Upward Bound program at Mars Hill College.