Carnegie Center Announces UK's Lisa Higgins-Hord as New Board Chair
LEXINGTON, Ky. (July 31, 2020) — Lisa Higgins-Hord, assistant vice president for community engagement at the University of Kentucky, has been elected chair of Lexington's Carnegie Center Board of Trustees. Higgins-Hord becomes the first Black woman to lead the board of the 28-year-old literacy and learning center.
Higgins-Hord, who heads UK's Office of Community Engagement, took her first writing class at the Carnegie Center in 1996. She returned in 2013 for more classes, and soon after, joined the center's Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame Committee. In 2015, she was appointed to the 12-member Board of Trustees, and in June, she was elected chair by her fellow board members.
"From the first time I saw the building nestled in Gratz Park, I immediately felt drawn to this literary community brimming with energy," Higgins-Hord said. "Through the years, I’ve enjoyed its diverse and wide-ranging activities that support our children and adults throughout Lexington. It's a wonderful place and staff. I look forward to the chair-ship and all the opportunities to advance the Carnegie Center's vision and goals."
In addition to serving on the staff at UK, Higgins-Hord currently is co-chair of the Equity Fund at the Bluegrass Community Foundation, executive producer of mini-documentaries for the Kentucky Civil Rights Hall of Fame, and a committed member of Breaking the Bronze Ceiling Committee, which is recognizing the 100th anniversary of Women's Suffrage. She holds a master's degree in early childhood education from UK's former College of Human Environmental Sciences (now School of Environmental Sciences in the College of Agriculture, Food and Environment).
Higgins-Hord has an adult daughter and spends most of her weekends writing, discovering something new at the Lexington Farmers Market, and identifying ways to connect with people in a socially distanced environment.
The Carnegie Center was created in 1992 by the Lexington city government to address the city's literacy problems. Ever since, the organization has occupied the historic former Lexington Public Library building in Gratz Park. Its 15 employees carry out the mission of "empowering people to explore and express their voices" through after-school tutoring, writing classes for every age, literary performance and more.
As the state’s flagship, land-grant institution, the University of Kentucky exists to advance the Commonwealth. We do that by preparing the next generation of leaders — placing students at the heart of everything we do — and transforming the lives of Kentuckians through education, research and creative work, service and health care. We pride ourselves on being a catalyst for breakthroughs and a force for healing, a place where ingenuity unfolds. It's all made possible by our people — visionaries, disruptors and pioneers — who make up 200 academic programs, a $476.5 million research and development enterprise and a world-class medical center, all on one campus.
In 2022, UK was ranked by Forbes as one of the “Best Employers for New Grads” and named a “Diversity Champion” by INSIGHT into Diversity, a testament to our commitment to advance Kentucky and create a community of belonging for everyone. While our mission looks different in many ways than it did in 1865, the vision of service to our Commonwealth and the world remains the same. We are the University for Kentucky.