A Soldotna High School alum will be the next director of Kenai Peninsula College. The University of Alaska Anchorage announced last week that Karen Davis O’Hara will take the reins of its Soldotna affiliate campus next month. The college has four campuses in Soldotna, Homer, Seward and Anchorage.
O’Hara received her bachelor and doctoral degrees from the University of California, Davis. According to a university press release, she spent 22 years at California State University, Sacramento, where she worked at the College of Education as a professor, department chair and associate dean of instruction and student success.
O’Hara most recently served as executive dean of a Sierra College campus in California’s Nevada County with around 18,000 students across all campuses. In Soldotna, she will take over Kenai Peninsula College from Brian Partridge, who has served as interim director since last summer. Partridge will return to his role as director of the college’s Kachemak Bay Campus in Homer.
The college spent more than a year looking for a new director. The college’s last full-time director, Cheryl Siemers, stepped in as the University of Alaska Anchorage’s interim chancellor last May. She was appointed to that position permanently earlier this year.
O’Hara’s first day will be Aug. 3.
