With a new endowed fellowship, College of Education alumna Susan Azbell Karr ’87 is expanding educational opportunities for COE graduate students who face financial barriers to pursuing advanced degrees.
Karr grew up in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains between Atlanta and Birmingham, Alabama. Although her parents’ formal education ended after fifth grade, they were avid readers who often took their daughter to the library. Despite the family’s limited financial resources, Karr’s parents became her first and most important teachers.
In high school, Karr watched as her classmates prepared for college. It was obvious who had the means and who didn’t,
she says. A school counselor suggested that she pursue cosmetology school instead, noting that it would be more affordable.
I never thought I could go to college,
Karr says. That was something someone else did.
But she would go on to earn an associate, bachelor’s and master’s degrees. In 1985, Karr arrived on the Forty Acres to join COE’s Community College Leadership Program, now known as Higher Education Leadership and Policy. Two years later, she earned her doctorate in higher education administration.
Now 70, Karr is extending her lifelong commitment to the transformative power of education through the Dr. Susan Azbell Karr Endowed Graduate Fellowship. Her planned estate gift will support graduate students with financial need, giving preference to neurodivergent students.
Neurodivergent students can have the hardest time, and I want to support students who think differently,
she says.
For Karr, the fellowship is a way to give future generations of graduate students the same types of opportunities that changed her own life and career. I came to UT as a Ph.D. student and experienced the impact of education,
Karr says. If you change your level of education, you change your foundation and situation.
Karr’s Path to Higher Education
Karr’s family was by her side for some of the most important milestones in her education. Her mother, who had advanced breast cancer, promised her daughter she would be there for Karr’s high school graduation. She kept that promise. Two weeks later, her mother died.
Without the financial resources to attend a four-year university, Karr began looking for other ways to continue her education. She was hired as an administrative assistant to the dean at Gadsden State Community College in northeast Alabama, where she also completed an associate degree in psychology.
After graduating, Karr received a scholarship to attend the University of Maryland, College Park, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology, becoming the first person in her family to graduate from a four-year university. She later completed a master’s degree in human services management from Boston University.
I always had a heart for psychology, for people who struggle with psychological challenges or drug addiction,
Karr says. I could see that it was my path forward.
In 1987, she earned her doctorate in higher education administration. During her time at The University of Texas at Austin, she worked closely with the Community College Leadership Program’s longtime director, John Roueche, and his wife, Suanne, who together created the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development, a professional development resource empowering community college leaders.
With her doctorate in hand, Karr built a career spanning higher education, psychology and administration. She held leadership roles at community colleges across the country, including 16 years as vice president of instruction at Ouachita Technical College in Malvern, Arkansas (now Arkansas State University Three Rivers), and as dean of instruction at Ivy Tech Community College Muncie in Indiana. Most recently, Karr served as president of Lone Star College-Tomball. She and her husband, Joe, have lived in Tomball, Texas for 17 years.
My goal in applying to the Ph.D. program in community college leadership was to attain a college presidency,
Karr says. I hoped that one day I would be in a position to make changes and help people understand the culture of poverty.
Creating Opportunities for Others
Her commitment to education extends well beyond the fellowship. Although Karr is semi-retired, she continues to teach education and educational psychology as an adjunct professor and advises international students online about graduate programs. She also volunteers with the Cypress-Woodlands Junior Forum, which promotes access to quality education for children and young adults, and is a member of the North Harris County chapter of The American Association of University Women.
I’m a full-circle teacher,
she said, just teaching in any way I can.
In 2020, during the pandemic, Karr began learning Spanish in order to better support students in Central and South America. For the next four years, she volunteered with the Guatemalan Angels, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping young women gain the skills needed to secure employment in Guatemala City.
Karr remains a voracious learner herself, taking courses on topics such as artificial intelligence, including a certificate program focused on its applications to higher education. After a lifetime of learning, teaching and helping others, she has no plans to stop. Karr says she hopes she will always be a student—and always be a teacher.
