Carole Garrison

Carole Garrison never followed a simple career path. She started as a police officer in Atlanta in the early 1970s but shifted to education. During her career as an educator, she did research that highlighted the roles women play in police work, helped launch The University of Akron's Women's Studies Program, improved services to women in the city - and went off to Cambodia to monitor that country's first democratic election.

After earning a Ph.D. at Ohio State University, Garrison came to Akron in 1981 to teach at the university's Department of Criminal Justice. Her research was practical and usable - she studied drug and alcohol abuse among adolescents, community attitudes toward police women and the employment of female police officers in Ohio. As a result, she was one of only 30 criminal justice professionals asked to serve on the review committee of Ohio's proposed police certification curriculum.

Shortly after Garrison arrived on campus, a small group of women - Garrison among them - started planning a Women's Studies program at the university. The plans took time; the small group not only had to come up with an academically sound proposal but they also needed to build alliances across campus. Garrison became the program's founding director.

While director, Garrison expanded her ties to the community. Often working with friend and colleague Faye Dambrot, Garrison was one of the founders of the Women's History Project of the Akron Area and served on the boards of the Rape Crisis Center, the National Women Studies Association and the U.S. Defense Department's Committee on Women in the Service.

In 1992, Garrison went off to Cambodia to supervise that country's first democratic election in its history. For 13 months, she lived in remote village, set up polling stations and supervised the registration of voters. In 1993, she returned to Akron to teach; but three years later she was back in Cambodia as executive director of the Cooperation Committee for Cambodia, a network of humanitarian and developmental non-government organizations. While in Cambodia, Garrison adopted 6-year-old daughter, Tevi Seng.

Today, Garrison resides in Richmond, Ky., with daughter Tevi. She is chair of the Department of Criminal Justice and Police Studies at Eastern Kentucky University

Photo courtesy of Carole Garrison.

--Zachary Jackson