UPIKE hosts inauguration of 21st president

This past month, the University of Pikeville (UPIKE) held the inauguration ceremony for its 21st president, Dr. Burton Webb, at its homecoming celebration, which featured the theme “One UPIKE Family … Striving to Serve.”

Webb was raised by teachers, learning when he was young that education would be important to him for the rest of his life. He and his wife, First Lady Dr. Kay Webb, have instructed as well as mentored countless students during the couples’ higher education career.

After spending many years as an undergraduate teacher at Indiana Wesleyan University and IU medical students, in 2010, Burton Webb began working as the vice president of academic affairs and dean of the faculty of Northwest Nazarene University.

Webb’s installation ceremony speech focused on the role that service and shared purpose has in a student’s successful academic career.

“The first steps, in my view, are internal,” he said. “We must build unified faculty and staff structures that will help to create meaningful and significant improvements in the ways we interact, teach, promote and grow.”

Webb also emphasized the investments he intends to make in the community around UPIKE.

“Over the past 10 years we have invested heavily in our Kentucky College of Osteopathic Medicine and our Kentucky College of Optometry,” he said. “This was the right thing to do and will help the university weather many of the storms to come. Now, it is time to invest in the colleges that have traditionally served primarily undergraduate students. Arts and sciences, business, education and nursing all need investments of both time and treasure.”