Dr. Karen A. Longman, program director and professor of doctoral higher education at Azusa (Calif.) Pacific University, will be Bluffton University’s commencement speaker on Sunday, May 3. The ceremony will begin at 2 p.m. in the Sommer Center for Health and Fitness Education.

At Azusa Pacific, Longman directs a program that serves just over 100 doctoral students from around the world. She teaches courses including Higher Education Administration, Introduction to U.S. Higher Education, Policy and Politics, and Higher Education Ethics.

Beyond the university, she is a Senior Fellow of the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities (CCCU), where she worked for 19 years as vice president for professional development and research. In that role, she coordinated creation of the Executive Leadership Development Initiative, which has served nearly 400 participants since 1996.

She has also directed the council’s Women’s Leadership Development Institutes and Women’s Advanced Leadership Institutes. Both Azusa Pacific and Bluffton are CCCU members.

Longman’s research and publications focus on gender issues, leadership development and Christian higher education. She and her colleague, Laurie Schreiner, co-edit Christian Higher Education: An International Journal of Research, Theory, and Practice.
Longman also edited the 2012 publication “Thriving in Leadership: Strategies for Making a Difference in Christian Higher Education,” and co-edited “Women and Leadership in Higher Education,” the first volume in an International Leadership Association book series on women and leadership.

She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan—in its Center for the Study of Higher Education—and master’s degrees from Michigan and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, north of Chicago. Her bachelor’s degree is in psychology from Albion (Mich.) College.