McMillin replacing Coward

Dr. Barbara Childers McMillin has become the eighth president of Blue Mountain College. McMillin will succeed Dr. Bettye Rogers Coward, who will retire June 30 after 11 years as BMC president.

McMillin, who grew up in Falkner, is the current associate provost and dean of instruction at Union University in Jackson, Tenn., where she has been a member of the faculty for the past 20 years.

McMillin, 52, is an alumna of Northeast Mississippi Community College, Union University and the University of Mississippi. After earning a bachelor of arts degree in English from Union, McMillin earned both her M.A. and D.A. in English at Ole Miss. As a graduate student, she was a teaching assistant at Ole Miss and an English instructor at BMC in the summers of 1985 and 1987.

McMillin

McMillin was a member of the NEMCC English faculty for five years before joining the Union faculty in the fall of 1992. She was named Union’s Faculty of the Year in 1999.

A lifelong Southern Baptist, McMillin and her husband, Larry, have a son, Sam, who will be an eighth-grader in the fall.

She will become president on Aug. 1. Dr. Janice Nicholson, executive vice president for student affairs and graduate/special programs, will serve as acting president during July.