{"id":20238,"date":"2025-03-14T07:22:06","date_gmt":"2025-03-14T13:22:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/?p=20238"},"modified":"2025-03-14T07:22:06","modified_gmt":"2025-03-14T13:22:06","slug":"paula-kirby-retires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/2025\/03\/14\/paula-kirby-retires\/","title":{"rendered":"Paula Kirby Retires"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Written by Andrew Reneau\/\/ Photo by Jeff Montgomery<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paula Kirby has retired. Mike Chalenburg, the Vice President of Information Systems & Technology at Harding University, announced Feb. 3 through an email that Kirby had retired from Harding. At Harding, Kirby served as the Director of e-learning and multimedia services. The message, sent to employees of Harding University, briefly described Kirby as demonstrating \u201cexceptional leadership, adaptability and a strong commitment to excellence.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe will miss Paula’s expertise, her spirit, and her unwavering dedication. She has been a valued mentor, colleague and friend to all of us,\u201d Chalenburg wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With Kirby\u2019s retirement, Harding is restructuring her old department and redistributing responsibilities. Naomi Valentine will direct the Center for Learning with Technology and continue Kirby\u2019s work on courseware development. She will also lead the accessibility division and assist faculty in accessing courseware. Allison Case, the new director of eLearning and Multimedia Services, will oversee Canvas, the testing lab, general classroom technology and the Media Center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kirby was seen as a mentor by some of her co-workers during her 24 years working in Harding\u2019s Information Systems and Technology department. Valentine said Kirby was an encouraging presence, and rarely wanted the spotlight, instead choosing to push others forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe knows how to challenge her people, she knows how to push you to greatness,\u201d Valentine said. \u201cShe always saw the best in me, even before I saw it in myself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On top of servant leadership, Kirby was a friend; Case said Kirby helped her family in a time of need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere was a certain thing that my daughter needed for her medical care that I couldn\u2019t afford at the time as often as she needed it,\u201d Case said. \u201cI came to the office one day and the thickener that she needed was sitting on my desk.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Case said Kirby never said it was her, but Case knew anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat boss does that?\u201d Case said. \u201cI never mentioned it, it was kind of in passing, and every month after that there was a box on my desk.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Bison reached out to Kirby, who declined to comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Written by Andrew Reneau\/\/ Photo by Jeff Montgomery Paula Kirby has retired. Mike Chalenburg, the Vice President of Information Systems & Technology at Harding University, announced Feb. 3 through an…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15086,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15086"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20238"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20248,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20238\/revisions\/20248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}