Awards
- Fulbright Award - 2023
- Turkmenistan
- Fulbright Award - 2005
- Republic of Georgia
Kathy Parkison is a professor emeritus of economics in the School of Business at IU Kokomo. She earned a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Nebraska at Omaha in 1983, a M.B.A. in Marketing from the University of Nebraska at Omaha in 1989, a M.S. in Economics from Purdue University, and a Ph.D. in Economics and in Industrial Organization from Purdue University in 1994. She joined IU Kokomo's faculty in 1993 as an assistant professor of economics and was promoted to associate professor in 1999 with tenure in 2000. From 2001 to 2005, she served as the MBA director at IU Kokomo. During the 2008-2009 academic year, Parkison also served as dean of general education at Kazakhstan Institute for Management, Economics and Strategic Research (KIMEP) in Almaty, Kazakhstan. From 2009 to 2012, she took on the appointment as assistant vice chancellor for academic affairs at IU Kokomo. She was promoted to associate vice chancellor in 2012 and then interim vice chancellor for academic affairs from 2012 to 2015. Following her role as interim vice chancellor, Parkison served as a campus assessment specialist until her retirement from IU Kokomo in 2020. She retired with the title of professor emeritus of economics.
During her time at IU, Parkison was as a Fulbright scholar to the Republic of Georgia in 2005 where she participated in a program to promote understanding between Americans and people from other countries. In 2017, she was appointed by the Governor of Indiana to the Indiana Commission for Higher Education board which she served until 2019. Parkison has also served as an election monitor for the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights where she observed elections in Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Macedonia, Moldova, and Albania.