Diane Awbrey
Coordinator
BridgesICT

Diane Awbrey is a Wichita native. She graduated from Southeast High in 1978 and earned a BS in English from Evangel College, Springfield, MO,  before taking a masters and Ph.D. in English from the University of Missouri-Columbia.  After earning her doctorate she returned to Wichita in the 1990s to teach English at Friends University. During that time, she met and married David Awbrey who was then the editorial page editor of the Wichita Eagle. Diane has also lived in Lawrence, KS; Burlington, VT; Brussels, Belgium; and Springfield, MO. In Springfield, she taught English for her alma mater, now Evangel University, for 17 years before retiring in Wichita in 2020. In addition to academic work, Diane was an editor for the Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City for many years. She also tutors students on occasion, and  sits on the board of The Hillcrest Apartment Building where she lives. Diane is currently involved with BridgesICT, an project aimed at bringing the Bridges Out of Poverty model to Wichita. The Bridges approach trains the under-resourced and the resourced in the community on the barriers that keep people from getting ahead, utilizing existing agencies and resources to surround those in poverty who are in the process of moving toward stability. Working with the community in this way has been a rewarding experience.