Carolyn Cottom, Ph.D.

Humanitarian Concerns

Carolyn graduated magna cum laude from Cal Lutheran in 1964 with a B.A. degree in English literature.  After a two year stint with the Peace Corps in Thailand where she taught English as a foreign language, Carolyn enrolled in the graduate program at the George Peabody College of Vanderbilt University and recieved a master's in special education.  She served as a legislation chairperson for the California Association of Private Schools for the Handicapped and as a master teacher for California Youth Homes.

Her interests moved from the classroom to community school education, and Carolyn returned to Vanderbilt to earn her Ph.D. in educational policy.  At the same time, she served as community school coordinator in Nashville and then as community education task force coordinator.  This task force led to the establishment of the Nashville Community Education Alliance of which she later became the first executive director.

Carolyn’s interests broadened from community education to issues of world peace, and she concurrently started the Nashville Peace Alliance and the Nashville Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign.  Her next challenge was to serve as executive director of common cause of Tennessee.  She was then asked to serve as the executive director of Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign, the nation’s largest grassroots disarmament organization.  From there she moved to the position of co-director of the new organization formed by the merger of the Freeze Campaign and the Committee for SANE Nuclear Policy, SANE/Freeze.