Kay Huffman Goodwin

Kay Huffman Goodwin was inducted into the College of Applied Human Sciences Hall of Fame in the fall of 2025. She was previously inducted into the College of Education and Human Services Hall of Fame in 2008.

Goodwin earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in speech and drama from West Virginia University and later received seven honorary doctorates. She taught on the faculties of WVU and West Virginia State University.

Appointed in 2001 and reappointed in 2005, Goodwin served as Cabinet Secretary of the West Virginia Department of Education and the Arts. Her statewide service included roles with the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission, Film Commission, Prepaid Tuition Fund Board of Trustees, Professional Staff Development Advisory Council (co-chair), Center for Professional Development Board (co-chair), West Virginia Sesquicentennial of the American Civil War Commission (chair), Council on Civics Literacy (co-chair), and the Educational Broadcasting Authority (Governor’s designee). She also served on the Workforce Planning Council, the Governor’s Honors Schools Advisory Council (lifetime member), the Science and Research Council, and the HB 3009 Workforce Development Initiative Committee.

In higher education governance, Goodwin previously chaired the University System of West Virginia Board of Trustees and later chaired the West Virginia University Board of Governors. She also chaired the West Virginia Commission on the Arts, the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, and the Financial Aid Coordinating Council, and served on university and community boards including WVU, WVU Hospitals, the WV Humanities Council, and West Virginia Wesleyan College. Nationally, she served on the National Endowment for the Arts’ Arts Education Advisory Board and, in 1990, was appointed to the Independent Commission to review NEA grantmaking procedures.

Active in arts and civic organizations, she was a past president of the Junior League of Charleston, the WVU Alumni Association, Keep a Child in School, the Ripley High School Parent Advisory Committee, and the Epworth United Methodist Church Administrative Board. For more than two decades, she directed community and high school musical theatre in Jackson County and staged opera performances in other venues, with recognition from the National Educational Theatre Association and the West Virginia Thespian Conference.

Her honors include Distinguished West Virginian (1992), Daughter of the Year from the West Virginia Society of Washington, D.C. (1999), the National Public Service Award (2004), WVU Outstanding Alumna, the WVU President’s Distinguished Service Award, induction into the Order of Vandalia (2008), and Charleston YWCA Woman of Achievement (2010).