Conway-Turner Receives Awards from Business First

Buffalo State College President Katherine Conway-Turner was recently honored by Buffalo Business First, a Buffalo-based business journal.

Conway-Turner ranked 10th in Business First’s 2020 Power 150 Women list. She was also declared a “2020 Woman of Influence” by the paper, and will be presented with the paper’s Lifetime Achievement Award during a virtual ceremony on September 15.

During a Business First roundtable on leadership, held in July, Conway-Turner spoke about the power of education and what it takes to be a leader. She also talked about being the first generation in her family to earn a high school diploma and go on to college. 

“Also, being a Black woman, I have been in this space where I’ve been the ‘only’ so many times in my life I’ve just stopped counting,” she said. “[I try to] be a model for our students of color, to realize you can aspire to all kinds of things, even if you have a family where no one has ever done it.”

Conway-Turner was installed as Buffalo State’s ninth president in 2014.