Dr. Vivia Lawton Fowler has been appointed Vice President of Academic Affairs and Dean of Wesleyan College in Macon, Ga., after 21 years at Columbia College. Fowler has served Columbia College in numerous roles, and her current titles include Director of the Center for Engaged Learning; Director of General Education; Co-Executive Director of eChristianEd; and R. Wright Spears Professor of Religion.
 
As co-executive director of eChristianEd, Fowler was instrumental in implementing and marketing the successful Web-based program that provides training for United Methodist teachers and leaders around the country. Since 2005, she has headed the College’s innovative Center for Engaged Learning (CEL), which focuses on helping students to bridge their own learning and living experiences during college to enhance their academic and personal success.
 
In 2003, she received the Outstanding First-Year Advocate Award from the National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience. In 2002, she received the S.C. United Methodist Church’s Francis Asbury Award for Fostering United Methodist Ministries in Higher Education. She was named “Outstanding Faculty Member” in 1996 and Omicron Delta Kappa “Faculty Member of the Year” in 1995. She has also served as president of the South Carolina Academy of Religion.
 
Dr. Fowler is a 1976 graduate of Columbia College, and holds a master’s degree in religion from Lutheran Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. in education from University of South Carolina. A native of Allendale, she is an ordained deacon in full connection in the S.C. Conference of the United Methodist Church. She and her husband Richard have a son, Stephen, and a daughter, Claire.
In making her announcement Fowler noted, “One of the great things about Wesleyan is how much it resembles Columbia College, since it, too, is one of only three remaining United Methodist women’s colleges.”