Agnes Scott College has named Dr. Rachel A. Bowser vice president for academic affairs and dean of the college effective July 1, 2022. Bowser comes to Agnes Scott after a decade at Georgia Gwinnett College, where she is associate provost for strategic initiatives and professor of English. 

“Agnes Scott is a community that has proven its commitment to and success at enabling social mobility, shaping global leadership and elevating the liberal arts,” said Bowser. “To be involved in any one of these initiatives is good fortune. To join a community that succeeds at them all is an opportunity few get and for which I am grateful.”

Beginning as an assistant professor of English at GGC, Dr. Bowser quickly rose the ranks to faculty president in 2015 before becoming assistant dean of the College of Liberal Arts. With a proven track record of supporting faculty and staff in their work with diverse student populations, Dr. Bowser was named associate provost for strategic initiatives in 2018. In her current position, she focuses on closing equity gaps, leading retention initiatives and overseeing curricular and co-curricular interventions centered around students’ sense of belonging and professional purpose. She has coordinated initiatives focused on integrated coursework in learning communities, credit recovery for students set back by pandemic exigencies, effective frameworks for advising and mentoring and career readiness as a curriculum component. In this work, she remains focused on supporting and communicating with faculty about the opportunities and obstacles they encounter as they steward the promise of higher education into students’ lives.

A graduate of Grove City College, Bowser holds a PhD from Emory University and a MA from West Virginia University, both in English. Her scholarship focuses on Victorian fiction, British Modernism and British Romanticism, along with the science fiction subgenre Steampunk. A former Aspen Institute Fellow, she was an American Council on Education Leadership Fellow. She further honed her leadership skills as an Anchor Institution Task Force Leadership Fellow in a program designed to facilitate leadership development in higher education for individuals vested in community engagement.

As chief academic officer at Agnes Scott, Dr. Bowser will be a crucial partner in providing vision, leadership and direction to maintain the quality and vitality of the academic program while serving a growing student population. 

“Agnes Scott College is incredibly fortunate to have someone of Dr. Bowser’s background and academic experience to assume this essential role. With her creativity and innovative thinking, we will continue to build on the college's many successes and guide the college into the future,” said President Leocadia I. Zak. 

Bowser will succeed Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the College and Charles A. Dana Professor of English Christine S. Cozzens, who is retiring at the end of the 2021-22 academic year after 40 years at the college.As chief academic officer at Agnes Scott, Dr. Bowser will be a crucial partner in providing vision, leadership and direction to maintain the quality and vitality of the academic program while serving a growing student population.