Sawyer named interim dean of Arts and Sciences
Posted on: 4/20/2015; Updated on: 4/20/2015Biology professor and senior associate dean for graduate education Roger Sawyer has been named the interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. He succeeds Mary Anne Fitzpatrick, who has been named vice president for system planning for the university’s eight campuses.
“I am honored to be appointed as the interim dean of such a great college,” Sawyer says. “My goal is to work diligently with the faculty, the university administration and the search committee to hire our next leader as soon as possible.”
Sawyer joined the University of South Carolina as an assistant professor in 1975 and has served as the chair of the department of biological sciences and as associate and interim dean of the College of Science and Mathematics. When the College of Arts and Sciences was created in 2005, he became the senior associate dean for the natural sciences.
Sawyer has been honored as a Carolina Distinguished Professor, a Carolina Trustee Professor and was elected as a fellow of the American Associate for the Advancement of Science in 1990.
“The college faculty, staff, students and alumni are delighted that an individual of Professor Sawyer’s accomplishments, knowledge and judgment was willing to accept the challenge of serving as an interim dean,” Fitzpatrick says. “His leadership during this transition will assure that the College of Arts and Sciences will continue on its upward trajectory.”
Sawyer is the author of more than 100 articles and book chapters, and he has edited four books. Three of his articles have appeared in the highly ranked journal Science reporting pioneering discoveries. His research and outreach activities have been supported by the National Sciences Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the departments of defense and education and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute
He is an award-winning teacher, having received the Mortar Board “Excellence in Teaching” Award, and he has mentored more than 30 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows who have gone on to be physicians, professors and corporate executives.
Before coming to the University of South Carolina, Sawyer was a postdoctoral fellow in genetics at the University of California at Davis. He also served as a research anatomist at the primate center in the School of Veterinary Medicine at UC Davis.
“Mary Anne Fitzpatrick was the founding dean of Arts and Sciences and has built an excellent college, establishing new schools and degree programs at the undergraduate and graduate level,” Sawyer says. “The college is in an excellent position to attract a strong leader.”
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