Dr. Carol Dickson, faculty member in Environmental Humanities at Sterling College, has been appointed the Dean of Academics effective December 2014. She has been serving as the interim Dean of Academics since August 2014.
“Carol Dickson is extraordinarily well-suited to be Sterling College’s Dean of Academics,” said Sterling College President Matthew Derr. “She is an accomplished scholar and teacher, a supportive colleague, and a visionary administrator. Her work developing the Sterling College curriculum and her history of collaboration both within the college and off-campus makes her the right person for this leadership role.”
Dickson’s tenure at Sterling College began in 2009 as both a faculty member in Environmental Humanities and the Director of Writing Programs. While at Sterling, she helped expand the Writing Across the Curriculum program; chaired Sterling College’s Curriculum Committee; co-organized the college’s Rural Heritage Institute; organized the Cultural Sustainability Symposium in collaboration with the Vermont Folklife Center; and delivered papers to the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment.
“I’m excited to embrace a new role and a new challenge here at Sterling,” Dickson said. I’m deeply committed to Sterling’s vision of environmental stewardship, as well as to our amazingly talented faculty and students.”
She continued, “I’m most excited about working in new ways with the faculty. I look forward to creating opportunities for faculty to share ideas about pedagogy, ways to strengthen our program, and about new directions for our curriculum.”
Before coming to Sterling College, Dickson held positions at The Putney School as the English Department Chair, and at Goddard College as faculty in Literature and Writing, as well as the Writing Center Director. Dickson holds a Ph.D. in American Literature from the University of Wisconsin. She has been published in Such News of the Land: U.S. Women Nature Writers and Sharp Eyes: John Burroughs and American Nature Writing, among other books.She currently serves as a Trustee for the Vermont Folklife Center and on the Board of Directors for the Northeast Heritage Music Camp.
In her spare time, Dickson and her partner, Bruce Howlett, are restoring a former dairy farm in East Montpelier. They will raise grass-fed beef and lamb, and are planning a small dairy operation.
Founded in 1958 in Craftsbury Common, Vermont, Sterling College is a leading voice in higher education for environmental stewardship. The College was among the first colleges in the United States to focus on sustainability through academic majors in Ecology, Environmental Humanities, Sustainable Agriculture & Food Systems, and Outdoor Education. Sterling College is accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges and is one of only seven federally recognized Work Colleges in the nation.