FROM STAFF REPORTS

University of Montevallo Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Dr. Suzanne Ozment has been elected to the board of directors for Alabama Humanities Foundation.

The AHF is the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. It strives to create and foster opportunities for scholars and the public to interact and explore human values and meanings through the humanities, according to an AHF news release.

“We are honored to have someone of Dr. Ozment’s caliber on our board, and her extensive work in the humanities is a perfect complement to our mission across Alabama,” AHF Executive Director Armand DeKeyser said in the news release.

Ozment has been extensively involved in community service, especially with humanities and arts organizations. She served for eight years on the Board of the South Carolina Humanities Council and served for two years as Board Chair. She has been invited to serve on a half dozen National Endowment for the Humanities panels to review grants for public humanities programs.

She has been actively engaged in Let’s Talk About It, a National Endowment for the Humanities and American Library Association reading and discussion series. In addition to presenting dozens of programs at libraries and civic centers across South Carolina, she was asked to create two theme-based Let’s Talk About It series for South Carolina and was commissioned by the American Library Association to create four national Let’s Talk About It series.

“I have seen firsthand the powerful impact public humanities programs have on people and am honored to contribute to the important work of the Humanities Foundation in bringing such programs to Alabamians,” Ozment said in the news release.

Ozment received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English from East Carolina University and her Ph. D. in 19-century British literature from the University of North Carolina Greensboro.

Her career in higher education began at a Lutheran college, Lenoir Rhyne University in Hickory, North Carolina, where she taught English. From there, she went to The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina. Following 15 years as an English professor, she became Dean of Undergraduate Studies. In 2002, she was named Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at the University of South Carolina Aiken, a position she held until her move to Alabama in 2012.