President Stuart Rayfield has appointed Dustin Anderson as Columbus State University’s new provost, executive vice president and chief academic officer. Currently the associate provost for student success & academic programs at Georgia Southern University, Anderson officially begins his CSU tenure today. As a senior university leader and member of the president’s Executive Leadership Team, Anderson will lead the university’s academic enterprise, overseeing a total Academic Affairs budget of $54.7 million and a team of more than 450 faculty and staff. This includes the academic colleges and deans; research, outreach and faculty development centers; and affiliated administrative units. “Dr. Dustin Anderson brings a strong track record of academic leadership and innovation, and a demonstrated commitment to student success, after 15 years as an educator and administrator at Georgia Southern,” Rayfield said. “I am confident he will help us further advance Columbus State’s strong academic reputation as a destination of choice where students can excel in their studies and professional careers.” Anderson will lead academic priorities comprising the university’s five-year strategic plan, adopted in 2024. That plan calls for increasing student retention rates to 85% from fall to fall and undergraduate graduation rates to 60% by 2030. Activities to support those priorities include instituting a new student success infrastructure, an enhanced academic and career coaching standard of care, and more intentional linkages between students’ declared majors and their career pathways. Chief among those linkages is a redesigned first-year student experience launching this fall. This will include a new core curriculum sequence called “The River.” The new course sequence will deepen students’ career competencies by making the community their classroom—where they will learn through collaborative, real-world partnerships and projects with local businesses and organizations. Rayfield explained that these measures promise to bolster the University System of Georgia’s systemwide focus on enhancing student success and engagement while equipping graduates with communication, critical thinking, problem-solving and conflict resolution skills. These skills, she said, are often the ones most cited by employers as being essential to post-graduate employability, workplace mobility, and the state’s greatest workforce demands. Anderson has spent most of his higher education career at Georgia Southern University, where for 15 years he has taught, directed graduate programs and led in the Office of the Provost. Prior to Georgia Southern, Anderson taught at Florida State University where he also held an administrative appointment for first-year writing. At Georgia Southern, he has helped lead diverse efforts involving strategic enrollment, new-student orientation, career-readiness across the curriculum, and reaccreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges. He is a past Faculty Senate president and a University System of Georgia Executive Leadership Institute Scholar. “I am truly excited about the opportunity to join the team at Columbus State University,” Anderson said. “The dedication of the faculty, the direction of the administration and the commitment from the community in Columbus is honestly impressive. I am very much looking forward to contributing to the work toward a common good that is plain to see here at CSU.” Anderson’s teaching and research focuses on memory and neuropathies as they materialize in language. He has published on cultural artefacts ranging from traditional literary works (Beckett, Joyce, and Cormac McCarthy) to more broadly accessible popular artefacts, such as non-linear sandbox-style video games. He holds a bachelor’s in English literature from Carson-Newman College, and both a master’s and doctoral degree in English from Florida State.
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