Cheryl Davenport Dozier

In May 2011, Dr. Cheryl Davenport Dozier stepped in as Savannah State University’s interim president. Dozier, who was widely known among Georgia’s education leaders for her work on the state’s systemwide diversity initiative, left her post as associate provost and chief diversity officer at the University of Georgia, where she was also a tenured professor in the School of Social Work. Dozier’s rise to Savannah State’s presidential rank shows that the transition from diversity officer to chief executive officer is indeed possible. Dozier earned a bachelor’s degree from Fairleigh-Dickinson University, her master’s in social work from the Atlanta University School of Social Work (now, Clark Atlanta University), and a Ph.D. in social welfare from Hunter College at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.