Rate My Professor Charlene Wages

Dr. Charlene Wages serves as Vice President for Administration and Planning, Hugh K. Leatherman Professor of Public Service, and Professor of Psychology at Francis Marion University in Florence, South Carolina. She earned her Ph.D. with distinction in 1987 from Georgia State University, with a dissertation titled 'Neurotoxin-induced Lesions of the Hippocampus: Effect of Preoperative Experience on Map-based Behavior.' Her master's degree, M.A., was awarded by the same institution in 1979 for her thesis 'Incremental Training as a Therapeutic Procedure for Overresponding in Septal Rats,' and she holds a B.S. from the University of Georgia in 1974. Wages began her career at Francis Marion College in 1986 as an Instructor, progressed to Assistant Professor from 1987 to 1991, Associate Professor from 1991 to 1995, and has been Professor of Psychology since 1991. Appointed Vice President for Administration in 2005, she oversees human resources, administrative and academic computing, instructional technology, inventory, payroll, telecommunications, and institutional research. In 2019, her title expanded to Vice President for Administration and Planning.

Early in her career, Wages specialized in behavioral neuroscience, focusing on neurotoxin-induced lesions of the hippocampus, spatial problem-solving, cognitive maps in rats, cholinergic blockade effects, and problem-solving deficits in septal animals. Her key publications include 'Spatial problem solving by rats: Exploration and cognitive maps' (1982, Learning and Motivation, with Ellen et al.), 'Problem solving in the rat: Piecemeal acquisition of cognitive maps' (1984, Animal Learning and Behavior, with Ellen, Soteres), 'The use of intramaze stimuli in the attenuation of the problem-solving deficit of septal animals' (1984, Physiological Psychology, with Ellen), 'Cholinergic blockade effects on spatial integration vs. cue discrimination performance' (1986, Behavioral Neuroscience, with Ellen, Taylor), 'The role of intramaze stimuli in spatial problem solving' (1986, in Cognitive Processes and Spatial Orientation in Animal and Man), 'Effects of applicant’s adverse medical history on college students’ ratings of job applications' (1990, Journal of Applied Social Psychology, with Manson, Jordan), and 'Gifted residential education: Outcomes are largely positive, but there are some cautions' (1993, Roeper Review, with Dorsel). Wages has received the Hugh K. Leatherman Chair in Public Service (2004), an Honorary Doctorate of Humanities from Francis Marion University (2004), Francis Marion University AAUP-Chapter Shared Governance Award (2001), and Faculty Service Award (2001). She received the FMU African-American Faculty and Staff Coalition Diversity Award in 2023. Extensively involved in governance, she served as Chair of the Faculty (1999-2001), Faculty Coordinator for SACSCOC reaffirmation (2000-2004), and currently acts as SACSOC Accreditation Liaison. Her service includes numerous university committees, such as Promotion and Tenure, Curriculum, and ad hoc governance committees, as well as external roles like NSF ad hoc reviewer and board memberships with the Pee Dee Alzheimer’s Coalition and Mercy Medicine Free Medical Clinic. Wages has delivered public lectures on shared governance and institutional recovery, including at AAUP conferences and South Carolina LIBRIS.