Earth Day Event Honors Retiring Professor

Aiken, SC (04/24/2019) — The University of South Carolina Aiken celebrated Earth Day by planting a tree in honor of a retiring English professor.

"I love my rising sun redbud tree," said Vicki Collins, who has taught at USC Aiken for 30 years.

The tree variety was chosen specifically to celebrate Collins' Appalachian heritage. It thrives in that region and particularly in the area where the senior instructor grew up in North Carolina and East Tennessee.

In the course of three decades - both in the classroom and as director of the USC Aiken Writing Room - Collins has made a significant impact on her students.

"USC Aiken Professor Collins has been a steadfast, dedicated pillar of our community," said Meredith Hawcroft, Class of '17.

"Professor Collins is one of the most incredible educators I've ever met, and I'm profoundly grateful for the impact she's had on my own life."

Hawcroft said the special dedication to Collins' work was "compounded" as USC Aiken, a Tree Campus USA as recognized by the Arbor Foundation, celebrated Earth Day and the beloved professor on the same day.

"While Professor Collins' legacy will live on within each of the colleagues and students whom she's impacted during her full career, we are proud to have that legacy tangibly represented by this tree planted alongside her favorite building on campus: the Humanities and Social Sciences Building," the English major said.

Collins earned her Bachelor of Science at East Tennessee State University and her master's at the College of Mount St. Joseph. She received the 2015 University Service Award and the 2016 Excellence in Teaching Award.

Her academic interests include Appalachian literature and the canonical works of Tennessee Williams and Kate Chopin. Both her poetry and prose have appeared in The Southern Poetry Anthology: North Carolina, Kakalak, MoonShine Review, Windhover, and multiple Old Mountain Press anthologies. Her book, The Silent Appalachian: Wordless Mountaineers in Fiction, Film, and Television, was published by McFarland & Company Publishers.

A lifelong writer, she is an active member of the Authors Club of Augusta, the Augusta Poetry Group, the North Carolina Writers Network, the Poetry Society of South Carolina, and the Asheville Writers' Workshop.

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