Leslie Bickford Selected to Lead Office of Nationally Competitive Awards

Quick Facts

Leslie Bickford will begin this fall working with the current director, Jennifer Disney, and transition to become the sole director in the spring.

Gloria Jones, dean of University College, which houses the Office of Nationally Competitive Awards, said Bickford is recognized for her individual work with students as both a thesis director and as a mentor.

Leslie Bickford

ROCK HILL, S.C. - Leslie Walker Bickford, an assistant professor in the Department of English, will assume new duties as director of the Office of Nationally Competitive Awards.

She will begin this fall working with the current director, Jennifer Disney, and transition to become the sole director in the spring. Disney, an associate professor of political science, will take over the women’s studies program.

Bickford first started teaching at Winthrop in 1998 and left for two years to complete course work for her Ph.D. which she received from the University of South Carolina in 2005. Her primary field of research is 20th- Century American literature. She teaches courses in that area, as well as courses in literary theory and a course on the literary merits of Harry Potter.

Gloria Jones, dean of University College, which houses the Office of Nationally Competitive Awards, said Bickford is recognized for her individual work with students as both a thesis director and as a mentor. “She brings the perfect mix of commitment to student excellence, enthusiasm and writing skills to this position,” said Jones.

In recent years, Winthrop has compiled an impressive record in the number of applicants for nationally competitive awards and the number of recipients of these awards. This past academic year, Winthrop had its first finalist for a Rhodes Scholarship, as well as a winner of a Jack Kent Cooke graduate scholarship, a Phi Kappa Phi scholarship recipient, and 11 scholarship winners for the Gillman Award for Study Abroad.

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