Edwins named FMU’s 2024-2025 Distinguished Professor

Dr. Jo Angela Edwins, professor of English, has been named FMU’s J. Lorin Mason Distinguished Professor for the 2024-2025 academic year. The announcement was made during an awards ceremony held at the FMU Performing Arts Center Thursday evening.

The annual award, named in honor of a former chairman of the FMU Board of Trustees, is the highest honor bestowed upon a faculty member at the university. Edwins will also be FMU’s nominee for the South Carolina Governor’s Professor of the Year Award competition.

Edwins joined the faculty of Francis Marion in 2004. She served as Assistant Coordinator of First-Year Composition from 2005 to 2013, was named the Pee Dee Federal Savings Bank Professor of English in 2017, and has been Coordinator of the Creative Writing Program since 2024. She teaches a wide range of courses including first-year composition, literature, reading and writing fiction, poetry, and drama, and American poetry.

She is the 49th recipient of the Distinguished Professor award. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in English and Communications from Augusta University in 1992, a Master of Arts in English from the University of Tennessee in 1995, and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Tennessee in 2001.

The Distinguished Professor award is based upon a faculty member’s contributions to teaching, professional service, and scholarly activities. 

A prolific writer, Edwins has published poems in over 100 journals and anthologies. She is also the author of A Dangerous Heaven, Bitten, and Play. In 2019, she was named a Francis Marion Board of Trustees Research Scholar, and since 2020, she has served as the Poet Laureate of the Pee Dee Region of South Carolina.  

FMU President Fred Carter praised Edwins for the lasting impact she has had on the university.

“Jo Angela is an extraordinary writer and poet whose work has influenced thousands of students over the years,” said Carter. “She is a splendid choice for this highly prestigious award. We are all proud of her success and delighted with her accomplishments.”