John H. Dozier was announced as Columbia College’s twenty-first president on April 20, 2023.
A native of Columbia, South Carolina, Dozier brings a broad range of experiences as an educator, industry executive and corporate leader, entrepreneur, and administrator to bear in his role as Columbia College’s president. Beginning his career as a corporate consultant and executive, he has served as a higher education senior administrator for the past 21 years. At the City Colleges of Chicago, Dozier held pivotal roles, including Chief Information Officer, Vice President of Academic and Student Affairs, and President of Kennedy-King College. At the University of South Carolina, he served as the first Chief Diversity Officer and Senior Associate Provost, spearheading community engagement and strategic initiatives aimed to enhance belonging and equity across the university.
Dozier joined Columbia College from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he served as Institute Community and Equity Officer since March 2020. He played a crucial role in shaping the Institute’s response to the pandemic and was a thought leader on many of the social challenges confronted by college and university communities across the nation. He led the development and implementation of MIT’s first central strategic plan (focused on belonging, achievement, and composition), the creation and implementation of their first values statement, and he expanded the Institute’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Visiting Scholars Program.
Dozier received the Richard A. Rempel Faculty Award from the University of South Carolina in 2016 and the Distinguished Alumnus Award from South Carolina State University in 2015. He has served on numerous boards and committees, including Historic Columbia (2012-2017), EdVenture Children’s Museum (2013-2019), Central Carolina Community Foundation (2019-2020), Serve and Connect (2019- 2023), Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts (2020-2023), and American Heart Association – Boston Affiliate (2021-2023). He is a current member of the Boston Arts Academy Foundation Board, the MIT Press Management Board, and the Midlands Business Leadership Group.
Dozier holds a Bachelor of Science in Marketing from South Carolina State University and a Master of Business Administration and Doctor of Education degrees from DePaul University (Chicago, IL). He and his wife, Victoria, have been married for 26 years. They owned and operated The Language Buzz, Columbia’s first world-language learning center. Victoria holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of South Carolina and a Master of Business Administration from Belmont University (Nashville, TN). Together, they have three children: Olivia (22), Evans (19), and Sophia (17).
