Deborah Miller-Fox
Dean of the College of Humanities, Education, and Social & Behavioral Science
Professor Deborah Miller-Fox teaches creative writing, composition, cross-cultural American literature, two courses in the First Year Experience sequence and the Senior Seminar course required for all English and writing majors. Since 1997 when she began teaching in the English department, her course load has included a variety of other courses such as argument, literary non-fiction and advanced grammar. For many years, she advised the student staff for AU’s Literary Arts Magazine and directed the English department’s annual creative writing contest. Just recently, she accepted the role of faculty advisor for our chapter of Sigma Tau Delta, the national English honor society.
In addition to her responsibilities in the English department, Professor Miller-Fox serves the institution in a variety of other roles. For several years she chaired AU’s Academic Policies Committee and briefly served on the Faculty Affairs Committee. Miller-Fox worked with faculty from seven different departments to revise the existing Liberal Arts Seminar and design a new course from scratch. Additionally, she was one of the lead writers of a grant proposal that won the university a $1 million Lilly grant in 2013 and led to her becoming director of IDEA-U, a three-part initiative funded by the grant. Miller-Fox is also serving as co-chair of the university’s Strategic Enrollment Plan.
Though her primary calling is classroom instruction, Miller-Fox is an accomplished writer as well. She has contributed essays to several anthologies, and in 2010 she released A Star for Robbins Chapel, a young adult novel about a migrant family living in Lee County, Virginia in 1905. Though fiction and literary non-fiction are her preferred forms of prose, Miller-Fox writes scholarly and professional pieces as well. Since 2011, she has contributed multiple articles to Faculty Focus, an online professional journal on teaching methodology and best practices. Miller-Fox’s current writing project is a novel for adult readers. Tentatively titled Gravity, this work of fiction witnesses the crisis of faith, the consequences of rebellion and the power of redemption when the main character faces profound loss.
Professor Miller-Fox and her family attend Madison Park Church of God, where she serves on the Board of Elders and leads a small group with her husband, Jerry, a member of AU’s Falls School of Business. When she’s not cooking for family or friends, she can usually be found tending the flowerbeds around her home or reading a book on the front porch.