Current Position and Past Experience
Martha Dunagin Saunders is the President of the University of West Florida, a role she took on in 2016. This followed two years as UWF’s Provost and Executive Vice President.

Saunders has held leadership roles in higher education for 30 years. She returned to UWF, where she began her faculty career, in 2013. Her previous administrative experiences include serving as President of the University of Southern Mississippi and Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin Whitewater. She also has held the position of Vice President for Academic Affairs at Columbus State University and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at The University of West Florida. She is a professor in the Department of Communication Arts.

Education, Honors and Achievements
Saunders earned her Bachelor’s degree in French from the University of Southern Mississippi and her Master’s in Journalism from the University of Georgia. Saunders earned her Doctorate in Communication Theory and Research from Florida State University.

Throughout the years in the education field, Saunders has won many awards. She was recently named as one of the 50 Top Business Women in Mississippi and won the National Stevie Award for Women in Business.

Personal Details and Community Involvement
When Dr. Saunders is not attending to University needs, she and her husband, Joe Bailey, can be found walking, shelling, gardening, kayaking or fishing on her beloved Pensacola Beach.

Connect
You can connect with Martha Saunders on LinkedIn or on her personal website .