Rate My Professor Charlene Wages

Early in her career, Wages specialized in behavioral neuroscience, focusing on neurotoxin-induced lesions of the hippocampus, spatial problem-solving, cognitive maps in rats, cholinergic blockade effects, and problem-solving deficits in septal animals. Her key publications include 'Spatial problem solving by rats: Exploration and cognitive maps' (1982, Learning and Motivation, with Ellen et al.), 'Problem solving in the rat: Piecemeal acquisition of cognitive maps' (1984, Animal Learning and Behavior, with Ellen, Soteres), 'The use of intramaze stimuli in the attenuation of the problem-solving deficit of septal animals' (1984, Physiological Psychology, with Ellen), 'Cholinergic blockade effects on spatial integration vs. cue discrimination performance' (1986, Behavioral Neuroscience, with Ellen, Taylor), 'The role of intramaze stimuli in spatial problem solving' (1986, in Cognitive Processes and Spatial Orientation in Animal and Man), 'Effects of applicant’s adverse medical history on college students’ ratings of job applications' (1990, Journal of Applied Social Psychology, with Manson, Jordan), and 'Gifted residential education: Outcomes are largely positive, but there are some cautions' (1993, Roeper Review, with Dorsel). Wages has received the Hugh K. Leatherman Chair in Public Service (2004), an Honorary Doctorate of Humanities from Francis Marion University (2004), Francis Marion University AAUP-Chapter Shared Governance Award (2001), and Faculty Service Award (2001). She received the FMU African-American Faculty and Staff Coalition Diversity Award in 2023. Extensively involved in governance, she served as Chair of the Faculty (1999-2001), Faculty Coordinator for SACSCOC reaffirmation (2000-2004), and currently acts as SACSOC Accreditation Liaison. Her service includes numerous university committees, such as Promotion and Tenure, Curriculum, and ad hoc governance committees, as well as external roles like NSF ad hoc reviewer and board memberships with the Pee Dee Alzheimer’s Coalition and Mercy Medicine Free Medical Clinic. Wages has delivered public lectures on shared governance and institutional recovery, including at AAUP conferences and South Carolina LIBRIS.