ALBANY – Caroline Fielding has been named the director of Darton College’s Cordele Center.

She will be responsible for planning, coordinating and monitoring all aspects of the center’s operation, including hiring faculty and staff, scheduling classes and managing the physical plant. She will also recruit students and serve as Darton’s community liaison.

Fielding said that she is excited about this opportunity to work with the business and community leaders to bring additional educational opportunities to the area.

“My goals are to provide a welcoming campus for our students and the same services that they can get on our main campus,” said Fielding.

The Center provides residents of Cordele and the surrounding counties access to Darton College’s degree programs by utilizing traditional classroom courses, video streaming, video conferencing and online degrees.

“At one time we had to limit the degrees we could offer in Cordele,” she said. “Technology has changed that.”

Students who attend other colleges can also take single courses at Darton’s Cordele Center to avoid traveling out of town every day. Darton’s core curriculum is the same as all other institutions in the University System of Georgia, so it is easy to transfer courses within the system.

Fielding hopes to provide additional courses at Crisp County High School, and additional resources to students such as a job board, career exploration tools, regularly scheduled visits by financial aid and admissions counselors and more extracurricular student activities. In addition, she plans to bring leisure classes and customized training for business and industry to the community.

Fielding served 10 years as Darton’s Director of College Relations. While she held this position, the college developed a new visual identity including a new logo and award-winning television advertisements and print ads.

Before coming to Darton, Fielding served in a similar capacity for eight years at Lake-Sumter Community College in Leesburg, Fla., and previously wrote for the Daily Commercial, a New York Times paper. She has taught sociology as an adjunct instructor since 1993.

Additional work experience includes the Internal Revenue Service, Host International, and the hospitality industry in St. Thomas, United States Virgin Islands.

She has a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and a master’s from the University of Central Florida. She is a past-president of the Rotary Club of Dougherty County, serves on the United Way of Southwest Georgia’s Executive Committee, and has served on the Albany Area Chamber of Commerce Legislative Affairs Committee.

Fielding is a native of San Francisco, Calif. She currently resides in Lee County with her son Matt who is a student at Darton College.