Faculty

Professor Bower joined the W&L faculty in July 2002. She teaches courses in marketing management, integrated marketing communications, and creative strategic planning behavior. She is also a frequent contributor to the Weekend Virginia on WVTF, the regional NPR station.

Professor Bower received her Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina. In 1997, Professor Bower received the University of South Carolina Outstanding Graduate Student Teaching Assistant Award as well as the USC College of Business Administration Outstanding Graduate Student Teaching Award. Prior to coming to W&L, she was an assistant professor at Louisiana State University. In 1999, she received the Tiger Athletic Foundation Undergraduate Teaching Award, and in 2000, she received the Award for Teaching Excellence for Untenured Faculty from the E.J. Ourso College of Business Administration, both at Louisiana State University.

Professor Bower's current research interests include the effects of spokespeople in advertising, consumer perceptions of corporate social responsibility initiatives, consumer use of product instructions, and consumer responses to product return policies. Her work is published in the Journal of Advertising, Psychology and Marketing, and Journal of Health Communication, among others. In 2001, she received the Reviewer of the Year award from, and is currently an associate editor at, the Journal of Advertising.

Her husband, Trey Maxham, teaches marketing at the University of Virginia. Prof. Bower and her husband have a daughter Amelia, born in 2003 and a son Oliver, born in 2006.