Sharon Nickols As FACS dean from 1991 to 2006, Sharon Y. Nickols, the Janette M. Barber Distinguished Professor, ensured that the college was strong in all three of its missions—teaching, research and service. She oversaw a dramatic expansion in scholarships, endowed professorships, other types of external support, and study-abroad programs, which now include the United Kingdom, Costa Rica, Ghana and China. During her tenure the undergraduate enrollment nearly doubled, new faculty members were recruited, and public-service programs were expanded.
Nickols also was active both at the national and international levels of family and consumer sciences. She served as president of the American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences from 2002 to 2003, chaired the Board on Human Sciences of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges from 1992 to 1993, and for many years has been active in the International Federation for Home Economics.
In recent years, Nickols has continually been honored for her achievements. She received the Faculty Service Award from the University of Georgia Alumni Association in 2009; the Distinguished Research Award from the College of Human Ecology at Kansas State University in 2009; and the Nellie Kedzie Jones Lifetime Achievement Award from the Board on Human Sciences in 2010.
It wouldn't have been surprising if after ending her tenure as dean Nickols had rested on her laurels. Instead, she returned to a full-time faculty position, has embraced a new area of research, and every semester teaches a 50-student course on family resource management. "I was eager to return to teaching and research," she says.
Sharon Nickols receives the Nellie Kedzie Jones Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities Board on Human Sciences. The award was presented by Stephen Jorgensen, dean of the College of Human Environmental Sciences at the University of Missouri.
Nickols' eagerness shows in her productivity, with 10 articles published in the past three years, three of which were named "best article" by the Family and Consumer Sciences Research Journal—one on family economics and management, a second on professional issues; and a third on foods and nutrition. These interests reveal but the tip of the iceberg. Nickols also is passionate about international service-learning programs, the use of innovative programs in undergraduate classes, the history of family and consumer sciences, and the body of knowledge of family and consumer sciences.
Her greatest passion is the history of family and consumer sciences. Poring through archives, she is searching for information on some of the founders of the field who are not well known—for example, Benjamin Andrews and C.F. Langworthy, both of whom attended the formative Lake Placid conferences and were instrumental in ensuring that the new field of domestic science was successful. Likewise, she is exploring domestic-science programs that were well under way in the Midwest as much as 20 years before the Lake Placid conferences; and she is ferreting out the details of Mary Creswell's role in the admission of women to the University of Georgia. "I want to go back to our roots," Nickols says, "identify where the gaps in our history are, and fill them in."
In nominating Nickols for the Honor Hall of Recognition, Bill Flatt, who was inducted in 2010, describes her as "highly respected and admired by her peers, associates and administrators for her professionalism, wisdom, tact and sincere concern for her faculty, staff, students and alumni."
Katrina Bowers, the former director of development, says, "I can't think of a more fitting honoree and I'm pleased to see the Alumni Association select her. Dr. Nickols was the perfect person for dean at a time when we might have been vulnerable as a college and as a profession. Under her leadership we grew, flourished and became nationally recognized. We certainly stand on her shoulders in all we do and accomplish today."
Nickols herself expresses mixed feelings about her recognition. "It's humbling to think that what I've done in any way measures up to the accomplishments of those who have already been inducted into the Honor Hall," she says. Ever the team player, she adds: "I am proud of what the college has achieved, because it's a tribute to everyone who worked together toward our collective vision."
