Dr. Dana Nichols
Since July 1, Dr. Dana Nichols has been very busy getting to know faculty and staff as Chattanooga State’s new Vice President of Academic Affairs. To facilitate that task, Dr. Nichols instituted an initiative that she calls “Paws on the Pavement,” where she literally walks around campus every other Friday to meet and greet personnel from all departments to help familiarize herself and to let others get to know her in an “informal, low-stress way.” She hopes that, over time, it will help boost communication between and among the various departments on campus.
As a former Assistant Vice President of Academic Affairs at Lanier Technical College in Georgia, Dr. Nichols came to Chattanooga State because of its outstanding reputation for innovation. “In Georgia, I had often seen the College’s initiatives held up as examples of best practices to be followed, so when I saw the position opening, I was excited to think I might get to be a part of leading the institution through the next phase of academic innovation and best practices,” states Dr. Nichols.
Dr. Nichols has been involved in higher education for 18 years with classroom experience teaching English, ESL and Linguistics, Beginning and Intermediate Spanish, and Film; so she already has a good grasp of what it is like to be a college faculty member, which helps her relate to the hundreds of faculty who call her their vice president.
A firm believer in good communication, Dr. Nichols says, “The sheer size of the College and the fact that it has multiple locations make consistent and timely communication challenging. Too often in educational institutions of this size and larger, we fail to contextualize the decisions that we make and it is then impossible to get buy-in. People want and deserve to know the reasons behind the things that we do, the processes that we follow, and the initiatives that we take on.”
As Vice President for Academic Affairs, Dr. Nichols is all about the students. She says that students should consider ChattState because of the breadth of curriculum offered and because faculty and staff are genuinely interested in student success. “My goal is to remove as many barriers as possible so that all people who want an education can get one,” she adds.
Dr. Nichols is a 2006 doctoral graduate of Georgia State University.