Hathcote demonstrates her fly-tying techniques.

ny mental picture of Dr. Jan Hathcote (BSHE ’74, Home Economics Education) has to include a smile. She’s always smiling. Not in an insincere fashion that gets pasted on each morning, but genuinely.

But Hathcote’s cheery demeanor is just one part of her personality. She’s also an organizational and analytical whiz with a strong grasp of university policies and procedures who strives to maintain a balance between the needs of students and faculty — along with juggling several other priorities — in her role as Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and Research.

“I like having lots of different things to do,” Hathcote says. “I love working with the budget because that takes me back to my days as a buyer when I had to decide how much to invest in different products. Every day brings a new challenge, but I’ve always enjoyed challenges.”

When she landed her position in 1997, Hathcote was surprised.
“I thought it would be a great interview experience,” she recalls. “I had just become an associate professor and I didn’t think there was any way I would get the job this time, but wanted to be prepared for future opportunities.”

But Dean Sharon Y. Nickols saw something in Hathcote that persuaded her she was the right person for the position.

“Jan’s success in this position isn’t limited to just one or two skills,” Nickols says. “The whole of her strengths are greater than the individual aspects. She sees the big picture of our profession while valuing the specializations in it, which is important for a college administrator. As a supervisor, Jan is very nurturing, but she’s also cognizant of policies and procedures. That’s a balance that can be hard to achieve, but Jan does it very successfully.”

Hathcote’s position includes a range of duties. In the area of academic affairs, she oversees curriculum issues for the College, the summer school budget, appointments to the graduate faculty, and serves on the University’s Curriculum Committee. Her research duties include reviewing research grants and working with faculty to identify new funding possibilities for their research, as well as administering the College’s undergraduate research grant program.

But it’s the generic final phrase “And other duties as assigned,” of her job description that frequently keeps Hathcote busiest.

The flexibility of that phrase has led to Hathcote overseeing the offices of Student Services and Computer Services, working closely with Dean Nickols on budget issues, and supervising all of the construction and remodeling efforts that go on in Dawson Hall. There are also the somewhat smaller tasks, such as making sure each classroom has the appropriate number of desks before the semester starts, helping faculty work with sometimes balky overhead projectors or video players, and developing College displays that are easily transportable.

But the endless variety is part of what Hathcote enjoys about her job.

“There are a lot of things about my position that are parallels to when I worked as a buyer,” she says. “The importance of networking, overseeing a large budget, juggling multiple priorities are all things that I learned in my former career.”

That former career was as a jewelry and cosmetic buyer for the Ira A. Watson Co., a small department store chain headquartered in Knoxville, Tennessee, that included 26 stores in nine states. In that position, Hathcote spent more than 50 percent of her time traveling, either to New York, Dallas or Los Angeles to buy products or to 13 stores every six weeks in small towns such as Welch, West Virginia and Glasgow, Kentucky. “These towns were too small to have an airport, so I drove,” Hathcote says. “Some of the towns were too small to have a hotel, or else it was a place like the Beauty Rest which consisted of pink trailers.”

Hathcote might have continued as a buyer had she not decided to take a class at the University of Tennessee in order to maintain her teaching certification.

“The Textiles, Merchandising and Design department head got to know me and told me she needed someone to teach retail math,” Hathcote says. “Later, she told me she needed someone to teach retail management and buying.

“I told her I traveled too much to be able to be in town to teach a course, and I went back to work,” she says. “She started calling me at work, reminding me that if I went to work for her I wouldn’t have to travel so much, which was a nice idea since I had a small child. She also told me I’d be able to take classes.”

Eventually, the department head wore Hathcote down and she quit her job in August 1986.

“I was really naïve,” she says, laughing. “I didn’t realize that what she was really talking about was me attending graduate school.”
Hathcote found that unlike her brief experience as a student teacher she truly enjoyed teaching college students and, with her advisor’s encouragement, began working on her doctorate in textiles, merchandising and design.

Her choice for her dissertation topic shows another aspect of Hathcote’s personality – a desire to show qualitatively what she believes.

“When I was a buyer, there was a big emphasis on buying imports, with the belief that imports were less expensive,” she says. “I disagreed with that idea. When it came time to choose my dissertation topic, I was able to conduct research that showed that – at least at that time – given all of the variables involved in actual price and markdowns and advertising costs, the actual profit was higher when you bought domestically.”

Hathcote could spend every waking moment on College-related work, and frequently she takes work home. But, she also manages to carve out time for herself as well.

Among her hobbies are playing the piano, painting watercolors, working out, fly fishing, and tying her own flies.

Yes, you read that correctly. Among Hathcote’s many talents are tying her own fly-fishing dry flies and nymphs.

“Several years ago we vacationed in Montana,” she says. “We thought we were going to a ranch like in the movie ‘City Slickers,’ but ended up at a place that emphasized fly-fishing. We loved it. And, I was fascinated by the flies.”

“Matching the hatch” is emphasized in fly-fishing. That is, the lures should match the nymphs and larvae hatching at that time. Since Athens had a limited selection of flies, Hathcote took a class and learned to tie her own.

Juggling multiple priorities could be a burden, but Hathcote says she enjoys the variety her job has to offer.

“When you see a new high-tech classroom completed or a student graduate who has struggled to finish, it’s fun,” she says. “I work with good people, so I have lots of resources to draw on. I just focus on bringing all the parts together.”