s she sat in the audience

at the American Association for Family and Consumer Sciences meeting in Washington, D.C., Connie Rash hoped she would have the opportunity to meet the winner of the National Advising Award.

"She sounded so interesting," Rash recalls. "As the announcer read about the winner, I thought, 'Wow. That sounds like a really neat, dedicated advisor.'"

Dean Sharon Y. Nickols had a different thought. "I thought, 'That sounds like Connie,'" she says.

As AAFCS president, Nickols assumed she would know if Rash, associate director for Student Services, had been nominated for the award, so she, too, was curious to hear the winner's name.

"When they said my name, I completely froze," Rash says. "I thought, 'Did they say my name or am I just wishing that was me they were describing?'"

The several FACS students sitting near Rash knew they had heard her name and began jumping up and down, screaming at Rash to go to the stage and accept her award.

Seated at her desk in her office in the FACS Student Services Office a few weeks later, Rash still gets teary-eyed with appreciation for the secret nomination.

"I've never felt so praised and humbled in all of my life," she says. "It's the highest compliment I've ever attained. I just can't believe they did that for me."

But for the students who know her, it's Rash who does so much for them.

"Connie is always so excited about whatever we decide to do," says Laura Knowles, SAFCS president. "She's also such a genuine person and she lets you know that it's OK to be yourself. She wants people to know that she's interested in them and their lives."

But Rash also wants students to know she's interested in them joining SAFCS.

Since taking over the position as SAFCS advisor, the club has grown from six members to more than 100 and includes both undergraduate and graduate students.

"I do have an advantage when it comes to reaching students because I advise all of the new students in the college," Rash acknowledges a bit sheepishly. "But whatever their major is, students can be a part of SAFCS. I think SAFCS membership helps build students' ownership in the college and when they join our local chapter, they also become part of both the state and national organizations, which offers them a ton of opportunities both while they're in college and after they graduate."

When Rash took over as advisor five years ago, the first goal she and the SAFCS officers agreed on was to build the membership.

"We decided to stand in the hallways and give away bottles of water with stickers on them announcing the club," she says. "I got so excited about this idea that I called The Red and Black newspaper and told them. They wrote a story saying we would be giving free water to all students! We were scared to death we would have thousands of students lining up for free water!"

Instead, they gave out 500 bottles of water and the membership at the next meeting jumped significantly. Since then, membership has continued to climb and the club's programs have expanded.

"One thing I've learned is that our students have a limited amount of time," Rash says. "So, the officers and I meet a couple of times each semester and plan out the meetings. Our meetings aren't about sitting around talking. We're doing."
 

Most meetings focus on community action projects, like the annual book drive.

"Every student brings a book to the book drive and, during the month before this project, we put out boxes and invite others in the college to contribute books, as well," Rash explains. "We sign each book with the college's name and the year and donate them to the Athens Area Boys and Girls Club."

Other projects include providing Halloween goodies for the children who attend the McPhaul Children's Center, operating a booth at South Campus Tailgate, and adopting a child for Christmas.

"For the members, this isn't a very demanding club because we do know how limited their time is," Rash says. "Most of our meetings last only an hour and we provide snacks and door prizes. We also have great publicity for our meetings. I try to recruit a consumer journalism major to handle our publicity and it's always great!"

Rash also has worked to expand SAFCS and connect it more closely to student chapters throughout Georgia and to the national organization.

"A few years ago, Darby Sewell, a UGA graduate who now teaches family and consumer sciences at ABAC (Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Tifton), and I went to the Georgia FACS meeting and told them we wanted to create a statewide student organization and to create E-Hugs, which connects students with professionals using email. They were thrilled with our ideas."

Since then, the four SAFCS chapters in Georgia - at UGA, ABAC, Georgia Southern University in Statesboro and Fort Valley College and State University - have had annual weekend retreats, rotating the meetings to each location.

"Part of our goal in connecting with other student chapters and the state chapter is to get students so hooked into the organization that they become lifelong members of GAFCS and AAFCS," Rash says.

To make that national connection, Rash also has encouraged students to attend the national meetings. Last year, one UGA student attended the national meeting. This year, there were 23 college students from Georgia, 10 of them from UGA.

Kim Bland (Senior, Child and Family Development-Early Childhood Education, Pre-K-Grade 2) was among the UGA students who attended the most recent national meeting and was in the audience when Rash won the national award.

Bland met Rash before she ever arrived at UGA, having served as the state SAFCS chair while she was a student at ABAC.

"When I got to UGA, Connie gave me a lot of good ideas, such as writing letters to all the new FACS students in the state," Bland says. "Her excitement rubbed off on me."

Bland was among the students who contributed to Rash's nomination for the national award.

"I wrote about her excitement for students," Bland recalls. "Connie's been through so much, such as being a two-time breast cancer survivor. She could be bitter, but she's the happiest person ever. Connie makes students feel so important. She could make us feel like a number, but she knows students personally. She knows everybody!"