Honor Hall Recipients

The Honor Hall of Recognition is the colleges' highest honor, reserved for individuals who demonstrate impeccable character, commitment, outstanding leadership and significant achievements and contributions in the fields within family and consumer sciences.

Individuals nominated to be inducted in the Honor Hall of Recognition will be selected from living or deceased alumni, or living or deceased University System employees who served as a professional leader in Family and Consumer Sciences with distinction. Honorees are selected by the dean upon recommendation of alumni and development staff and representatives of the FACS Alumni Board.

Meet this year's recipient

Richard Lewis

Lewis, the UGA Foundation Professor Emeritus in Family and Consumer Sciences, established the University of Georgia as a leader in the study of childhood nutrition and growth while directing the Bone and Body Composition Lab for over 30 years.

During this time, he gained national and international prominence for his scientific contributions that advanced the fields of nutrition, childhood health and osteoporosis prevention.

He was principal investigator or co-principal investigator on grants totaling approximately $8 million across a diverse funding portfolio, including the USDA, National Institutes of Health, private foundations and philanthropic ventures.

View Dr. Lewis' tribute video HERE.

Previous Recipients

Aleen Cross - 2024
Aleen Cross - 2024

Aleene Cross

Served as president of the American Vocational Association and the Georgia Vocational Association

First editor of the Journal of Home Economics

Established governing bodies of three professional groups: the American Vocational Association (now the Association for Career and Technical Education), the Home Economics Educators’ Association and AHEA

Recipient of the Distinguished Service Award from the American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences

Her textbook, “Student Evaluation in Home Economics,” became the standard bearer for many home economics teachers across the country

Known for her scholarship, passion for home economics, high spirits and thoughtful care of her students, Cross shaped her profession and touched the lives of thousands of students and educators

Linda Fox - 2023

Linda Fox - 2023

It was a hot, muggy afternoon at Sanford Stadium.

Lance Palmer, draped in a black graduation robe on the field alongside fellow faculty members, was having trouble staying engaged as the event wore on.

“I admit I was dozing off ever so slightly,” he recalled, smiling sheepishly at the now decade-old memory.

About that time, his new dean, Linda Kirk Fox, barely a year into her tenure, approached the podium to address graduates from the College of Family and Consumer Sciences.

“She started talking about very specific programming at FACS, and she mentioned the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program I’m a part of,” Palmer said. “Sometimes that first year you don’t really see the dean that much, but I realized then Dean Fox knows what we do and she cares about what we do, and it was really exciting. That woke me up fast.”

During her 10-year career as FACS dean, Fox developed a reputation as a meticulous, forward-thinking leader. Under her leadership, enrollment in the college increased by 20 percent, funded research doubled and the number of endowed professors grew from five to 15.

The college was “transformed by Dean Fox’s extraordinary vision and compassionate leadership,” UGA President Jere Morehead said upon her retirement in August 2021.

Team-first approach

Fox, who spent her entire 40-year-career in higher education at land-grant universities, said she was drawn to the system’s “future-focused” mission and emphasis on teamwork.

“I really enjoyed witnessing other people think bigger systems – it’s not all about me, it’s what can we all achieve together,” Fox said. “I see that as a system and a culture that not only do I appreciate, but I find it most successful.”

Fox’s reputation as a national leader was widely known even before she arrived in Athens, and her impact on the college immediate.

“She definitely had a presence and a national reputation,” said Allisen Penn, the college’s associate dean for Extension and outreach. “You know how some people when they walk in a room they just have that sense of self and that sense of comfort in who they are? She always seemed to have that ability and always came across as being highly intelligent, articulate and well-informed.”

Creative thinking

Prior to being named dean at UGA, Fox held faculty and administrative positions at the University of Idaho and Washington State University, where she served as dean and director of WSU Extension from 2005-2011.

Throughout her time at FACS, she helped facilitate millions of dollars of facility upgrades, including the complete renovation of a 1930s home management house into the world-class Charles Schwab Financial Planning Center in 2019.

Palmer, a longtime member of the financial planning faculty, noted during those negotiations and others Fox was always “ready to make a deal” for the betterment of the college.

“She was willing to break down some barriers for us and to champion us at the higher levels on campus but also support us as we go out to other places,” he said. “She really led the college to a whole new level to where it was deeply respected across campus – and still is – but a lot of that is because of her leadership.”

A natural leader

Throughout her career, Fox served in various leadership roles at both the university and national levels, including co-chairing the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program task force and serving two terms on the board of directors of The Association of Public Land-grant Universities Board on Health and Human Sciences.

In 2020, she led the college through the turbulent early days of the pandemic, when classes abruptly moved to remote learning and a flurry of new challenges seemed to crop up daily.

Her calm in the midst of the storm helped reassure many, Penn said.

“She never met a crisis,” Penn said. “She’s just the most composed person I’ve ever known, and that really radiated throughout her leadership. She really cared a lot about people and she cared a lot about this college. That kind of leadership has a lot of depth to it.”

Active retirement

Since returning to Oregon, Fox has stayed busy in retirement. She is employed part-time as a project team coach for the national Extension Collaborative on Immunization Teaching and Engagement (EXCITE) and conducts video interviews of residents for the in-house television channel of the 500-resident retirement community where she lives.

“I learn something new every day,” she said.

She’s also interested in philanthropy, having established the Dean Linda Kirk Fox Graduate Fellowship and the Dean Linda Kirk Fox Scholarship for Academic Excellence within FACS, owing to the special role the college and university played in her life.

“The decade I spent at the University of Georgia was magic,” Fox said. “So I think it’s so logical that you want to invest in a place that’s enduring. I gained so much from the University of Georgia that was also personally life-enriching that I feel I owe a debt of gratitude.”

Professor and Dean Emerita

Education

Ph.D., Family Finance, Oregon State University

Career Highlights

Recipient of the 2021 Lifetime Achievement Award by The Association of Public and Land-grant Universities Board on Health and Sciences

Delivered the Distinguished Speaker address at the University of Idaho Margaret Ritchie School of Family and Consumer Sciences in 2020

Named a FACS 100 Centennial Honoree as part of the college’s centennial celebration in 2018

Scholarship Fund

The Dean Linda Kirk Fox Scholarship for Academic Excellence was established to support FACS students who have a minimum 3.5 grade point average. To donate to the fund, visit https://gail.uga.edu/commit?des=75202003

Lynn Bailey - 2023

Lynn Bailey - 2023

You won’t interact with Lynn Bailey long before hearing about folate. As a young researcher, Bailey became so engrossed in her research into the essential B vitamin, required for normal growth and development, that it would become a part of her identity.

Folate was in her email address and eventually even on her license plate.

“It leads to some very insightful conversations in parking lots,” she said, laughing.

Bailey was already publishing widely on the subject when the monumental discovery in the early 1990s linking folic acid supplementation to the prevention of debilitating neural tube defects like spina bifida rocked the scientific community.

“That changed everything globally,” Bailey said. “We all just stopped in our tracks.”

Soon, Bailey became a prominent collaborator on national and international projects related to addressing maternal folate deficiency, a major cause of NTDs.

She was part of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration committee that recommended folic acid fortification to the U.S. government in the mid-1990s. Once it became law, the number of NTDs began to plummet nationwide.

The experience of working with expectant mothers, research collaborators and government agencies to help prevent birth defects was exhilarating and personally gratifying, she said.

“I was so motivated and so in awe of the fact that I was participating in this national endeavor,” she said. “It was life changing.”

After 33 years as a faculty member and prominent researcher at the University of Florida, Bailey was named department head in what was then the department of foods and nutrition in the College of Family and Consumer Sciences in 2011. Her hiring would dramatically transform the department and the college.

“As a doctoral student coming into the department at the time, you hear that name in lectures as an undergraduate and knowing you’re going to be interacting and rubbing elbows with Lynn Bailey, it changes your frame of mind,” said Joseph Kindler, now an assistant professor in the department. “It lights a fire under you because you know that’s who you’re aspiring to be.”

Life on the farm

Bailey’s passion for nutrition began early in life. She grew up on a farm in tiny Wagener, S.C., where the family grew most of their food.

“I loved the idea of learning which foods were the best sources of specific nutrients and how this knowledge provided the basis of designing diets that promoted optimal health from the cradle to the grave,” she said.

The county Extension agent who directed the local 4-H program took a special interest in Bailey and would become a transformative figure in her life. The agent helped Bailey with special food-related projects, including one that won a state competition and earned Bailey a flight to Chicago for the national 4-H Congress.

Inspired by her early forays into nutrition education, Bailey went on to receive three degrees in the field.

“It wouldn’t have happened without her,” Bailey said of the agent. “She changed my whole life.”

Career change

Bailey was drawn to UGA for a few reasons. Besides putting her closer to her roots in South Carolina, the move also gave her the opportunity to lead and mentor a diverse faculty while continuing her research program.

Barbara Grossman, clinical professor emerita who arrived at the college in 1981, still recalls Bailey’s initial presentation during her job interview.

“After sitting there for about 20 minutes, I thought ‘I’ve been in this college for decades and she seems to know more about it than I do,’ ” she said, laughing. “That was a very positive impression and I would say one of her main characteristics was how professional but also how thorough she is.”

Under Bailey’s leadership, and with the support of then-dean Linda Kirk Fox, the department grew from 14 faculty members to 28 during Bailey’s 11-year tenure and saw significant facilities upgrades, improved collaborations with other institutions and the addition of an online degree program.

Faculty members used words like poised, nurturing, selfless and visionary to describe Bailey’s leadership style. Most noted, though, was the encouragement she provided faculty.

“Despite her being this rock star, that was never something that went to her head,” Kindler said. “She was always there to support her students, her faculty and get them to where they needed and wanted to go.”

Most importantly, Bailey said she was motivated by the desire to mentor students and faculty, particularly young faculty just starting out in their careers.

She made a point to meet with each of them every month to encourage and guide them, having experienced similar mentorship as a young faculty member herself.

“I feel that was more valuable than anything I’ve ever done in my professional career, just watching them succeed,” she said.

It’s that personal touch, even more than her astounding scientific contributions, that faculty say will be one of her greatest legacies.

“She was very visionary, but she also led with understanding,” said associate professor Caree Cotwright. “I think that’s very important. As a leader, you have to be able to connect with people emotionally as well as inspire and motivate people to reach their goals. She was just wonderful at that and an exemplary leader.”

Professor and Department Head Emerita, Nutritional Sciences

Education

Ph.D., Nutrition, Purdue University

Career Highlights

Nutrition International Co-Leader of-Global Project to Evaluate Folate Status in Women of Reproductive Age to Prevent Neural Tube Defects with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Recipient of Flatt Foods and Nutrition Professorship, 2018

Named Fellow of the American Society for Nutrition, 2014

Karen Tinsley - 2022

Karen Tinsley - 2022

On her way to one of a dozen little Georgia towns, Karen Tinsley would inevitably pull out a little Tupperware container of oatmeal.

Too busy to eat breakfast at a table, she’d navigate her manual transmission car along two-lane country roads en route to meetings in places like Cedartown and Greensboro and Baxley and East Point.

The people inhabiting these little towns likely had no idea, but Tinsley was one of their biggest advocates.

As director of both the Georgia Initiative for Community Housing and the UGA Housing and Demographics Research Center, Tinsley’s passion was improving the quality of life of folks throughout the state by providing locally-driven affordable housing and community revitalization strategies.

In the program’s first 13 years under Tinsley’s leadership, GICH facilitated progress toward housing stability in 65 communities across Georgia and had an economic impact in the millions. For Tinsley, a Senior Public Service Associate at UGA, it was more than just a job – it was her life’s mission.

“I learned from her that a key component of community development lies in loving on and being intentional with the neighborhood and people around you,” said Morgan Wolf, one of Tinsley’s former students who now works as the GICH program assistant. “She modeled this wonderfully in her own life.”

Tinsley moved to Georgia from her native upstate New York for graduate school. A few months after leaving, at the onset of another mild Georgia winter, she called her mother back in Syracuse.

“She said, ‘Mom, I’m never coming back. I love it here,’ ” Tinsley’s mother, Judy McPeak said, laughing. “She had found her home in Athens.”

After completing both a master’s and doctorate in economics from the Terry College of Business, Tinsley joined FACS in 2000 as a research coordinator.

She quickly impressed her colleagues with her sharp mind and ability to effectively oversee multiple projects. Whether training for a triathlon, conducting an economic analysis or preparing for a meeting, Tinsley pursued it full speed, said Tom Rodgers, retired UGA Associate Vice President for Public Service.

“Anything she went after she gave it everything she possibly could and worked as hard as it took to be successful,” Rodgers said.

“The secret is she consistently worked and was always prepared and she always followed through on all her promises,” said Anne Sweaney, the Josiah Meigs Distinguished Professor Emerita. “Her leadership around housing issues has made a lasting impact on so many communities in the state of Georgia, one community at a time.”

Tinsley’s colleagues noted Tinsley was unique not just because of her intellect and commitment, however. Her compassion for the people she served is her lasting legacy.

“In poring over her notes and files, you can tell it wasn’t a job for her – it was a deep love,” Wolf said. “She was highly revered by so many people and she leveraged those connections to not simply come in from above, but to come alongside and really empower communities.”

Since Tinsley’s death in April 2018, McPeak has heard from so many of her colleagues and friends about her daughter’s compassion. She’s not surprised.

“She was just a very caring, devoted woman,” she said. “If she decided she wanted to help someone, she would do all kinds of leg work, research or whatever to help that person or that community.”

You won’t find Tinsley’s picture anywhere in the GICH annual reports printed during her tenure. She preferred to work in the shadows, deflecting the praise to others.

One colleague called Tinsley a “quiet rock star” for her unassuming ways.

“As a department head, I always knew Karen would just ‘take care of it,’ ” said Sheri Worthy, interim dean of the College of Family and Consumer Sciences. “She was an influential leader, but she was more likely to highlight and give credit to the GICH program and the participating communities than to take any credit for herself or be in the spotlight.”

McPeak, now retired and living near Boston, still travels occasionally to Athens since Tinsley’s death.

“I feel close to Karen when I’m there,” she said.

She can laugh now as she remembers her competitive daughter taking a job at a call center in high school so she could have her own checking account, or the times she got in trouble in elementary school for being so chatty.

“She was always a social person,” she said.

And she draws strength from hearing stories about her daughter from the many colleagues and friends she left behind in Athens, who carry her loss close to their hearts but who smile at the impact she had on so many.

“Karen’s death has left a huge hole,” Worthy said, “but the knowledge that her life and work impacted so many in life-changing ways gives me comfort.”

B.A., Economics, Syracuse University, 1994

M.A., Ph.D., Economics, Terry College of Business

Career

Tinsley began at FACS in 2002 as a research coordinator in the department of financial planning, housing and consumer economics. A Senior Public Service Associate at the time of her death in April 2018, Tinsley also served as director of the Georgia Initiative for Community Housing and the UGA Housing and Demographic Research Center, working to improve housing conditions for Georgia residents.

Accolades

Dr. Chris Todd Outstanding Research Award, College of Family and Consumer Sciences, 2016

Housing Impact Award, Housing Education and Research Association, 2017

Graduate of UGA’s Vivian H. Fisher Public Service and Outreach Leadership Academy

Scholarship Fund

The Karen Tinsley Scholarship Fund was established for students who want to study affordable housing and community development. To donate to the fund, visit https://gail.uga.edu/commit?des=75598003

Louise Hill - 2020
Louise Hill - 2020

She’s heard the phrase most of her adult life.

Everybody from the lady working the cash register at a gas station in Metter to a middle-aged man leaving a football game at Sanford Stadium has stopped her with this simple inquiry.

“Are you Louise Hill?” they ask.

Her friends call it The Louise Factor.

As in, if you’re trying to get to a ballgame on time and Louise is in your party, plan on making plenty of extra stops along the way.

“She has more friends than anybody I’ve ever known,” said Laura Meadows, one of Hill’s many friends and longtime colleagues who serves as director of the UGA Carl Vinson Institute of Government.

Hill laughs off the fame.

“I’ve just been around a long time,” she will say, waving her hand and pointing out much of her career was spent in high visibility roles that took her all over the state conducting leadership training's.

The truth is much deeper, though. Hill is remembered across the state – beloved, even – because she spent her 40-year career investing in communities and people, listening to their problems, guiding and encouraging and gently offering solutions.

“She has always been very selfless,” Meadows said, “and she’s always been about other people. She just has that natural instinct to bring out the best in people.”

“I guess if there’s a gift in it, something about me made me approachable,” Hill reluctantly acknowledged. “I’ve had that all my life, going back to my days as a (4-H) camp counselor.”

The impact of the 4-H program on Hill’s life can’t be overstated. It was there she learned that a good leader is one who builds relationships. Many of her friendships can be traced back to summer camps spent at Rock Eagle in the 1970s.

“It was really formative for me and framed a lot of my early life choices,” Hill said. “I can’t imagine what my life would look like without 4-H.”

Fellow 4-Her Arch Smith said there was something unique about Hill even as a teen.

“She made great decisions and had sound judgment,” said Smith, who now serves as the state 4-H leader and director. “I think that 4-H experience was just the foundational experience that allowed her to become the expert on leadership that she became.”

After receiving a degree from what was then the UGA College of Home Economics in 1979, Hill began her career at the Georgia Farm Bureau Federation in Macon, developing leadership programs for the organization’s volunteer leaders and helping launch the Georgia Agriculture in the Classroom program and the Georgia Agri-leaders Institute.

“My mindset early on was creating environments where learning could take place,” Hill said. “It’s not about what I did or said, it was about creating those environments for learning and growing.”

Hill returned to Athens in 1996 to serve as director of development and alumni relations for the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

Even during the interview, she quickly established herself as a trailblazer in a male-dominated environment by laying out a bold vision for the college’s fundraising strategy.

“I told them ‘If you’re not willing to do some of what we’ve talked about, don’t hire me. I’ll just drive you crazy and we’ll lose our friendships,’ ” Hill said, before smiling. “I guess I did OK though. They hired me.”

A friendship with J.W. Fanning, who served as UGA’s first vice president for services, helped lead to Hill’s next and final stop as a member of the faculty of the UGA Fanning Institute for Leadership Development in 2003. There, she helped establish leadership programs that impacted nearly all of Georgia’s 159 counties.

“Louise’s legacy is vast,” said longtime friend Katrina Bowers, senior director of development for the UGA Terry College of Business. “By investing in individuals and empowering them to step up wherever they are planted, communities are being changed, and you can trace a lot of positive community change back to a pupil in Louise Hill’s classroom.”

It’s a legacy partly defined by a terrifying moment in 2011 when Hill woke up one morning and could not move her legs.

A diagnosis of idiopathic transverse myelitis, a rare and mysterious swelling near the spine, resulted in paralysis and months of intensive therapy at the Shepherd Center in Atlanta.

It put her in a wheelchair, but it did not crush her spirit.

“She just rose to the occasion,” Meadows said. “Even for people who have known her, the amount of perseverance she has shown has just been remarkable.”

Since her retirement in October 2019, Hill hasn’t slowed down. She’s involved with fundraising for Leadership Georgia’s 2020 Athens program and is eager to get more invested in the local community. She is particularly interested in finding additional ways to advocate for people with disabilities.

“Even now as I think about my next phase of life, I’m almost overwhelmed because I see too many opportunities and I know I’ve got to select some,” she said, laughing.

Her spirit, her legacy, is best captured in a quote attributed to Michelangelo that is etched in paint above her fireplace: “I am still learning.”

“That’s just Louise’s mantra,” Bowers said. “She is always learning and finding a way to teach, and I think Louise will learn until the day she dies.”

BSHE, 1979

MED, 1986

Career

1979-1996 – Georgia Farm Bureau Federation, leadership program developer

1996-2003 – UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, director of development and alumni relations

2003-19 – UGA Fanning Institute for Leadership Development, public service faculty

Accolades

Walter B. Hill Award for Distinguished Achievement in Public Service and Outreach, UGA Public Service and Outreach, 2011

Lead faculty for Vivian H. Fisher Public Service and Outreach Leadership Academy

FACS Distinguished Alumni Award, 2004

FACS Pacesetter Award, 1989

FACS Alumni Association board president

Louise Hill Community Leadership Development Fund

Upon Hill's retirement in 2019, the Fanning Institute established the Louise Hill Community Leadership Development Fund. Through this fund, the Fanning Institute will work with communities that are underserved in leadership development because of a lack of resources to create, restart and/or revamp adult and youth community leadership development programs.

To donate to the fund, visit www.fanning.uga.edu/give

Carolyn Berdanier - 2019

Carolyn Berdanier - 2019

There were only 12 kids in the little country school in rural New Jersey.

Most figured to grow up to work the dairy and potato and cattle farms that dotted the local landscape in this post-World War II America. Higher education was deemed out of reach, if anybody thought of it at all.

It was against this stark backdrop that eighth grader Carolyn Berdanier proudly informed her teacher she was going to be a professor.

“She laughed at me,” Berdanier recalled. “I don’t think anybody had ever aspired to be a college professor.”

More than six decades later, Berdanier tells that story with a sense of fulfillment, having enjoyed a career in science that saw her achieve international recognition for her discoveries and contributions to the field.

Berdanier has authored over 125 scientific publications, written 19 books and achieved worldwide acclaim for her development of an animal model for the study of Type 2 diabetes.

Berdanier’s emergence as a scientist came at a time when women were not widely accepted – or even present – in academic roles, especially in Berdanier’s chosen field of biochemistry.

The women who studied under Berdanier during her highly decorated tenure as faculty member and head of the FACS department of foods and nutrition took special note of her accomplishments.

To them, she was an inspiration.

“I think what made Dr. Berdanier unique was she was a very strong woman,” said Judy Harrison, a graduate student during Berdanier’s tenure who later joined the faculty. “I always thought of her as being a tower of strength. I think we were all a little afraid of her in a way, but that helped make us better students and better faculty members.”

After earning her bachelor’s degree in 1958 from Penn State, Berdanier soon found herself as the only female in her graduate program at Rutgers. By the time she finished, she had earned a dual Ph.D. in biochemistry and physiology.

In retrospect, she said she did face discrimination and unfair treatment, but it never discouraged her.

“I was so involved in the science and so dedicated to what I was doing, it never occurred to me that I was doing something unusual,” she said. “And I never thought of it as perseverance or being stubborn – I just was doing what I loved doing. The fact that I was female didn’t enter it whatsoever.”

Berdanier thrived in her early career, first as a research nutritionist with the USDA, then in faculty positions at the University of Maryland and the University of Nebraska.

While at Nebraska, despite out-performing her male colleagues in terms of grants and publications, Berdanier grew to feel unappreciated and began seeking a new opportunity.

Enter the University of Georgia.

“It was warm,” she said, laughing. “And it was a challenge.”

The department of foods and nutrition at the time had no Ph.D. program and no extramural funding.

In her interview with UGA President Fred Davison, Berdanier was characteristically blunt in her assessment of what it would take to bring the program to prominence.

“I said, ‘I’d like to see this program grow and develop, and that’s going to cost money,’ ” Berdanier said. “And I said ‘Are you willing to put your money where your mouth is?’ He leaned back in his chair and he roared. After he stopped laughing, he said ‘How much money is it going to take?’ I gave him a sum and he said, ‘All right, we can do that.’ ”

Berdanier was named head of the department in August 1977, beginning a 22-year run as a faculty member and researcher that sparked unprecedented growth.

She recruited renowned researchers to the department and established a doctoral program that continues to thrive. In 1984, she became the college’s first recipient of the university’s Lamar Dodd Award, the highest award given for creative research in science.

“She demanded so much, but she led by example,” said Rick Lewis, also a graduate student during Berdanier’s tenure who later joined the faculty. “Students and faculty who knew her knew the formula for being successful – you need to have that passion. She really demonstrated that.”

And, of course, she made the discovery that ultimately brought her worldwide recognition, the development of an animal model for the study of diabetes that put the university at the forefront of the field.

“It was quite a mystery and a lot of fun to unravel,” Berdanier said of the process of discovery that occurred over a nearly 20-year period. “It really was quite a breakthrough.”

While Berdanier received a lot of the attention for the discovery, she is quick to credit her students for their roles in the process.

“It wouldn’t have been possible if I had not had such wonderful students,” she said. “I just had the cream of the crop. I am so proud of them.”

Asked what she misses most in retirement, Berdanier said it’s the interactions with students.

“It’s like this: A kid comes to you and he’s what I call a dependent learner,” Berdanier explained. “Then, as I mentored this person through graduate work, they make this transition to being an independent learner, which is what research is all about. It was such a joy to see the awakening of a creative mind – it’s indescribable, really. So satisfying.”

At 82, Berdanier is still asked to speak at international conferences – “they still ask me and I still turn them down,” she said, laughing – and still writes magazine articles on nutrition and does some consulting.

Her legacy, though, extends beyond the pages of scholarly journals and plaques and commendations. It’s heard in the voices and seen in the work of the students who dared to follow in her footsteps.

“She was the toughest professor I ever had – as students we were just in awe of her,” said Emma Laing, former graduate student and current faculty member. “Her toughness helped us to succeed later in life. She gave us confidence, and she really inspired us to become half the scientist she was.”

Zolinda Stoneman - 2017

Zolinda Stoneman - 2017

Talk to enough people about Zo Stoneman, and a pattern emerges.

They’ll mention her quiet, almost demure, demeanor, her soft voice that oftentimes barely rises above a whisper.

Then, they will laugh. First impressions, they’ll tell you, are misleading.

“She’s a very tiny and petite person,” said longtime friend Beth English, the executive director of Easter Seals Southern Georgia, “but she’s just a fireball, like a stick of dynamite. She truly is.”

Stoneman herself might agree. As a young girl, long before she became a giant in the field of disability research and advocacy, she developed a stubborn streak – some have politely called it “tenacity” and “persistence” – that has served her well in her 40-year career at UGA.

“Even as a kid,” she said, “the one thing that would motivate me to do something is if somebody told me I couldn’t do it or I didn’t have the ability to do it or girls shouldn’t be doing it or whatever. That would be the one thing I’d set my sight on.”

Though it became an asset in a field marked by agonizingly slow, often frustrating, progress, this character trait was not always so endearing, Stoneman admitted.

“My mother had other, less flattering, words for persistent,” she added, laughing.

Stoneman arrived at UGA in 1976 as an assistant professor in what was then called the department of child and family development, fresh off the campus of George Peabody College – now Vanderbilt University – in Nashville.

She also served as director of the children’s program of the University Affiliated Facility located at River’s Crossing, where students received training to work with children with developmental disabilities, many of whom were housed there during the week

Stoneman and colleague Mary Rugg soon established one of the state’s first inclusive preschool classrooms in 1984 by having the facility’s students join with students at the McPhaul Child Development Center, the UGA lab for typically-developing children.

This innovative approach became a hallmark of Stoneman’s career, as she has worked to promote inclusion and acceptance in a society that often has been resistant to it.

“These are people who have gifts to give to their families, to others, and they’re being stuck away as if they’re unimportant in places where they have little to no control over their lives,” Stoneman said, “and very little ability to reach out and be a part of the world we all live in. Not only are their lives being compromised, but the communities are losing their gifts.”

Among her many career accomplishments, Stoneman, as founder and director of the Institute on Human Development and Disability, has been instrumental in several efforts to foster change.

Among them, she has:

- Worked to chronicle the struggle for disability rights in Georgia through the co-founding of the Georgia Disability History Alliance.

- Served as a founding member of the Children’s Freedom Initiative, formed to promote the idea that children belong with loving, permanent families – not in institutions or nursing homes.

- Worked with colleagues to establish a Disability Studies Certificate program at UGA.

- Documented the transition of 39 former residents of River’s Crossing, the first institution in Georgia to close, into the community, providing valuable data on the importance of inclusion.

“When she speaks, everyone stops and listens,” said Katie Chandler, who studied under Stoneman during graduate school and now works as the developmental disability coordinator for the Georgia Advocacy Office. “Her passion to support people with developmental disabilities is obvious.”

Stoneman’s work earned her the UGA Creative Research Medal, given to recognize outstanding research that focuses on a single theme.

In Stoneman’s case, much of her work has centered around sibling interaction and dispelling the commonly-held notion that being the sibling of a child with a disability was inherently damaging.

In 2002, Stoneman was named a University Professor, a distinction that recognizes faculty members who have had a significant impact on the university in addition to fulfilling their normal academic responsibilities, and whose work as “change agents” improve the quality with which UGA serves its missions.

Stoneman, born in inner city Chicago but raised mostly in rural Illinois, said she never set out to pursue a career in the field of disability research, but quickly found she had a passion for it.

“Once I got to know children and realized there were kids who had some real struggles, I thought I could figure out some ways of helping,” she said.

Folks ask her when she’s going to retire. She smiles. She’s not ready, she says. There’s too much work to be done.

“My passion really flows from an image of communities where everyone has a meaningful role to play and is welcome, where there are not people who are marginalized,” she said. “We’ve come a long way toward communities that work like that. We still have a long way to go, but there’s no reason that it’s not possible.

“And knowing that by continuing to work for these things, it’s possible to really make a difference, particularly for people whom I can conceptualize, think about and know. That’s why I haven’t retired.”

Roy J. Martin - 2016

Roy J. Martin - 2016

Dr. Roy Martin was already a well-known name in the field of foods and nutrition research before he came to the University of Georgia.

He traveled around the country in pursuit of a higher education. He began at University of Southwest Louisiana-
Lafayette, then made his way to the University of Florida and finally the University of California, where he completed his Ph.D.

By the time he arrived as a professor at UGA in 1978 after eight years on the faculty at Penn State, Martin had assembled an impressive group of graduate students and lab technicians aimed at conducting impactful research within the College of Family and Consumer Sciences.

“I was impressed by how active he was in the research field,” said Dorothy Hausman, an emeritas faculty member who was a master’s student when Martin first arrived. “He was very well-respected both in the department and out in the field.
Bringing in that many more people at one time made for very exciting research activity and created interest in the department.”

Before coming to Athens, Martin already had earned the Nutrition Foundation Future Leader’s Award, the Young Scientist Award and the Gamma Sigma Delta Research Award of Merit for his research in identifying mechanisms of obesity and diabetes.

True to form, Martin got a running start at UGA.

In collaboration with the United States Department of Agriculture, the Martin lab expanded its research to include fetal adipose tissue development and studies of paracrine regulation of adipose cells in culture.

These efforts earned him the NIH Career Development Award as well as the American Institute of Nutrition Mead Johnson National Award. UGA also recognized his achievements, as he received the Creative Research Medal and Alumni Foundation Distinguished Professorship.

Martin’s career at FACS didn’t end there.

His exemplary performance as a faculty member led to his appointment as head of the department of foods and nutrition in 1988, where he continued to be a resource to faculty, staff members and students alike for another decade.

At LSU, Martin served as director of the Neurobehavioral Laboratory and professor of human ecology.

In 2011, he transitioned to his current position as adjunct professor at the University of California-Davis and as visiting professor at Western Human Nutrition Research Center, an Agricultural Resource Service of the USDA.

The mission of the center is to improve dietary recommendations by understanding variability in people’s response to diets, nutrients and other food constituents.

With dozens of publications to his credit, a combined 40 years as a professor and researcher, a long list of honors and an ever-increasing group of students who have thrived under his mentorship, Martin displays all the requisites of a FACS Honor Hall of Recognition inductee.

“His career devoted to leading foods and nutrition research, teaching and outreach units and his influence in Georgia, the Southern region and the nation is remarkable,” FACS Dean Linda Kirk Fox said. “We are delighted to induct Dr. Martin into the FACS Honor Hall of Recognition and deeply appreciate his service.”

Josephine Martin - 2015

Josephine Martin - 2015

Dr. Josephine Martin is a busy woman.

She kicked off 2015 by traveling across the country to accept the Gertrude Applebaum Lifetime Achievement Award at the Child Nutrition Industry Conference in Phoenix.

Martin, president of The Josephine Martin Group and an Adjunct Professor of Nutrition at Georgia State University in Atlanta, may have lost count of the awards bestowed on her over the last 10 years.

For six decades, Martin has been a champion for children across the country. Her passion is child nutrition. That passion has taken her from the steps of the state house to the White House and beyond.

“It is always great to have an opportunity to talk about the child nutrition programs and their purpose because it’s so simple – the purpose is to safeguard the health and
well-being of the nation’s children … but the real purpose is, according to the legislation, a matter of national security.”

Building on the work of the pioneers of child nutrition from the early 1900s, Martin embarked on a career that placed her in many roles. After graduating from FACS in 1947, she went to work for the Georgia Department of Education after completing a dietetic internship. It just so happened that the day of her interview was also the day the Georgia School Food Service Association was created.

From the very beginning of her career, Martin valued the importance of “close relationships between what goes on in the state education agencies, the local school system and the professional organization of the American School Food Service Association, which is now the School Nutrition Association.”

As an area consultant she serviced 400 schools in north Georgia. Her favorite part of the job was training school cafeteria staff. Martin was the only consultant in the Atlanta area and had the good fortune to be mentored by the state director, Eleanor Pryor.

“I also learned from those professionals who really knew how to work with policy makers,” Martin said. “The intricacies of listening to politicians, trying to see their side of the legislation and why they made the decisions they did, and I learned a lot about public policy in that first 10 years that I worked in the state department,” Martin told Dr. Charlotte Oakley in 2008. Oakley interviewed Martin for the Child Nutrition Archives for the National Food Service Management Institute of The University of Mississippi.

The great training she received on the state level equipped Martin for her next role: working for the United States Department of Agriculture.

While earning her master’s from Teacher’s College at Columbia University, she was recruited to work for the USDA. She joined the Southeast Regional Office as a home economist. Under the tutelage of another wonderful mentor, Thelma Flanagan, Martin worked and cataloged best practices from nine southeastern states.

A short 19 months later, with great experience under her belt, Martin was asked to become the State Director in Georgia.

During the 1960s, Martin worked tirelessly on the “matter of national security” for the children of the state of Georgia. She established the Training In Depth Program as a vocational offering for school nutrition workers. Martin and her team built the curriculum, obtained vocational funds and used vocational staff to teach the program. She also accompanied Senator Herman Talmadge on a tour of hunger in Georgia.

She lobbied U.S. Congressman Richard B. Russell, author of the National School Lunch Act, on behalf of the ASFSA, to make critical changes to the legislation that would benefit states like Georgia. The work Martin and her colleagues addressed brought about the passing of the Child Nutrition Act of 1966, the catalyst for the pilot breakfast program. That was followed by the Special Foodservice Program for Children in 1968 that combined the Child Care and the Summer Food Service Program.

In the 1970s Martin was the national president of the American School Food Service Association (now the School Nutrition Association) and at that time she was instrumental in securing federal authorization for the National Food Service Management Institute. Ten years later, she came out of retirement to become the first full-time director of the NFSMI.

In 2006 Dr. Martin received the Gene White Lifetime Achievement Award for Child Nutrition given by the Child Nutrition Foundation. During the selection process, the committee received a letter of recommendation from a congressional staff leader with whom she worked.

The letter stated, “No unelected person played a larger, more intelligent and more constructive role in the principled expansion of our food and nutrition program than she did … never taking her eyes off the prize of healthier, wiser, happier American children.”

Gene Brody - 2014

Gene Brody - 2014

Dr. Brody arrived at UGA in 1976 after receiving his doctorate in human development and school psychology from the University of Arizona.

Soon after, he became one for the most prolific grant-productive researchers in the UGA history by obtaining more than $81 million worth of grants to conduct high-impact research in the area of child and family development.

Dr. Brody worked as an assistant professor at the UGA Department of Child and Family Development from 1976 to 1984, and served as professor from 1984-91.

In 1980, Dr. Brody was named a Fellow with the Institute for Behavioral Research.

His class, “Development within the Family” originally started out with 30 students. Eventually, more than 10,000 students would take the course during Brody’s tenure as a professor.

He was appointed a Distinguished Research Professor in 1991.

Since 1994, Dr. Brody has been the director of the Center for Family Research, which received more than $30 million in external funding to conduct programs such as the Strong African American Families program.

He received the William A. Owens Award for Creative Research in 1994.

He received the UGA Research Foundation’s Creative Research Medal.

In 2004, he was appointed Regents’ Professor.

He received the Reuben Hill Award from the National Council on Family Relations in 2005.

Also, he was invited to participate in the White House Conference on Helping America’s Youth in 2005.

Dr. Brody was named FACS Honor Hall of Recognition in 2014

Meet this year's recipient

Richard Lewis

Previous Recipients