UT’s Sports Mom

On the third floor of the School of Law, where she has taught since 2006, Dickerson's office is painted lavender, and nearly every piece of furniture - two desk chairs, two visitors' chairs and a sofa - is her favorite color, purple. She explains that in her previous role as associate dean for academic affairs, she often dealt with angry students, but that in this office, with its colorful furnishings, Teletubbies and other eclectic tchotchkes, "You can't be stressed out. You can't be angry."

Among those decorations is a Harvard pennant (undergrad and law), kid art, family photos galore, window sill plants, and a tote bag and water bottle from her recent appearance on "The Daily Show," where Jon Stewart interviewed her about her research area and her new bestselling book, "The Middle Class New Deal: Restoring Upward Mobility and the American Dream."

UT did not appoint just any professor to be its FAR. She is the Moller Chair in Bankruptcy and Practice and a University Distinguished Teaching Professor. During Dickerson's first year on campus, she won the Texas Exes' Faculty Teaching Award. In 2015 she was inducted into UT's Academy of Distinguished Teachers, and in 2022 she won the Law School's Massey Teaching Excellence Award. She also was involved with athletics before being appointed FAR, as a member of the Intercollegiate Athletics Council.

Plonsky says, "That IAC 'runway' complements her distinguished teaching career and her MVP (most valuable parent) role for her sons, Josh and John, who are elite student-athletes themselves. Just by raising her 'broncos,' she understands the discipline, rigor and time-management requirements of our student-athletes and appreciates the role of coaches and support staff in influencing their lives through mentorship, training and competition."

To be clear, there are scads of people who support UT's athletes in their academics - tutors, academic advisers, counselors. Likewise, there is a whole office devoted to making sure the University is following the NCAA's numerous rules regarding student-athletes: compliance officers. But all of those are employees of Texas Athletics and report ultimately to Athletics Director Chris Del Conte.

Dickerson, by contrast, reports to the president. "I'm the only person who's really involved in Athletics that isn't paid by Athletics. There are some FARs that have part of their appointment in Athletics. I think that is a very bad idea, but that's because I'm a lawyer, and I like nice clean lines." She calls herself "the academic nerd in Athletics."

To maintain those clean lines, she also buys all of her own tickets, which include season tickets for football, volleyball, women's basketball, softball and baseball.

She is compensated for this intensive time commitment with a reduced teaching load, which still includes two classes each year: Civil Procedure and another that rotates between other topics such as College Sports, and Remedies (what one gets at the end of a case such as an injunction and damages).

Another way she monitors the student experience is by dropping in unannounced to one of the athletes' study areas. Three times a term, she assigns herself study hall. "I take my laptop and go over to the fifth floor of the North End Zone, and I sit there for two to four hours." Plonsky says Dickerson keeps these "office hours" in the UFCU Student-Athlete Academics Center "so she can be accessible and visible when students are in their study/learning environment."

Every other Monday, she meets with the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, on which each team has two to four members as representatives. "I don't want a student to ever say, 'I didn't know whom I could go to.' So, that's one of the reasons I try to show up at as many of these places as I can. The student leaders know that there is a FAR. So, should something come up with a team, they know there's at least one person that didn't get paid by Athletics."

Plonsky says, "Like all of our IAC faculty members, she continues to be a voice of accuracy and information when her colleagues have questions or want clarity on athletics' impact on campus."

She also gets to have conversations with parents. A couple of years ago on a baseball trip, she was sitting near some parents, when she overheard one say, "We went to dinner with our son last night, but it was a little bit of a bummer, because he kept saying he had to leave early, and we had to cut dinner short because he had to turn in a paper that night. "Of course, I'm thinking, ding-ding-ding - that's what I want to hear."

After gathering all that input, she meets with Del Conte about every six weeks to discuss concerns, ask questions and talk collegiate sports. "But also, if I'm appointed by the president, I'm going to need to meet with the president," she says, which usually happens in January and in summer.

One reason she spends so much time with the athletes is to be able to answer with authority what she sees as unfair criticism of the system. "People in general have this view that our student-athletes don't care about academics. Not so, she says, adding that this notion "offends me on so many levels." When she asks them how their classes are going, she says they're not athletes in that moment; "they're full-out students" and enthuse, "Oh, I like this class!" Never in four years has a professor contacted her about an athlete's lack of effort in the classroom, she says.

She adds, "One of the reasons student-athletes are highly sought after by employers is because - you talk about time management? Oh, they can do some time management for you!" She recalls a typical encounter in her office recently with one student who had her laptop open with color-coded charts for time management.

"This notion that students are being mistreated, they don't have any guidance, they don't have any support on the academic side - it's just not true. But in order for me to be able to say that, I needed to see it."