Nikki Dickerson is the Academic Dean at Lively. She is an interesting person with years of experience under her belt. Last week, I got to get to know her better.
What’s your name and position at Lively?
Nikki Dickerson and I’m the Academic Dean.
Talk about your education. What degrees or certifications do you hold?
Oh, sure. So I have a bachelor’s degree in kinesiology and education, and I have a master’s degree in educational administration.
When were you hired?
I started here on May the 1st of last school year (year 2023 – 2024)
So You’re new-ish to Lively. What’s your history in education?
So I’v been an assistant principal for almost 18 years and most of that has been at a high school- thats all been at a high school level. This is my first time being at a middle school. Before I was an assistant principal I was a teacher and coach, I taught science, I taught PE, health, anatomy, physiology and coached basketball and cross country predominantly.
What led you to Lively?
Lively is… I have lived in Austin for the last 20 years and have never worked in Austin. I worked in the Hays School District and worked in the Pflugerville School District and I always wanted to work in the city where I lived and so I was excited when I saw the opportunity for the academic dean position here at Lively that opened up and I came on campus to check it out and fell in love with the campus and everything else, all the great things that are happening here.
What do you love about Lively so far?
I love the diversity, I love that there are multitudes of different personalities and cultures all coming together and all the different opportunities that we give our students from magnet program to the dual language program just all the different classes and opportunities that students have. Students have been amazing to staff, just are absolutely phenomenal, yeah. That’s most of it.
What’s the best/worst thing about being an admin?
So the worst thing about being an administrator is you have to make some difficult decisions. Sometimes it has to do with discipline, there are a lot of decisions that are very difficult. Along with that is the positive, is that I feel like- and I was really worried about this when I was a teacher and a coach, was that I had so many interactions with students that I didn’t want to become an administrator because I was afraid that my interactions would be limited, but the positive is that I get to see all the aspects of the
school and not be isolated into my classroom or what I’m doing, so it’s exciting too, that one of the positives, is that we’re doing it to create and allow for opportunities for students as well.
If you could enroll in another teacher’s class at Lively to learn from them, what would you take and why?
I would enroll in Ms. Garcia’s Spanish 1 emerging class. I wish more than anything that I could speak Spanish. My Spanish is very limited. I picked her class because it would be, possibly, the level I could do.
What would students be surprised to find out about you?
Oh my goodness! I don’t know… I think that a lot of the students don’t know- well I don’t know if it would surprise them- but don’t know that I used to coach basketball and cross-country.
How do you show your school spirit?
Oh my goodness! My school spirit. I wear my Lively shirts all the time! Do I… I even have one on today! I wear a Lively shirt probably 4 out of 5 days of the week, I go to the events and I talk about Livley all the time to everyone who will listen. I go to- I’m excited about more opportunities to see how they do events that the students are doing.
What makes a “good day” at school?
A good day at school would be everyone is in class and excited about learning.
What is your dream vacation?
Ooh, I have so many of them…
If you could be anywhere, where would you go right now?
Right now in this moment, somewhere cooler. I love the mountains, I love to go skiing, however, I’ve never been to Europe and I would love to, right now, just get on a plane and go to… Where would I start? I would start in Italy and just make my way across Europe.
What would it be if you had to teach another subject (not administering, but teaching)?
I loved teaching anatomy and physiology.
