Janet Fox Will Also Serve as Head of the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — The University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture welcomes Janet Fox as assistant dean of UT Extension and head of the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences. Fox is currently serving as head of the Louisiana 4-H Youth Development Program, which serves more than 200,000 youth annually with award-winning, experiential programs.
Fox has almost fifteen years of experience as an administrator, supervising 16 professionals and co-supervising five regional administrators. She is a professor in the Department of Agricultural and Extension Education and Evaluation where she teaches, advises graduate students and leads the undergraduate internship program.
Fox began her career as a middle school family consumer science teacher. Being an advocate for outreach, she started her Extension career as a 4-H youth development agent and as the 4-H volunteer and leadership specialist intern with the Mississippi Cooperative Extension Service. With more than 35 years of experience, Fox has served at the county, multi-county, district, and state levels in three different state Cooperative Extension systems, including Mississippi, Nebraska, and Louisiana. Now she adds Tennessee to her list.
Fox received a bachelor’s degree in home economics and a master’s degree in extension education from Mississippi State University. She earned her Ph.D. in adult and vocational education with a concentration in human resource development from the University of Nebraska. Her dissertation is titled “Balancing family, volunteer, and work roles: The relationship among strategies, situations, and satisfaction.”
On a national level, Fox has been actively engaged in positive youth development programming efforts. She served as chair of the Youth Development Task Force on the National 4-H Professional Research and Knowledge Competency for Youth Development. She also served on the National 4-H Risk Management Task Force that developed nationally recognized and adopted child protection practices, and she currently serves on the THRIVE Model, a positive youth development model, Organizational Adoption Team. She also serves on the National Common Measures Advisory Committee and is one of four regional trainers with the goal of establishing a common core of youth outcomes and indicators consistent with the National Institute of Food and Agriculture Plan of Work system.
The new UTIA administrator will officially arrive on campus February 1, 2021. “We are fortunate to have someone of Dr. Fox’s stature join our UT Extension family,” says Scott Senseman, interim dean of UT Extension. “Janet will bring an exciting energy and great leadership to our family and consumer sciences programs.”
“I am honored to serve as the assistant dean and head of the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences at the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture. The UT Extension Family and Consumer Sciences program has a solid reputation of being a leader in the field. It’s my goal to build upon the strong foundation to guide FCS as a leading influence impacting families, communities and individuals in the great state of Tennessee. Our FCS team will continue to bring real-life solutions to Tennessee citizens to improve their quality of life,” Fox states.
Through its land-grant mission of research, teaching and extension, the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture touches lives and provides Real. Life. Solutions. utia.tennessee.edu.