REFERENCE TITLE: Ann Nichols; death resolution

State of Arizona

House of Representatives

Fifty-sixth Legislature

First Regular Session

2023

HCR 2049

Introduced by

Representatives Longdon: Contreras L, Contreras P, Pawlik

A Resolution

on the death of dr. ann weaver nichols.

(TEXT OF BILL BEGINS ON NEXT PAGE)

Dr. Ann Weaver Nichols was born in 1942 and grew up in Los Angeles, California and attended John Marshall High School, originally thinking she would one day become a secretary. A good guidance counselor saw her potential and encouraged her to apply for a scholarship for first generation students, and she arrived at Stanford University as the first person in her family to attend college. She was active on campus with work study in the library and off campus in the Freedom Summer project, traveling to register voters on spring breaks and summers. Ann established a program to enable students to spend spring break in service, which eventually became institutionalized at Stanford and exists to this day as the Alternative Spring Break program. She spent a semester at the Stanford University campus in France and was active in the student YWCA.

While at Stanford, Ann attended Friends Quaker Meetings and met a young medical student, and the love of her life, Andy, in 1964, and the two married after their graduation in 1965. She and Andy joined the Peace Corps and spent two wonderful years in Peru where she taught community development.

Ann went on to earn both a masters and doctorate in social work from Colombia University. She continued to be involved in the YWCA and served on the national board from 1969-1982 and the World YWCA executive board in Geneva from 1975-1983, which culminated in Phoenix hosting the World YWCA General Assembly in 1987. She loved the global community of powerful women who were creating change.

After moving to Tucson in the fall of 1970, Ann joined the faculty of the Arizona State University (ASU) School of Social Work because there was no school of social work in Tucson. For years, with two small children in tow, she traveled up and down I-10 to teach classes in Tempe. She noticed that students were also commuting from Tucson to Tempe for classes, so in 1972 she began to teach a few courses in Tucson, even carrying course materials in the back of her station wagon. A full degree program was launched in 1978, and she became the first Director of the ASU School of Social Work program, Tucson component, and ran the program from 1978-2008. The thousands of students who studied with her got to know the power of her teaching. Many of the programs started in Southern Arizona began as class assignments that were designed to identify community needs, resulting in the much-loved Information and Resource Center and the Coalition of Human Services.

Ann's academic research was broad but uniformly focused on the power of people to create change. She wrote about restorative justice, people making policy and the role of forgiveness in public policy. She presented to the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) on working for change during tough times and on resilience and survival skills for activists. Her final major research and writing was on the macro-concepts of forgiveness and how to help nations transform after traumatic conflicts with possible forgiveness structures and exercises for organizations, communities and nations. She was awarded Social Worker of the Year by NASW, was presented a lifetime achievement award by the ASU School of Social Work and won the national Jefferson Award. Most recently, in November 2022, she received the Advocacy Award from the Center for Economic Integrity in recognition of her work on kinship care.

Annually Ann would create an "alternative budget" that involved tracking all the bills in the Arizona State Legislature and used that information to explain to others how the legislature could actually fully fund human services as part of a balanced budget. In 1996 and 2000, she worked tirelessly to help Arizonans get healthcare by supporting the Healthy Arizona Initiative.

Using her sabbaticals to promote social work around the world, Ann twice worked in Uganda with the YWCA and developed a community-based organizing movement across that country. In 2008, she retired after 39 years at ASU only to join the faculty at the Mindolo Ecumenical Foundation in Zambia teaching social work. For two years she helped update the national curriculum and taught community change. Her Zambian students in Kitwe are still running new programs that they created from taking part in her courses.

After returning to the United States and by her own personal experience, Ann developed a new passion—supporting grandparents raising grandchildren. She became the first Chair of the Arizona Grandparent Ambassadors, an advocacy network for grandparents who are raising their grandchildren and for other kinship network families. Among other more common advocacy awareness methods, every year the grandparents would write Valentine's Day cards and take cookies to the legislature to remind the members about the importance of kinship care families. In 2022, after seven years of lobbying, the legislature voted to provide additional support and funding for these families.

Ann pursued a life full of faith and passion. She and Andy were active members of First Christian Church as well as members of other faith organizations over the last 50 years. Her faith community had always been a source of strength and inspiration. She was the Chair of the International Social Workers and Spirituality Network, hosting four conferences that focused on social workers and on integrating faith practices with community needs. Ann spent years struggling against the death penalty. She wrote cards and letters to every single person on death row in Arizona since the 1990's and taught Alternatives to Violence courses in the federal prison, even co-authoring a textbook titled Initiating Change in Organizations and Communities.

Ann lost Andy in 2001, becoming a widow at 59 with three biological children and five adopted children. "Nana", as she was affectionately called, was known as the true matriarch of unconditional love and support. Ann is survived by her brother, Sam Weaver, and her children, Catherine, Michael and Miles Nichols, and Mardi, Nassau, Johnnary, Mexi and Haley Fiallos, and her 18 grandchildren. She loved all her children but especially loved all of her grandchildren.

Therefore

Be it resolved by the House of Representatives of the State of Arizona, the Senate concurring:

That the Members of the House of Representatives sincerely regret the passing of Dr. Ann Weaver Nichols and extend their sincere thoughts and condolences to her children, grandchildren and other surviving relatives.