Hickman Lectures

The Hickman Lecture is presented annually by a faculty member who received the Martin B. Hickman Scholar Award for being a distinguished faculty member whose professional contributions to the college emulate excellence. The 2022-23 award recipient is Dr. Matt Bekker in the Department of Geography.

Martin Berkeley Hickman came to Brigham Young University’s Department of Political Science in 1967 after a career as a Foreign Service officer in Hamburg, Hong Kong, and Berlin and five years of teaching at the University of Southern California. In 1968, Martin was named acting dean and in 1970 the dean of the College of Social Sciences. In 1980, he undertook the momentous job of unifying and restructuring the College of Social Sciences and parts of the College of Family Living and became dean of the newly formed College of Family, Home, and Social Sciences in 1981.

As dean of the consolidated college, Martin Hickman was instrumental in making possible the pursuit of faculty dreams resulting in the Women’s Research Institute, the David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies, the Family Studies Center, and other research efforts. On the teaching side, he could be recognized as the father of the university’s American Heritage program, conceiving it, organizing its creation, presiding over its first years, and participating in it as an instructor. Martin was very loyal to the college and his colleagues; this loyalty was surpassed only by loyalty to his wife, JoAnn, and their six daughters.

Martin was a remarkable man who did remarkable work for the college and BYU; work never directed at advancing his own career, but work done for the good of the Church, the university and his faculty and associates. Because of Martin’s many years of service to the College of Family, Home, and Social Sciences, it is appropriate that the college establish the annual Martin B. Hickman Scholar Award to recognize a distinguished member of the college faculty who emulates Martin’s example.

2020​ - John P. Hoffmann -​ Sociology

2019​ - Dean M. Busby -​ Psychology & Neuroscience

​2018 - Ramona Hopkins - Psychology & Neuroscience ​

2017 - Arden Pope - Economics

2016 - Perry Hardin - Geography​