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About Dr. Nick
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Randy D. Nichols is Professor of Communication at Limestone University where he directs the Professional Communications Degree Program.
Dr. Nichols holds the B.A. in Pastoral Theology from Southeastern University, the M.A. in English Literature from Rutgers University, and the Ph.D. in Rhetorics, Communication and Information Design from Clemson University, where he led the international Cultural Literacies Across Media course.
Dr. Nichols teaches such classes as Digital Literacies, Critical Thinking and Narratives Across Media at Limestone. He has presented at the National Conferences for the Popular Culture Association on his work in Digital Composition, Game Theory, and New Media Literacy. In the recent (pre-COVID) Popular Culture Association national conference in Washington, D.C., Nichols joined Limestone colleague Prof. Brett Schenning and Dr. Tharon Howard from Clemson University to present on Technology and "The Americans." In the 2022 PCA virtual national conference, Nichols presented "More of What You Want,” a look at the nature of choice in the Digital Age. (Dr. Nichols serves as Chair for the Communication and Digital Culture Area of the Popular Culture Association.) In 2023, PCA held its first post-covid live National Conference. Dr. Nichols presented "The Book of the Machines Redux," in which he advocated for equipping students with informed suspicion as they navigate careers and lives in the shifting digital world ahead. In 2024, Dr. Nichols presented "The Lonesome Friends of Artificial Intimacy," in which he encouraged an ongoing conversation among scholars in the field to consider a new set of ramifications arising in the emerging area of AI. The 2016 NCTE book, Mobile Technologies and the Writing Classroom contains this statement in its introduction, "The nature and tools of writing have changed... As a result, educational scholars are developing new understandings of how to incorporate such technologies into the classroom." Nichols co-authored the chapter, "Untangling the Web through Digital Aggregation and Curation," which outlines an approach to encouraging students toward a more "critical consumption" of digital resources by using free and popular tools for mobile devices, such as Flipboard and Pinterest, and even includes a sample lesson as a "play exemplar" for fellow educators to revise, rework, subvert and remediate. In 2012, Dr. Nichols premiered the "Smartphone Museum" at Limestone College. Featured exhibits include: "Artifacts from the Future," on October 21, 2015, and the 2019 exhibit "Agency and New Media." With examples raging from the printing press to the #MeToo movement, the exhibit explored how digital technology has enabled a paradigm shift in media by allowing users to print, publish, produce, edit, and share across various platforms in areas such as music, photography, movies, and more. Dr. Nichols is the 2020 recipient of Limestone University's Presidential Excellence Award for High Impact Practices in the Classroom, and the 2014 recipient of the Fullerton Award for Excellence in Teaching, and was named TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year in 2006. (Seriously, Google it.) Learn more by seeing Dr. Nick's CV below. 
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Check out Dr. Nick's Students recent work on a VR Tour for the Earl Scruggs Center!
Connect with Dr. Nick
Dr. Nick has been a guest on local news discussin such topics as campaign commercials and social media safety.
Dr. Nick's mini-lecture from the Summer Course on "Hitchcock" for Turner Classic Movies and Ball State University.
Dr. Nick encourages "play" as a way to discover affordances of new platforms. (Ludology is the "Doing" in Aristotle's "Knowing, Doing, Making")
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