HOLLAND – Dr. Jane Dickie, a professor emerita of psychology at Hope College, is one of 18 women from West Michigan being honored as “Michigan Makers – Women Who Inspire” on Tuesday, March 12.
Sponsored by WGVU Engage: Women and Girls Lead, the event will be held at Celebration! Cinema North and will include recognition of the local honorees, a panel discussion and a screening of the film “Makers: Women Who Make America,” which tells the story of women’s advancement in America across the past half century.
Dickie was a member of the Hope faculty from 1972 until retiring in 2012. Her involvement in the community includes serving as vice president of the Board of the Center for Women in Transition, as vice president of the consistory of Hope Church and as a member of the Board of Room for All.
She established—and served as the first director of—the college’s women’s studies program, which from courses she developed in the 1980s became a minor in 1991 and expanded to include a major in 2005. Her teaching responsibilities at Hope included Developmental Psychology, Developmental Research Laboratory, Introduction to Women’s Studies, Psychology of Women, Feminist Visions of Justice, Psychology of Peace and Gender, and the Women’s Studies Keystone Seminar.
She involved students as collaborative researchers in her research throughout her time at Hope; through the years they received a variety of regional and national honors, including a national Undergraduate Research Award from Psi Chi – The International Psychology Honor Society in August 2012. Across her time at Hope she received honors including the Hope Outstanding Professor Educator (H.O.P.E.) Award presented by the college’s graduating Class of 1996; the Janet Andersen Award for Excellence in Teaching presented by college’s provost’s office in 1998, and a citation from the Great Lakes Colleges Association in 1996 in recognition of her work in the field of women’s studies.
She completed her undergraduate degree in psychology at Alma College in 1968, and her master’s and doctorate in psychology at Michigan State University in 1970 and 1973 respectively.