Dear Colleagues,

It is with sadness that we write to share news of the passing of Dr. Linda Hickson, Professor Emerita of Special Education, and director of the Intellectual Disability/Autism program at Teachers College, on January 5 at the age of 82. Professor Hickson was a treasured member of the TC community for more than five decades. After preparing as a research psychologist at George Peabody College, now part of Vanderbilt University, Professor Hickson joined TC in 1968, became Associate Professor of Education in 1979 and thereafter was a Professor of Education in the Department of Health and Behavior Studies until her retirement in 2013. She is survived by her two children Dana and Jeremy, grandchildren, and her partner Penelope, as well as Penelope’s children and grandchildren.

Professor Hickson was an esteemed scholar, whose research and curriculum development efforts have made revolutionary contributions in the field of intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). Her early work in memory and cognition demonstrated that children, adolescents and adults with IDD had memory deficits that could be ameliorated with teaching of effective memory strategies. Later, her research led to the development of decision-making curricula to improve the lives of adolescents and adults with IDD. 

Professor Hickson published widely on a broad range of topics, including theoretical and applied aspects of self-protective decision-making by people with IDD and autism to reduce the social vulnerabilities they experience. She served as an associate editor of the International Review of Research in Mental Retardation (now IDD) for more than a decade. In 2021, she co-edited Decision Making by Individuals with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities: Integrating research into practice, and was most recently co-editing the Handbook of Maltreatment Prevention in Individuals with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, to be published in the Advances in Preventing and Treating Violence and Aggression series by Springer.

During her time at TC, Professor Hickson taught and mentored numerous masters and doctoral students on campus and was awarded Outstanding Teacher of the Year in 2004. She served as the Director of the Center for Opportunities and Outcomes for People with Disabilities, previously known as the Research and Demonstration Center for the Education of Handicapped Children, from 1995 to 2013, providing valuable research support and training to TC students. In recent years, Professor Hickson and Professor Ishita Khemka, her colleague and former student, conducted a series of projects, funded by the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation, the Williams Syndrome Association and the New York State Developmental Disabilities Planning Council, resulting in the development and evaluation of decision-making curricula that focused on decreasing the peer victimization of adolescents (PEER-DM) and prevention of abuse in adults (ESCAPE-NOW) with intellectual and developmental disabilities, including autism.

Professor Hickson also directed several international initiatives to enhance the educational opportunities of people with disabilities, including a collaborative project with Dar Al Hekma University in Saudi Arabia, one of two private women’s colleges in the country, on the development of a new special education master’s degree program. Professor Hickson’s more than fifty-year commitment to research in IDD shines through her wide range of work and became a meaningful part of her intellectual legacy. 

Professor Linda Hickson was a devoted scholar, colleague, mentor and friend to many of us at TC, and she will be missed. On behalf of the entire Teachers College community, we extend our heartfelt condolences to her family and loved ones. For those who are able to and would like to join, a memorial service will take place on Saturday, January 11 at 11:00 a.m. in Brookside Chapel at 425 Engle Street, Englewood, New Jersey.

Sincerely,

KerryAnn O’Meara
Provost and Dean of the College
Professor of Higher Education
Teachers College, Columbia University
she/her/hers

Laudan B. Jahromi
Chair and Professor of Psychology & Education
Department of Health Studies & Applied Educational Psychology
Teachers College, Columbia University
she/her/hers