Jill Vickers
| Degrees: | BA (Carleton), PhD (London) |
| Website: | Research Gate Profile |
Jill McCalla Vickers’ work shows a lifetime dedication to the endeavour of combining research on women and politics with engagement in political life. Educated at Carleton University, The State University Of New York (Buffalo), and the London School of Economics, Dr. Vickers joined the faculty of Carleton University in 1971, where she rose to the rank of Professor. At Carleton, she also served as Director of the School of Canadian Societies, Chair of the Inter-Faculty Committee on Women’s Studies, president and negotiator for the faculty union, and Associate Vice-President (Academic). Among her many achievements, she was named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2003, and Carleton University awarded her a Chancellor’s Professorship the same year . After her retirement in 2007, she was named Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Emeritus Professor at Carleton. Dr. Vickers is a renowned authority in the politics of women’s rights, comparative approaches to women’s participation, and the relationship between gender and nationalism. She is the author of numerous books and articles, among them Politics as if Women Mattered: a Political Analysis of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women, co-authored with L. Pauline Rankin and Christine Appelle (Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1994); Re-inventing Political Science: A Feminist Approach (Halifax: Fernwood Press, 1997); and Gender, Race and Nation: A Global Approach, co-authored with Vanaja Druhvarajan (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002). Her accomplishments were celebrated with the 2007 conference in her honour: Women-Friendly Democracy.
Dr. Vickers’ mentorship is much admired. She has supervised many BA, MA theses, MA research essays, and PhD theses. Many of the students She has supervised have gone on to flourishing research careers in academia. In 2002, the Canadian Political Science Association created the Jill Vickers Prize in Gender and Politics, in recognition of her work.
Throughout her career, Dr. Vickers has shared her knowledge and leadership with the community beyond the university. She produced reports for agencies as diverse as the Parliamentary Committee on Election Expenses (1966); the Secretary of State on Barriers to Women’s Involvement as Parliamentary Candidates (1975); and UNESCO, on What Facilitates Women’s Participation in Political Life (1986). She offered advice to the Ministerial Workshop on Federal Policy Development on the political structure of the Canadian women’s movement (1988); wrote a Glossary of Terms Used in the English-Canadian Women’s Movement for Status of Women Canada (1994); and informed the Status of Women Advisory Panel on the Beijing Plan of Action (1996). She was an arbitrator for public service unions and under The Parliamentary Employees Staff Relations Act. She was a President of the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women, The Canadian Association of University Teachers, as well as a Secretary-Treasurer of the Canadian Women’s Studies Association.
With husband, Historian Keith Johnson, she helped raise a blended family of two sons and two step-daughters. Dr. Vickers has long inspired the admiration of her colleagues for her scholarly achievements, her wisdom with respect to academic matters, and her warm good humour.
Select Publications
Co-editor (with Shama Gamkhar), Canadian and US Federalism, (Oxford University Press, Vol. 40, no. 3, Summer 2010). http://publius.oxfordjournals.org/
Co-editor (with Melissa Haussman and Marian Sawer), Federalism, Feminism and Multilevel Governance (Ashgate Press, June 2010).