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Dickie, Ruth Strathern (1913-1993)
When Ruth Strathern Dickie was a child, her mother announced to her and her twin sister, Helen, that Helen would become a doctor and Ruth a dietitian. Both sisters ended up meeting their mother's ambitious expectations for them. In Ruth's case, her career would last an impressive forty-six years. Dickie earned a BS in Foods and Nutrition from UW in 1934, after which she worked as a dietitian at two Wisconsin sanatoria. In 1942, she accepted an appointment as Director of Food and Nutrition Services for the University Hospitals at UW, a position she kept until 1969. During these years she earned her MS in Foods and Nutrition (1947), while also participating in numerous other professional activities, including fifteen years of teaching nutrition in the School of Nursing, and organizing and then directing the University of Wisconsin Internship in dietetics from 1952 to 1967. From 1967 until her retirement in 1983, she directed the Institutional Food and Nutrition Telephone Conferences and the Food Service Supervisors' Telephone Conferences. In this position she prepared a yearly series of conferences for Wisconsin dietitians and supervisors which were broadcast through the WHA Instructional Communications system. Perhaps because of her mother's influence, Dickie remained committed her entire life to encouraging young women to pursue careers in science. As president of the Wisconsin chapter of Sigma Delta Epsilon, a national society for graduate women in science, Dickie helped plan a program to bring female high school students to the UW-Madison campus in the late 1950s to explore scientific opportunities on campus. Young women were invited to visit laboratories doing work on cancer, chemistry, textiles, nutrition, and theoretical physics. Another of Dickie's interests was the history of women in home economics. After her retirement she gave very generously to the UW Archives to establish a History of Women in Home Economics Collection. Her gift demonstrated the importance she placed on highlighting the contributions that women in home economics have made to academia. |
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