Elizabeth D. Dickey

As Bank Street’s sixth president, Elizabeth D. Dickey has led the College since 2008. The Board of Trustees reappointed her for a second four-year term in 2012.

Through her efforts, Bank Street’s Board of Trustees refined its strategic plan in 2010. The plan emphasizes an enhanced commitment to academic excellence, expanded efforts in educational policy and research, and financial sustainability. Bank Street continues to focus its work on the preparation of exceptional teachers, development of outstanding school leaders, and increasing quality and equity in early childhood education. Investments in technology and new models of learning are viewed as essential to achieving these goals.

Since 2010, the College has expanded its government relations program. In May 2012, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo appointed Elizabeth to his Education Reform Commission, where she chairs the subcommittee on Teacher and Principal Quality and District Leadership.

Bank Street is working to improve its facilities in order to better serve students and the broader community. Under Elizabeth’s leadership, a Facilities Master Plan was completed in 2011, and facilities options are being developed for consideration by the Board of Trustees.

Progressive educational institutions have shaped Elizabeth’s academic life. Prior to her appointment at Bank Street,  she served at The New School for seventeen years. Initially Dean of The New School/General Studies, Elizabeth became Provost in 1998, stepping down to become University Professor with a faculty appointment in Milano/The New School for Management and Urban Policy. There she resumed her research activities related to adult development. Prior to her service at The New School, she held faculty and administrative posts at Antioch University, initially at the Keene, New Hampshire “campus,” and then in New York.

A graduate of Lake Forest College in 1967 with a B.A. in Art History, Elizabeth completed the M.Ed and Ed.D from the University of Massachusetts/Amherst where she studied educational psychology. In addition, she held a two-year postdoctoral fellowship in the Yale University Medical School Department of Psychiatry from 1978-80 where she worked with Dan Levinson on his Adult Development Research Project.