A teacher and author who was instrumental in Lane Community College’s Women in Transition program will be celebrated Saturday with a public memorial.
DiMarco grew up in Springfield and went on to get her masters and PhD in counseling psychology at the University of Oregon. She is known for developing LCC’s Women in Transitions program and writing its curriculum. Her colleague, Patsy Raney, said you can’t overestimate the DiMarco’s impact.
“In terms of the lives of the students that went through that program,” Raney said. “And if you talk to any of them, almost any of them, they will tell you it was a life changing experience in a very positive way.”
DiMarco led Women in Transition for nearly 30 years. Raney told KLCC, DiMarco developed it into a nationally recognized program.
“Women could come into the program with any kind of self-defined transition,” Raney said. “A life transition, maybe after divorce, the death of a spouse, leaving an abusive situation, having children, finding themselves heads of household, to older women who had degrees that found themselves at a change point in their lives.”
More than 7,000 women have graduated from the WIT program.
Cara DiMarco died in August. An LCC scholarship is being set up in her name. A celebration of DiMarco’s life is on December 4th from 2-4 p.m. at Campbell Community Center in Eugene.
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