Throughout her professional career, Lillian Zimmerman has demonstrated her keen support of issues important to women. She has organized conferences, written articles and published reports dedicated to educating and informing women. For decades Lillian has presented to a range of audiences at conferences, workshops, and community events locally, provincially and nationally.
Lillian holds a B.A. in sociology from Simon Fraser University and an M.S.W. from the University of British Columbia, where she graduated as Outstanding Student of the Master Class in 1980. In the late sixties, Lillian trained in Adult Education (currently known as Lifelong Learning) with the renowned John Friesen and his then-model Department of University Extension at UBC. During this time she pioneered what was likely a first-ever continuing education course for women “Women Against Myth”. She also initiated travel education.
In 1971 she became a faculty member of the Liberal Arts Department at Douglas College in New Westminster B.C., latterly as head of the Continuing and Community Education Department. At Douglas College a great deal of her programming focused on women’s concerns. In addition to designing many conferences, workshops and other programs Lillian worked towards the establishment of a Women’s Studies program, one of the first of its kind among Canadian community colleges in the seventies.
She represented Canada at a UNESC0 Conference in the eighties, presenting the report for Canada on the topic of “Non-Traditional Work for Women.” In 1998 she served a three year term on the Province of BC.’s Seniors Advisory Council, heading a task force and conducting a study for a published provincial position paper “Perspectives on Older Women in B.C.:Socio-Economic Change in the making.”
After her retirement from Douglas College, Lillian became a Research Associate with the Gerontology Research Center at Simon Fraser University, where she remains today. Specializing in gender issues her emphasis being on social policy in regards to women, with respect to pensions, retirement and late life security. In 1993 she organized an innovative conference entitled ‘Rethinking Retirement’ bringing early attention to what is now a mainstream concern. She developed a close liaison with the late Ellen Gee, a highly respected SFU social demographer who worked with her to organize a major conference ‘The Overselling of Population Aging: Apocalyptic Demography, Intergenerational Challenges and Social Policy’ the proceedings of which were published by Oxford University Press in 2000. The book is widely cited. In October, 2008 Lillian presented a paper to the Canadian Association on Gerontology’s Annual Conference in London, Ontario on ‘The New Ageisms: No Country for Old Women.’ Now in the latter part of her career, consonant with her lifelong dedication to raising awareness among women, she has written ‘Baglady or Powerhouse: A Roadmap for Midlife (Boomer)Women’ published in April, 2009. On December 2/10 she was invited by the three ministries Responsible for Seniors to participate on a panel “Spotlight on Images of Aging in Montreal, Quebec.
Lillian will have an essay in a new book “I Feel Great about my Hands” edited by the well-known writer Shari Graydon. It is a collection of essays from older women about their experiences of aging. Her section is called “No Country for Old Women.” The book will appear in the Spring of 2011.