Dr. Marjorie “Harjie” Likins, associate professor emerita of church and ministry, died Jan. 21, 2014. She was a minister, educator, and author. Harjie was a graduate of Cornell College in Iowa, Union Theological Seminary, New York, and Columbia University, where she received her Ph.D. in philosophy of religion and ethics under the direction of Dr. Reinhold Neibuhr. She remained a lifelong adherent to his liberal Christian philosophy.
Active in both the black and women’s liberation struggles, Harjie was an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ. The first half of her career spanned the entire spectrum of Christian education - nursery school, youth, campus, and adult. For five years, she was a congregational minister in Van Nuys, Calif. From 1973 until her retirement in 1998, she served at Pittsburgh Seminary.
Harjie contended, “each class out to include the creation of new friendships among students so that the bond is strengthened for the years of service to come,” Her teaching goals also involved stimulating students to develop a sense of self-worth and competence as well as arousing their intellectual curiosity.