Linda L. White

Dr. Linda L. White retired recently from college teaching. She was an adjunct faculty member at SHSU in the department of Psychology and Philosophy for a number of years, where she taught upper level college courses in the Department of Psychology and Philosophy, and occasionally in Criminal Justice. She considers herself primarily a death educator, though she has become increasingly interested in all facets of criminal justice issues in recent years. She earned her Ph.D. at Texas A&M University, where she wrote her dissertation on Texas’ program of Victim Offender Mediation/Dialogue in crimes of extreme violence.

Linda White's 26-year-old daughter Cathy was raped and murdered in 1986. Following this devastating loss, Mrs. White returned to college to study grief and loss in order to be able to educate others and counsel those with similar losses. Research in the area of death and dying lead her into other academic areas, primarily violence and its prevention, and finally into restorative justice. She received her BS in Psychology in 1990 and her MA in Clinical Psychology in 1994, both from Sam Houston State University.

Dr. White has written for several publications – including the Crime Victims Report – about her own experiences, restorative justice, and victims’ issues. Most recently, she contributed a chapter in an edited work entitled Wounds that do not bind: Victim-based perspectives on the death penalty. She also has spoken and presented at several conferences on these same subjects.

Dr. White has served as a volunteer mediator with the Victim Offender Mediation/Dialogue program in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and was appointed in 2003 by Governor Rick Perry of Texas to represent victims’ issues on the Texas State Council for Adult Offender Supervision. She participates in Bridges to Life, a victim-offender encounter project that brings crime victims and offenders together inside prison walls that they might see the common humanity they share, increase empathy on both sides, and help offenders to successfully re-enter society. Additionally, she speaks to groups both inside and outside of prison on victims’ issues.

She is married to John C. White, is the mother of four and grandmother of four, and lives northwest of Houston near Tomball.

(fall 2008)