Wayne State College welcomes new assistant professor Aime Hicks to the counseling department.

Hicks is originally from Atlanta, GA but moved to New York City, where she became the president of a company. Hicks said her life in the city was great, but it wasn’t the right place for her.
“Winter in New York, homeless sleep on the vents of the streets because the warm air comes up through them, ”Hicks said. “One day on my way to work I stepped over a homeless person and something didn’t feel right. If I could step over a homeless person to get my six-dollar coffee, then I knew something needed to change.”

Hicks then found herself back in Atlanta, where she decided to attend University again in order to find out what she was passionate about and what career she wanted to go into. Hicks was studying to get her Ph.D. in counseling at the time.

“That’s where I decided who I wanted to be; I knew I wanted something in the helping field,” Hicks said.

Her last semester of college is when Covid hit. Hick experienced loss during the start of COVID-19 when all the businesses she built up crashed overnight. She began to look for a job and that’s when Wayne, NE came into the picture.

Since being in Wayne, Hicks has really enjoyed getting to know the town and the people in the community. According to Hicks, she was very impressed by the qualifications and professional work of WSC’s professors.

“It’s like everyone chose to come to Wayne, not just the ones that are born and raised here,” Hicks said. “They feel like they have to stay people genuinely want to come here and I think that’s great.”

Hicks said she appreciates how Wayne has a small town feel but has everything you need, and residents never really need to leave.

According to Hicks, she feels that Wayne doesn’t have much diversity.

“Teaching people diversity is important,” Hicks said. Diversity is something that she plans to bring to Wayne and teach throughout her years here.