diff --git a/README.rst b/README.rst
index 0e43d00..65f52f9 100644
--- a/README.rst
+++ b/README.rst
@@ -39,6 +39,11 @@ License
 Changelog
 ~~~~~~~~~
 
+-  v0.7.5
+
+   -  Fix an issue where dictionary attributes (like ``jtEnvironment``) could
+      encounter ``UnicodeDecodeError``s upon assignment.
+
 -  v0.7.4
    
    -  Switch to using preferred encoding from ``locale`` module for converting 
diff --git a/drmaa/helpers.py b/drmaa/helpers.py
index 2fdeb52..8212e8f 100644
--- a/drmaa/helpers.py
+++ b/drmaa/helpers.py
@@ -200,8 +200,13 @@ def __init__(self, name):
         self.name = name
 
     def __set__(self, instance, value):
-        v = ["{0}={1}".format(k, v).encode(ENCODING) for (k, v) in
-             value.items()]
+        v = []
+        for k, v in value.items():
+            if isinstance(k, bytes):
+                k = k.decode(ENCODING)
+            if isinstance(v, bytes):
+                v = v.decode(ENCODING)
+            v.append("{0}={1}".format(k, v).encode(ENCODING))
         c(drmaa_set_vector_attribute, instance, self.name,
           string_vector(v))
 
diff --git a/drmaa/version.py b/drmaa/version.py
index fd8c1f4..5ba4a2b 100644
--- a/drmaa/version.py
+++ b/drmaa/version.py
@@ -22,5 +22,5 @@
 :author: Dan Blanchard (dblanchard@ets.org)
 '''
 
-__version__ = '0.7.4'
+__version__ = '0.7.5'
 VERSION = tuple(int(x) for x in __version__.split('.'))
diff --git a/test/testwrap.py b/test/testwrap.py
index f0972b5..6ad4f5e 100644
--- a/test/testwrap.py
+++ b/test/testwrap.py
@@ -61,7 +61,7 @@ class SubmitBase(unittest.TestCase):
     def setUp(self):
         self.jt = jt = Session.createJobTemplate()
         jt.remoteCommand = 'python'
-        jt.args = ['-c', "print 'hello from python!'"]
+        jt.args = ['-c', "print('hello from python!')"]
         if hasattr(self, 'jt_tweaks'):
             self.jt_tweaks()
         self.jid = Session.runJob(jt)