Former 91探花Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences 听will speak to the graduates of the classes of 2020 and 2021 when they return to Alaska Airlines Field at Husky Stadium for an in-person celebration on Sunday, June 12.

Commencement ceremonies were held virtually in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This year, the 91探花is hosting two in-person ceremonies: the first for the graduating Class of 2022 on June 11, and the second for graduates of the classes of 2020 and 2021 on June 12. Tony Award-winning actor and producer Ron Simons will speak at the ceremony on June 11.

Stacey is a veteran of the UW, serving more than three decades in teaching and leadership positions. A professor of history, he was dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, the university鈥檚 largest college, from 2013 until his retirement in 2021, during which time he helped overcome many of the challenges brought on by the pandemic, including the rapid adaptation to remote learning. He began his career teaching at Yale University before moving to the 91探花in 1988.

His pedagogy was celebrated with distinguished teaching awards at both Yale and the UW, and he鈥檚 held numerous positions in his 91探花career including chair of the History and Jewish Studies departments, divisional dean of arts and humanities and of social sciences. He has served on the Faculty Senate and headed the UW鈥檚 Advisory Committee on Intercollegiate Athletics. Currently, he鈥檚 teaching the 91探花men鈥檚 soccer team about Scottish history, politics and independence in advance of a summer tournament that will be played there.

鈥淎s a leader, scholar and teacher, Bob has contributed so much to our great public university, particularly during the most difficult years of the pandemic,鈥� said 91探花President Ana Mari Cauce. 鈥淪o, it鈥檚 incredibly meaningful and fitting that he will address our graduating classes of 2020 and 2021 as they return to campus for the in-person celebration of their degrees that we have been anticipating for so long.鈥�

Stacey, a specialist in medieval history, plans to talk about the world that these graduates inherited: one where the U.S. has been at war and students have grappled with inequality and indebtedness, all exacerbated by COVID.

鈥淚’m going to try to leave them with a sense of how much we, as a country, need this group of students, their experiences, their energy, their commitment, their sense that there needs to be fundamental changes in this country and the larger world,鈥� Stacey said. 鈥淭hey’re important, they matter. It’s been tough for these classes, but they’ve come through it. They’ve shown themselves and the world a lot of resilience, and they’re going to need that going forward.鈥�

More than 4,000 graduates from the 2020 and 2021 years have expressed interest in returning to Seattle to mark their academic success, and officials expect tens of thousands of spectators.

Savanna Yee, who graduated with a double degree in computer science and informatics in 2020, said she plans to participate in the June 12 event.

鈥淚 didn’t go to a high school graduation, so I’m really looking forward to wearing the cap and gown and walking across a big stage for the first time in my life,鈥� she said.

Yee now is pursuing a master鈥檚 in computer science at UW. She鈥檚 pleased that the university kept its word to host a special ceremony for the two classes that celebrated graduation online. While it will be great to reunite with classmates and wear the purple and gold, she鈥檚 most excited to include the people who matter most in her achievement.

鈥淚’m also really looking forward to sharing in the festivities with my family, since they were wholly responsible for making this possible for me,鈥� Yee said.

Stacey said that he鈥檚 humbled to cap his long career at the 91探花by addressing students like Yee, her family and the community.

鈥淚 came to the 91探花because I wanted to teach at a public research institution, where students, if they did well, could go on anywhere in the world. There aren’t many of those places. 91探花is one of the few and they’re very precious,鈥� Stacey said. 鈥淚t’s always been an honor for me to be part of the 91探花. I want to send students away with some of that same feeling on their part too, that it really is a special place. There are not many places like it in the country, they’re precious and they need to be supported and, sometimes, defended.鈥�

Harris succeeds Dean , who is .

She currently is a senior program officer in The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation鈥檚 Higher Learning program, where her responsibilities include program leadership, strategic framework generation, grantmaking innovation, program staff supervision and the collaborative allocation of a grantmaking budget of $115 million to $130 million per year. Prior to that, Harris was dean of the College of Humanities and a history professor at the University of Utah.

鈥淲hile at the University of Utah, Dr. Harris substantially increased the number of underrepresented tenure-line faculty and generated retention-oriented programs. She raised the research profile of the college, supported the creation of a digital humanities center and supported a number of undergraduate student success initiatives,鈥� Richards said. 鈥淭hroughout her career, Dr. Harris has been a tireless supporter of the humanities, and her track record of scholarly and administrative work reflects her commitment to expanding access, diversity, equity and inclusion in higher education.鈥�

At the Mellon Foundation, Harris鈥� grantmaking portfolio includes leadership of a range of initiatives with a social justice and access-oriented focus, including higher education in prison, community college transfer pathways and the reimagined humanities doctorate in the 21st century. Her work also includes programs on diversifying higher education leadership, building a more diverse academy, and supporting American Indian and Indigenous studies and tribal colleges, scholars at risk and in exile, and the Just Futures Initiative competition.

She also leads the annual New Directions Fellowship competition and a range of initiatives on the public humanities, interdisciplinary programs and public research universities. Just prior to the 2016 presidential election, she was nominated by President Barack Obama to serve on the National Council on the Humanities, although her nomination was suspended due to the results of that election.

“I am thrilled and humbled by the opportunity to lead this outstanding college within a university I have long admired for its exemplary leadership, and for its excellence in every facet of the academic mission.听My deepest personal and career commitments have been to the public universities that have meant so much to me, to my family, and to the lives of so many others,听so it’s a particular joy for me to be joining the UW,鈥� Harris said. 鈥淭he breadth and depth of excellence that resides among the many facets of the College of Arts and Sciences and 鈥攎ost importantly 鈥� among its faculty, students, and staff is breathtaking, and their work results in听the innovative production of new knowledge our world and our students need now,听more than ever. As someone who has embraced collaboration and interdisciplinary scholarship throughout her career, I’m particularly pleased to be听stepping into this leadership role in a college that is replete with such opportunities, and where students and faculty are tackling some of the thorniest grand challenge issues of our time from a wide range of perspectives and approaches.”

Her scholarship, which has a broad temporal and geographic reach spanning from 18th-century Lombardy to postwar United States, is united by a sustained focus on the relationship between the built environment and the construction of racial and class identities. An interdisciplinary scholar whose work focuses on visual and material culture as well as histories of the built environment, she is particularly well known for her scholarly contributions to the study of race and space. In addition to her many essays and scholarly articles, she is the sole author of three monographs, editor of an additional three volumes and a series editor for the University of Pittsburgh Press.

As a principal investigator for many grants, she has fostered interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation in the humanities, such as the creation of the 鈥淗umanities Without Walls鈥� consortium, which includes support for cross-institutional research collaboration, and an innovative program of summer workshops for predoctoral students in the humanities who wish to seek careers outside the academy.

Harris earned her doctorate in architecture and history of architecture, master鈥檚 degree in architecture and bachelor鈥檚 degree with a major in landscape architecture, all at the University of California, Berkeley.

The 91探花鈥檚 , or CSDE, along with partners in the Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences and the , is among eight awardees across the country selected to develop training programs in advanced data analytics for population health through the National Institutes of Health鈥檚 Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research.

This five-year, $1.8 million training program at the 91探花will fund 25 academic-year graduate fellowships, develop a new training curriculum and contribute to methodological advances in health research at the intersection of demography and data science.

The new training program will be led by , assistant professor of sociology, and will build on CSDE鈥檚 graduate certificate in demographic methods by integrating training in advanced statistics and computational methods.

The inaugural cohort will begin the program in October and is composed of graduate students Ian Kennedy, Neal Marquez and Crystal Yu, all in sociology; Emily Pollock in anthropology; and Aja Sutton in geography.

鈥淥ur faculty are at the forefront of research programs grounded in advanced data analytics,鈥� said Robert Stacey, dean of the UW鈥檚 College of Arts and Sciences. 鈥淭his grant recognizes the important interdisciplinary work happening across the UW, and particularly in the social sciences, to build this knowledge into much-needed education and training programs.鈥�

, associate professor of sociology and statistics, and , professor of statistics and biostatistics, led听the grant application with support from , director of the CSDE and a professor of international studies, public policy and sociology, along with faculty affiliated with CSDE, CSSS and the eScience Institute.

The NIH review praised UW鈥檚 plans. 鈥淭he leadership team has well-established credentials, complementary expertise, and a strong track record and the proposed program builds on an existing program with demonstrable record of success,鈥� noted reviewers. 鈥淭he curriculum 鈥� which offers coursework in statistical methods, machine learning, coding, databases, data visualization and data ethics 鈥� is well-thought-out and will provide trainees with numerous immersive opportunities.鈥�

This funding was designed to fill educational gaps and needs in the behavioral and social sciences research community that are not being addressed by existing educational opportunities, according to the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research. The other institutions awarded similar grants include Emory University; Johns Hopkins University; Stanford University; University of Arkansas Medical Center; the University of California, Berkeley; UC San Diego; and UC San Francisco. More information about the national initiative can be found .

For more information, contact Curran at scurran@uw.edu or Almquist at zalmquist@uw.edu.

Adapted from information provided by the 91探花Center for Studies in Demography & Ecology.

But McCabe, professor of piano in the 91探花 School of Music and creator of the concert series, was also struck by how powerful, passionate music arose from this era nonetheless 鈥� that even in such dark times, “the creative spirit does not hunker down and hide.”

Indeed, it can soar 鈥� as those who attend the three-afternoon concert series will hear for themselves. The concerts, featuring performers from throughout the school, are at 4:30 p.m. on Dec. 7, 2014, and March 8 and May 3, 2015, all in Brechemin Auditorium.

“I think the emergence of beauty in adverse times is fascinating,” McCabe said. “You can take it to our time. What was the impulse after 9-11? It was to make music across the country.

“So here are these artists, who are contemplating something on a scale they’ve never seen 鈥� mass atrocity, mass brutality 鈥� and they turn to their creativity, and this is what they hope will endure.”

“Music from the War to End All Wars” presents pieces from composers who were working a century ago at the outbreak of World War I, though some would have preferred side arms to sheet music had circumstances allowed.

“Quite a few of these composers enlisted as soldiers or tried to enlist,” McCabe said. “Ravel 鈥� his health was not good enough, but they let him drive an ambulance.”

In her research, McCabe ran across a letter from Maurice Ravel to composer Maurice Delage written in 1914, a few days before Ravel tried to enlist in the Army Air Corps, even as he was starting to write the trio for piano, violin and cello. That composition that will be heard in the March concert.

“I’m working, yes,” he wrote. “I’m working with an insane certainty and lucidity. But, during that time, the blues are at work, too and I find myself sobbing over my sharps and flats!”

Each of the Sunday afternoons of music will be preceded by a lecture. Professor of history and 91探花College of Arts and Sciences Dean Robert Stacey will talk on Dec. 7, Philosophy Professor Ron Moore on March 8 and Steven Morrison, professor of music education, on May 3.

McCabe said faculty graciously supported the idea of the series and suggested pieces to play and students whose talents they thought would fit well with the theme. She said she appreciates the fact that students from different areas of the School of Music are brought together for these performances.

• The Dec. 7 concert will take up the music of (1862-1918) and (1876-1946) as well as (1878-1938).
• The March 8, 2015, concert will explore the music of (1875-1937), (1881-1945) and (1891-1953).
• The May 3, 2015, concert will end the series with more from Debussy and De Falla, as well as pieces by (1874-1954) and (1872-1958).

McCabe said she’s been pleased with audience reactions to two previous series: “French Connections” in 2011 celebrated the 150^th anniversary of Debussy’s birth, and last year, “Circle of Friends” took up the music of Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn, Robert and Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms.

“They come to all three because they like the contextualization. And I find that when I speak to audiences, a little bit of context 鈥� the nuances that surrounded the creative process 鈥� gives it another dimension.”

She said she likes to put together a concert program something like a good dinner.

“Some hors d’oeuvres and some main courses,” she said, “so that the courses play upon each other to the best effect.”

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