Former UW Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences Robert Stacey to deliver address for classes of 2020 and 2021 on June 12
April 22, 2022
Former UW Dean of the College or university of Arts & Sciences Robert Stacey will converse to the graduates of the lessons of 2020 and 2021 when they return to Alaska Airlines Discipline at Husky Stadium for an in-particular person celebration on Sunday, June 12.
Commencement ceremonies ended up held almost in 2020 and 2021 owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. This calendar year, the UW is web hosting two in-particular person ceremonies: the initially for the graduating Course of 2022 on June 11, and the 2nd for graduates of the classes of 2020 and 2021 on June 12. Tony Award-successful actor and producer Ron Simons will discuss at the ceremony on June 11.
Stacey is a veteran of the UW, serving additional than 3 decades in teaching and leadership positions. He was dean of the College or university of Arts & Sciences, the university’s most significant school, from 2013 right up until his retirement in 2021, through which time he aided defeat lots of of the challenges introduced on by the pandemic, such as the fast adaptation to remote learning. He commenced his profession training at Yale University right before transferring to the UW in 1988.
His pedagogy was celebrated with distinguished instructing awards at the two Yale and the UW, and he’s held quite a few positions in his UW career together with chair of the Record 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’s Advisory Committee on Intercollegiate Athletics. Presently, he’s instructing the UW men’s soccer crew about Scottish background, politics and independence in advance of a summer time match that will be performed there.
“As a chief, scholar and teacher, Bob has contributed so considerably to our excellent public university, specifically during the most hard many years of the pandemic,” said UW President Ana Mari Cauce. “So, it is unbelievably significant and fitting that he will deal with our graduating lessons of 2020 and 2021 as they return to campus for the in-individual celebration of their degrees that we have been anticipating for so long.”
Stacey, a specialist in medieval historical past, designs to chat about the entire world that these graduates inherited: one in which the U.S. has been at war and college students have grappled with inequality and indebtedness, all exacerbated by COVID.
“I’m likely to attempt to leave them with a sense of how much we, as a nation, have to have this group of pupils, their ordeals, their electrical power, their commitment, their feeling that there needs to be elementary adjustments in this nation and the greater entire world,” Stacey stated. “They’re essential, they issue. It’s been rough for these lessons, but they’ve arrive by means of it. They’ve proven on their own and the entire world a ton of resilience, and they’re heading to need to have that heading forward.”
A lot more than 4,000 graduates from the 2020 and 2021 several years have expressed interest in returning to Seattle to mark their tutorial achievements, and officers assume tens of 1000’s of spectators.
Savanna Yee, who graduated with a double degree in computer system science and informatics in 2020, claimed she programs to take part in the June 12 event.
“I didn’t go to a higher university graduation, so I’m genuinely wanting forward to sporting the cap and robe and walking throughout a major phase for the 1st time in my everyday living,” she mentioned.
Yee now is pursuing a master’s in pc science at UW. She’s pleased that the college kept its word to host a exclusive ceremony for the two lessons that celebrated graduation online. Whilst it will be great to reunite with classmates and use the purple and gold, she’s most fired up to involve the people today who matter most in her accomplishment.
“I’m also really seeking forward to sharing in the festivities with my household, because they had been wholly liable for making this probable for me,” Yee said.
Stacey mentioned that he’s humbled to cap his long profession at the UW by addressing pupils like Yee, her household and the community.
“I arrived to the UW for the reason that I wished to teach at a public study institution, wherever college students, if they did very well, could go on any where in the earth. There are not many of individuals spots. UW is a single of the number of and they’re pretty treasured,” Stacey stated. “It’s normally been an honor for me to be section of the University of Washington. I want to send students away with some of that same experience on their component much too, that it actually is a unique put. There are not a lot of destinations like it in the state, they are treasured and they require to be supported and, from time to time, defended.”
Tag(s): University of Arts & Sciences • Graduation • Robert Stacey