Tribute to Retiring Faculty
Sunday, May 25, 2025
by Brian Daly, Interim Dean of the Faculty
Good morning, everybody. Commencement is a day of transition for more than just our graduating seniors. Today, we’re going to recognize eight members of Vassar’s faculty who completed their long and dedicated tenure of service to the College this year. This is a moment to celebrate their accomplishments and to express our gratitude for their many contributions to the Vassar community during the decades they have spent on our campus. As an Interim Dean of the Faculty who never really expected to be up here addressing all of you from this front row here—I’m usually back there—it is one of the greatest honors of my career to be the one honoring these faculty colleagues.
I will share brief tributes to the eight outstanding faculty members marking their retirement transitions today, and we will let these eight stand as representatives of the many, many distinguished faculty who have touched the lives of today’s graduates.
To my colleagues who are in attendance today, when I read your name, I ask you to stand to be recognized. To the faculty and students, friends and family in attendance, I ask for your applause at the conclusion of my remarks, which I hope will resonate in the hearts of the faculty we recognize today with deep gratitude.
Paul Ruud, Professor of Economics
Paul arrived at Vassar in 2008 and served as Professor of Economics for 17 years. He was also a member of the faculty at the University of California at Berkeley from 1981–2008. Paul inspired many students (including a current member of Vassar’s faculty) to move on in the field of econometrics—the subfield that uses mathematics and statistics to advance our understanding of economics. Paul would even teach Vassar’s most advanced students from his own econometrics textbook, An Introduction to Classical Econometric Theory, a book widely used in PhD programs. He also taught courses on climate change and economics as it relates to our environment.
Paul’s areas of expertise within econometrics are discrete choice models and semi parametric estimation, work which touched on: environmental economics, public finance, labor economics, and law. He is author or co-author of more than 40 research and review articles in top economics journals.
Paul also lent his considerable talents to academic leadership roles: He served as an elected member of the Benefits committee, the Committee on Curricular Policies, and the Faculty Policy and Conference Committee. He was Department Chair in Economics—and Paul served on the hiring committee that brought us President Bradley in 2017.
Paul, for your contributions to the field of economics, to the Vassar community, and for helping us to find Betsy Bradley and get her to come here—thanks!
Denise Walen, Professor of Drama
Denise arrived at Vassar in 1996 and served 29 years in the Drama Department. Her courses drew on her expertise in the Early Modern period and the original staging practices of the Elizabethan theater. She was also a member of Vassar’s Women, Feminist, and Queer Studies Program.
Denise is a Shakespearean scholar at the intersection of feminism and stage performance, and is the author of more than 20 articles, reviews, and book chapters. She is the author of the monograph Constructions of Female Homoeroticism in Early Modern Drama. In 2013, Denise curated an exhibition for the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC and worked at the Globe Theater in London. She was also a member of the Editorial Board for Shakespeare in Performance: Prompt Books from the Folger Shakespeare Library.
Denise served more than once as Chair of the Drama Department and was truly devoted to College-wide service, including twelve years as faculty secretary! She was also Dean of First Year students and Advisor to the Class of 2014, and she served on the Faculty Appointments and Salary Committee, the Faculty Policy and Conference Committee, the Fellowships committee, and many more.
Denise, I thank you for many years of College leadership benefiting both students and faculty alike, and for providing a feminist perspective on the history of Shakespeare performance.
Peipei Qiu, Professor and Chair of Chinese and Japanese on the L.B. Dale & A. Lichtenstein Chair
Peipei Qiu arrived at Vassar in 1994 and taught Japanese language, literature, and culture for 31 years. In 10 of those 31 years, she served as Chair of the Department of Chinese and Japanese. She also participated in Asian Studies and the Women, Feminist, and Queer Studies Program, and her many courses include Women in Japanese and Chinese Literature, and Masterpieces of Japanese Literature.
Peipei is a specialist in classical Japanese literature. Her research focuses on comparative studies of Japanese and Chinese poetry, Daoism, and women in Asian societies. A prolific author of articles, translations, and reviews on those topics, she also published, in 2013, a book tackling a brutal 20th century topic entitled Comfort Women: Testimonies of Imperial Japan’s Sex Slaves, which she later translated herself into Chinese. The book garnered awards and nominations, and one review praised it as “indispensable for teaching modern East Asian history and politics and for rethinking organized violence.”
Service to the College was a hallmark of Peipei’s career. She served on the Faculty Appointments and Salary Committee and served as a Class Advisor during the height of the COVID epidemic, even overseeing a gift of personal protective equipment from Chinese families to the students and employees who had to remain on campus. She also served on the committee that brought us President Bradley.
Thank you Peipei for more than 30 years of dedication to your students, colleagues, and scholarly work in Japanese literature and history.
Luke Harris, Professor of Political Science
Luke arrived at Vassar in 1990 and served 35 years as a faculty member in the Department of Political Science. In addition to holding a PhD, Luke holds a JD from Yale Law. Prior to Vassar, he clerked for the late A. Leon Higginbotham Jr., the Chief Judge of the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals. Students flocked to his courses in American Politics, Constitutional Law, and issues of racial justice. In his own words, his students “learn to interrogate the limits of the modern American Constitutional Democracy in so far as questions of social justice are concerned.”
Luke is a scholar of American politics, critical race theory, and constitutional law. He authored numerous critically acclaimed articles on questions of equality in contemporary America and is a frequent speaker in major forums espousing the positive impacts of affirmative action. Luke is the co-founder of the African American Policy Forum, a nationally recognized think tank that promotes public education and activism in the Black Community.
Luke also took on many leadership roles within Vassar including Director of Affirmative Action, Chair of the Political Science Department, and the Committee on Inclusion and Equity.
Luke, for your tireless efforts to encourage both Vassar students and the people of our nation to reckon with the issues of racial justice embedded in our laws and our Constitution—thanks.
Leslie Dunn, Professor of English
Leslie arrived at Vassar in 1985, and gave 40 years of service in the English Department. Her many courses include topics like Shakespeare—including adaptations, revisions, and films; early modern literature, music, culture, and women writers; and disability studies. She has long been a member of the Women, Feminist, and Queer Studies Program and the Medieval-Renaissance Studies Program.
A scholar of English Renaissance lyric poetry and music, Leslie’s research focuses on music, gender, and representation in early modern England. An expert on Shakespeare, she led a faculty study trip to the Globe Theater in 2007 and performed archival research there as well. During her time at Vassar, she published many essays and reviews and edited major volumes including the 1995 collection Embodied Voices: Representing Female Vocality in Western Culture.
Leslie has dedicated much of her time and energy to the service of students and faculty colleagues at Vassar. She served as Vassar’s Dean of Freshmen (now First-Year Students) and also as class advisor to the Class of 2010. She directed Vassar’s Learning and Teaching Center from 2003–2006 and the Women, Feminist, and Queer Studies Program from 2012–2015. More recently she served as the Co-Chair of the Library Committee and on the Faculty Appointments and Salary Committee.
Thank you, Leslie for your extraordinary record of College service and leadership, and for bringing new perspectives on Shakespeare to Vassar.
William Straus, Associate Professor of Biology
Bill Straus arrived at Vassar in 1984 and taught in the Biology Department for 41 years. Among his many courses, his specialty was teaching Developmental Biology, which he taught nearly every year.
Bill is a scholar of biochemistry and molecular biology who publishes on the topic of enzymes that allow the digestion of proteins. He has studied these processes in such diverse creatures as single-celled organisms and little skates (the latter of which he would study on research trips to Mount Desert Island Laboratory in Maine). Bill made it a priority that his research would be accessible to Vassar students, and he frequently brought his students on research trips and to national conferences.
Bill was leader and co-author of multiple institutional grants totaling more than $3 million that supported science education of Vassar students, support for Vassar students who wanted to become science teachers, and another supporting access to higher education for students from the Poughkeepsie School District. He led the Biology Department as Chair from 2014–2017—during the challenging times of Vassar’s massive science renovation project. He also served in academic leadership roles beyond his department, including Class Advisor in the Dean of Studies Office, multiple terms on Vassar’s Faculty Policy and Conference Committee, and a term as Vassar’s Faculty Director of Affirmative Action.
Thank you, Bill, for over 40 years of service and improving science education at Vassar!
Andrew Bush, Professor of Hispanic Studies
Andy Bush arrived at Vassar in 1983 and served 42 years as a Professor of Hispanic Studies. Andy also served as a faculty member in Vassar’s Multidisciplinary Program in Jewish Studies. His many courses include Muslims, Christians and Jews in Medieval Iberia, a multidisciplinary course in cultural studies; and Road Trips—a literary survey about travel in the Iberian peninsula covering 18th century to the present.
Andy’s scholarly profile is broad, covering Golden Age Spain, contemporary Peninsula literature, Spanish American literature, comparative literature and literary theories, and Jewish Studies. In 2002 he published a monograph entitled The Routes of Modernity Spanish American Poetry from the Early 18th Century to the Mid-19th Century and in 2011 he published Jewish Studies, a Theoretical Introduction. Beyond that he is the author of more than 50 articles, book chapters, reviews, and translations. And from 1987–1991 he served as Editor-in-Chief of the journal Revista de Estudios Hispanicos.
Andy was an essential contributor to the academic life of the College, serving two 3-year terms as Chair of Hispanic Studies and two 3-year terms as Director of Jewish Studies, and he also served as Director of Vassar’s Community Works program that coordinates the charitable giving to local causes of all of Vassar’s employees.
Andy, for your remarkable scholarly career and your contributions to two of Vassar’s great departments and programs, and to the College as a whole—thank you!
Jan Andrews, Associate Professor of Cognitive Science
Jan Andrews came to Vassar in 1979 as a member of Vassar’s Psychology Department and was one of the original six founding members of Vassar’s Cognitive Science Program. In 2014 she helped transform that multidisciplinary program into the department it is today. She served 46 years, the longest of the faculty being honored today.
Jan developed the first version of the Cognitive Science intermediate course on language in the 1990s and has been its sole instructor ever since, revising it annually. She also taught statistics and experimental design.
Jan is a scholar of the way that humans perceive, categorize, and learn things and published 20 scientific papers in both philosophy and cognitive science journals. Many papers were published with undergraduate co-authors that she also took to national research conferences. Her current project is a meta-analysis of a half a century of work on what happens to the mind when we learn a new way to categorize something.
Beyond her scholarly and teaching work, she has served the College in many roles: Jan served six years as Director of the Program in Cognitive Science and another three as Chair of the Department of Cognitive Science. She served four years as Dean of Freshmen from 1982–1986. And she’s has also co-chaired the College Institutional Review Board for over a decade.
Thank you, Jan, for your role in making Vassar a pioneer in the field of Cognitive Science.
These eight faculty members have completed a combined 281 years of service to Vassar College, and we will truly miss you. Thank you for sharing your passion for teaching and learning with our students. Graduates, families, friends, and colleagues, please join me in expressing our gratitude.