School Notes: Graduate School of Arts & Sciences
January/February 2012

Celebrating 150 Years of PhDs

The Graduate School was the focus of this fall’s AYA Assembly, with a daylong celebration marking the 150th anniversary of the first PhD degrees granted in North America. Highlights of the assembly included a panel, “Doctorates without Borders,” featuring a discussion of the challenges and leadership opportunities facing Graduate School alumni in the twenty-first century. Dean Thomas Pollard gave opening remarks, Provost Peter Salovey ’86PhD (psychology) moderated the discussion, and panel participants included prominent PhD alumni from various disciplines. In another session, former dean Jon Butler provided an overview of the history and mission of the Graduate School, followed by faculty panelists representing each of the three academic divisions. During breakout sessions, current students presented their ongoing research.

2011 Wilbur Cross medals

The Wilbur Lucius Cross Medal, the Graduate School’s highest honor, was awarded to four outstanding alumni on October 4 by the Graduate School Alumni Association. Stanley Fish ’62PhD (English) is one of today’s most prolific and important cultural critics. He is a distinguished university professor at Florida International University and dean emeritus of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago. This fall, he was a visiting professor of law and Oscar M. Ruebhausen Distinguished Senior Fellow at Yale Law School. Leslie F. Greengard ’87MD/PhD (computer science), professor of mathematics and computer science at New York University and director of NYU’s Courant Institute, is one of the world’s leading applied mathematicians and computational scientists. Bernice Pescosolido ’82PhD (sociology), Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Indiana University and director of the Indiana Consortium for Mental Health Services Research, is well known for her study of the processes that promote and inhibit access to medical and mental health care, especially among disadvantaged populations. Huntington F. Willard ’79PhD (genetics), the Nanaline H. Duke Professor of Genome Sciences at Duke University and the founding director of Duke’s Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy, explores the structure and function of human chromosomes and the mechanism for X-chromosome inactivation.