Tribute to Retiring Faculty
Sunday, May 19, 2024
by William Hoynes, Dean of the Faculty
Commencement is a day of transition for more than just our graduating seniors. Today, we recognize three 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.
I share brief tributes to the three outstanding faculty members marking their retirement transitions today, representing the many distinguished faculty–many of them up here–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, 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.
Jon Chenette, Professor of Music on the George Sherman Dickinson Chair
Professor Chenette came to Vassar in 2008 as Dean of the Faculty and Professor of Music. He served as Dean until 2019, and he generously served as Acting President of the College in Spring 2013 and as Interim President from July 2016 to June 2017. During his time as Dean of the Faculty, Jon oversaw the development of the College’s new curricular initiative that created “intensives,” and he co-authored and served as Principal Investigator or Co-Principal Investigator on several successful grants funded by the Mellon Foundation, including the Engaged Pluralism Initiative and the Community-Engaged Intensives in the Humanities project. Since 2019, Jon has been Professor of Music, and he was named the George Sherman Dickson Chair in Music in 2020.
Jon is a composer whose music often focuses on relationships between people and the land. His compositions have involved collaborations with writers, dancers, folk musicians, farmers, visual artists, and museums, as well as with performing ensembles. His work includes a powerful September 11 memorial composition Elegy and Affirmation and, more recently, the piano solo Serenity, which was performed at Vassar’s MODfest last year. Jon is the recipient of many prestigious grants and fellowships, including from the MacDowell Colony, the Iowa Arts Council, the American Music Center, and the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center in Bellagio, Italy.
Jon is a genuinely innovative teacher who was a pioneer in implementing student peer-review practices to support the development of student writing. He taught courses in music theory and regularly mentored student composers on independent projects. His popular first-year writing seminar explored some of the many adaptations of musically rich myths from ancient Greece, and included an exciting class trip to New York to see the Broadway hit show Hadestown.
Thank you, Jon, for your wise and generous leadership here at Vassar. Your deep commitment to the liberal arts leaves an enduring legacy. We will always cherish the creativity, care, and commitment you shared with your students and colleagues for these past 16 years.
Jeff Walker, Professor of Earth Science
Professor Walker joined Vassar’s Geology and Geography Department, now the Department of Earth Science and Geography, in 1988, where he served as Chair or Associate Chair for a total of more than 15 years. He is the recipient of many honors, including grants from the National Science Foundation, the American Chemical Society, and the Pew Science Program. Professor Walker’s Fall 2009 Convocation address, “The Local,” remains one of the most memorable Convocation speeches in my 30+ years at Vassar.
Jeff is a specialist in the study of clay minerals, agricultural sustainability, and the agricultural heritage of the mid-Hudson region. He is renowned for his scholarship on John Burroughs, who was a pioneer of the new school of nature writing and among the most widely read authors of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Jeff served as President of the John Burroughs Association, and his book, Signs and Seasons, provides fresh insight into Burroughs’s work and makes it relevant for 21st-century readers.
Jeff taught courses on: Field Geology of the Hudson Valley, showing students how to look carefully at what surrounds them; Earth Materials, teaching students how to use advanced instruments to discern the chemical makeup of rocks and minerals; and Soils, utilizing the Vassar Farm as a valuable learning resource for students. And Jeff led numerous weeklong study trips for earth science students to far-flung places, including California’s Eastern Sierra, Big Bend National Park in West Texas, and the Pacific Northwest to study the complex geologic histories of those regions.
Jeff essentially created the College’s invaluable Sustainability Committee when he initiated SWAPR: Students With a Purpose, Recycling, whose members collected valuable personal items that would otherwise be left in dorm rooms—couches, clothing, coffee tables, lamps—for pickup and use by local community service organizations. And Jeff was one of the core group of faculty members who launched the Environmental Studies Development Project that later grew into our currently thriving Environmental Studies Program.
Thank you, Jeff, for your deep commitment to the College and the local community for the past 36 years. All of us, your students and colleagues, deeply appreciate and will never forget your integrity, kindness, humility, and generosity.
Stuart Belli, Associate Professor of Chemistry
Professor Belli joined Vassar’s Chemistry Department in 1986. He served as Chair of the Chemistry Department and Director of the Environmental Studies Program, where he led a major curricular revision. In addition, Professor Belli served as Coordinator of the Environmental Research Institute, and, earlier in his career, as a Class Advisor in the Dean of Studies office.
Stuart’s scholarly work is in analytical chemistry; he specializes in developing methods for generating and measuring the superoxide ion, with his recent work investigating the antioxidation properties of natural compounds in food. He has worked with a multidisciplinary group of research collaborators, including Vassar colleagues in Chemistry, Biology, Earth Science, and Sociology. Stuart was part of an interdisciplinary team of Vassar researchers and colleagues in Italy who published a fascinating paper that demonstrated the healing powers and health benefits of extra-virgin olive oil. I encourage you to read it. His recent research has been published in prestigious journals, including the International Journal of Molecular Sciences and Food Chemistry, and he has received grants from the National Science Foundation and the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation.
As a teacher, Stuart is known for his deep engagement with, and respect for, his students. He is dedicated to teaching students the process of science and to understanding the complexity and creativity of scientific work. His interest in environmental science is motivated by a commitment to understanding human relationship to the environment. He regularly taught the Chemistry Department’s advanced course on Instrumental Analysis, and he taught a wonderfully innovative senior capstone course for the Environmental Studies Program. In addition, Stuart developed and taught Environmental Studies courses on Climate Change, Risk, and Global Sustainability, and he regularly mentored student independent research and supervised senior thesis projects in chemistry and environmental studies.
Thank you, Stuart, for sharing your collaborative spirit and your unyielding optimism with the Vassar community for the past 38 years. Your many dedicated students will always remember your wisdom, creativity, and care.
The three of you have completed a combined 90 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 and colleagues, please join me in expressing our gratitude.
Thank you.