If not for a favorite UI faculty member, Joy Williamson-Lott isn’t the newly named dean of the University of Washington’s Graduate School.
Take it from the three-degree UI grad and forever James Anderson fan.
“James D. Anderson, better known as ‘Doc,’ in the College of Education, had the most profound effect on me,” Williamson-Lott says from Seattle. “I met him while I was an undergraduate and worked with him in a summer program between my junior and senior year.
“That’s when I decided I wanted to be a Historian of Education, just like him. I went on to get a master’s and doctorate under his direction.
“Obviously, he’s in the acknowledgements of my first book, which was based on my dissertation, but he’s also in the acknowledgements in my other two books — even though he never read a draft of them. That’s because he set the scholarly standard that I continue to follow.
“The fact that he does it with humility and an amazing sense of humor makes him even more of a role model for me. I would not be where I am professionally without having met him."
