An emigrant Cuban woman, Dr. Ana Mari Cauce may not be deemed your typical American college president.
“I hope that 10 years from now, when people close their eyes and they think about a university president, it will be a broader array of folks and that I’ll have had a part to do with that,” says Cauce, president at the University of Washington.
For the past three decades, Cauce has called the University of Washington home.
And during this time, she’s dedicated countless hours to mentoring students through higher learning because, as her father told her, “Education is the only thing that nobody can ever take away from you.”
Growing up in Miami, school had always been “a bit of a refuge — I really loved reading and being in school, and it was always a place where I felt very comfortable.”
As an undergraduate at the University of Miami, Cauce gravitated to psychology through an introductory course in which she had an “absolutely terrific instructor.” A couple of psych classes later, she ended up majoring in psychology as well as English.
In 1977, Cauce graduated a year ahead of schedule — “partly because I was anxious to get on to the next stage,” she says.
