Former Dean of the School of Foreign Service Carol Lancaster (SFS ‘64) passed away on Wednesday at the age of 72, according to an email from President John DeGioia. Dean Lancaster had stepped down as SFS dean last year after being diagnosed with a brain tumor. After stepping down, the SFS board of visitors voted to create a scholarship in her honor for graduate students in the SFS Global Human Development program.
“She touched so many lives as an exceptional colleague, teacher, mentor and friend throughout her nearly three and a half decades at Georgetown,” President DeGioia wrote in his campus-wide email on Wednesday. “Her passion for our university—for our students, their growth and our mission—was unparalleled, and we were all deeply fortunate to have had the chance to be in her presence.”
Lancaster served as SFS dean from 2010 until April of last year. Since Lancaster’s diagnosis in November 2013, James Reardon-Anderson, previously the senior associate dean, has served as interim SFS dean.
As a graduate of the SFS herself, Dean Lancaster worked in the U.S. State Department before returning to Georgetown in 1996. Lancaster, both a dean and professor, had a great connection with her students, which her colleagues remember well.
“There were times when she’d notice that a student wasn’t well—tired, stressed out, hadn’t done well on a paper. She’d come into my office and ask how she could help the student—what did we know about the student, what resources could she direct the student to,” wrote Emily Zenick, associate dean in the SFS, in an email to the Voice. “And I thought—how remarkable—this insanely busy woman running a school is making this individual student a priority in her day.”
Before Lancaster stepped down, she began a new project on ethics, according to a webpage commemorating her life which President DeGioia sent in his email. She hoped to find ways to “better incorporate ethical thinking and decision-making inside and outside the classroom,” wrote SFS Associate Dean Jennifer Windsor on the page. The memorial page did not indicate whether other university faculty planned to continue Lancaster’s work.
A memorial service to honor Lancaster will take place this Sunday in Gaston Hall at 3 p.m.
Photo by Georgetown University
