Stanford Humanities Center
This past summer, we said farewell to our longtime colleague Susan Sebbard, who retired after a remarkable forty-year career at the Stanford Humanities Center. Friends and colleagues—including four former SHC directors—gathered on August 21 for an afternoon of fond remembrances and impassioned tributes.
“There were four full-time staff members, and you could smoke indoors,” she joked recalling when she came to the Humanities Center in 1985. Hired during the last few months of Ian Watt’s tenure, Susan has had the pleasure of working with every faculty director of the Center since its inception. She has seen the SHC flourish from a cohort of around a dozen fellows to nearly fifty, watching it become one of the largest humanities centers in the world.
“Susan has had more impact than anyone else at the Center,” said SHC Director Roland Greene at her retirement celebration. “It’s hard to adequately express our gratitude for her contributions over the years.”
Along the way, Susan has worked in a number of different roles from assistant to the directors to fellowship program administration to human resources and operations management. In her most recent role as Assistant Director, she served as the development officer and donor relations director for the Center.
In a heartfelt letter read by Brigitte Carnochan, widow of former SHC Director Bliss Carnochan, former Associate Director Charlie Junkerman recalled how he needed his daily visits with Susan—“better than any multivitamin”—to set him on the right emotional foot.
“Whatever my mood, Susan would sort me out with her genuinely deep cheerfulness, composure, hospitality, and serenity,” said Junkerman, “all classical social virtues that Susan performed with as much natural ease as breathing and smiling.”
All of us at the Center wish Susan well on her new adventures and with future opportunities.
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