Arts & Sciences Recognizes 19 Retiring Faculty
(L to R) Professors James W. Ceaser (Politics), Eric Turkheimer (Psychology) and Mohammad Sawaie (Middle Eastern & South Asian Languages & Cultures) were among the 19 Arts & Sciences faculty members who retired during the 2025-26 academic year.
The end of the 2025-26 academic year marked the conclusions of the University of Virginia careers of 19 distinguished faculty members retiring from the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. Among them, 13 faculty members retired with 21 or more years of service to the University of Virginia, including three — James W. Ceaser, professor of politics; Mohammad Sawaie, professor of Arabic; and Eric Turkheimer, professor of Psychology — who served as members of the A&S faculty for 40 or more years.
The complete list of A&S faculty who retired during the 2025-26 academic year follows:
- James W. Ceaser, Professor, Department of Politics, 50 years of service
- Mohammed Sawaie, Professor, Department of Middle Eastern & South Asian Languages & Cultures, 45 years of service
- Eric Turkheimer, Professor, Department of Psychology, 40 years of service
- Deborah McDowell, Professor, Department of English, 39 years of service
- Stephen Macko, Professor, Department of Environmental Sciences, 36 years of service
- John Imbrie, Professor, Department of Mathematics, 35 years of service
- Carol Mershon, Professor, Department of Politics, 33 years of service
- John Unsworth, Dean of Libraries Emeritus; Professor, Department of English, 33 years of service
- James Landers, Professor, Department of Chemistry, 27 years of service
- Shawn Lyons, Assistant Professor and Advising Dean (General Faculty), 26 years of service
- James Livingood, Assistant Professor, General Faculty, Department of English, 25 years of service
- Cora Schenberg, Associate Professor, General Faculty, Department of Germanic Languages & Literatures 22 years
- Shu-Chen Chen, Associate Professor, General Faculty, East Asian Languages, Literatures & Cultures, 21 years of service
- William Little, Associate Professor, General Faculty, Department of Media Studies, 19 years of service
- Kath Weston, Professor, Department of Anthropology, 18 years of service
- Benjamin Huggins, Associate Research Professor, Papers of George Washington, 17 years of service
- Gary Ferguson, Professor, Department of French, 12 years of service
- Debjani Ganguly, Professor, Department of English, 10 years of service
- Anthony Corbeill, Professor, Department of Classics, nine years of service