David Vassar currently serves as assistant dean for professional and corporate programs at Rice University’s Susanne M. Glasscock School of Continuing Studies in Houston, Texas, where he oversees a wide variety of professional development offerings for adult professionals in the Houston community and beyond. This is David’s second stint at Rice University, having served as senior assistant to the president and associate vice president for global affairs from 2007-2016, a role in which he was a primary advisor and project manager for Rice President David Leebron on matters related to constituency communication, faculty and student engagement, international relations and general office administration. In between those two roles, David was director of programs at CONTEX, a binational research and graduate education center jointly funded by Mexico’s CONACYT and the University of Texas System Board of Regents.
“I recall UVA’s SIP department as a place that welcomed me unconditionally and provided the community and warmth of the cultures studied in the department, along with an exacting yet imaginative rigor for the work undertaken in literary and cultural criticism. This serious and generous approach to graduate education has served me well throughout a somewhat non-traditional path through higher education ever since, especially when interfacing with faculty and academics from the many disciplines that make up the university.”