Longtime Harvard Social Studies Director Anya Bassett Remembered As ‘Greatest Mentor’
Anya E. B. Bassett, Harvard’s longtime director of undergraduate studies for Social Studies, died suddenly on Aug. 13. She was 56.
Despite being surrounded by thousands of seniors and faculty marching into Harvard Yard for Commencement, Anya E. B. Bassett — who often used a chair during speeches to compensate for her height — was never lost in the crowd.
“Whenever I was able to attend Commencement, I marched with Anya through the gatherings of graduating seniors. It was thrilling to hear dozens of them shout her name, give her enthusiastic hugs, to show their respect and their gratitude for all she had done for them--and for what she meant to them,” James T. Kloppenberg, a History professor, wrote in an email.
Bassett, who served as the director of undergraduate studies for the Social Studies concentration for 21 years until last year, was described by former students and colleagues as a caring instructor and a lifelong mentor and friend whose warmth radiated well outside the classroom.
Joshua C. Feng ’23, a Social Studies concentrator who took Bassett’s seminar on inequality in America, said Bassett regularly held informal office hours before class — complete with freshly baked goods — and invited students to share “whatever was on our mind.”
“I instantly knew it was going to be one of those classes where the teacher cares so much about you,” Feng said.
Thomas A. Dingman ’67, Harvard’s longtime dean of freshmen, said Bassett “put herself successfully in other people’s shoes, and had a way of understanding what they were going through.”
“When I retired, she wrote me the loveliest letter. I think I still have it, just expressing how much our relationship, our friendship, had meant to her,” Dingman said.
Bassett died suddenly on Aug. 13 in Wellesley Hills, Mass. She was 56.
A cause of death was not disclosed.
She is survived by her husband, Jonathan Bassett, and their two children, Benjamin and Sarah Bassett.
‘Nobody Fell Through The Cracks’
Born in Connecticut, Bassett received a bachelor’s degree from Barnard College in 1990, before traveling to Cambridge to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard in political science in 1997.
The following year, she took a job as a lecturer in Social Studies and secured a promotion to director of undergraduate studies in 2002. Over the subsequent 21 years, Bassett wholly transformed the program through her dedication to students, according to her colleagues and students.
History professor David Armitage, who chairs the Committee on Degrees in Social Studies, announced Bassett’s death in a Monday afternoon email to social studies concentrators.
“Everyone who knew her — faculty, lecturers and, especially, students — can testify to her dedication, her wisdom and her enthusiasm,” Armitage wrote. “Whether in supporting first-generation students, rigorously advising over 50 senior theses or decorating the Social Studies office for the holidays (a particular passion), Anya excelled as a teacher and mentor to those around her.”
“I’m sure — in my 25 years of teaching and advising at Harvard — no one was more devoted to their students than Anya,” said Courtney B. Lamberth, a Religion lecturer and Bassett’s close friend.
Social Studies lecturer and Eliot House Faculty Dean Bonnie Talbert, the interim director of the Harvard College Women’s Center, credited Bassett with providing widespread support for concentrators across Social Studies, where much of students’ coursework takes place in other departments.
“I really think that it was important to her that nobody fell through the cracks when we were in Social Studies and that everybody knew that there was somebody there that supported them. She knew almost everybody that graduated every year in a very large program,” Talbert said.
Government professor Eric Beerbohm, who chaired the Committee on Social Studies for five years, called Bassett “the greatest mentor I’ve known at Harvard” and said she made Social Studies a home for students through “legendary” celebrations of their achievements — including a tailgate celebration for seniors who completed their theses during the Covid-19 pandemic, complete with pom-poms and Mardi Gras beads.
“Over twenty years she built a community of learners where sky-high standards were coupled with enormous warmth, support, and care for the whole person,” Beerbohm wrote in an email.
In the classroom, Benjamin E. Schwartz ’24 said, Bassett had a knack for leading discussions on difficult topics while ensuring her students felt safe to share their views.
“In my seminar with her, we were discussing thorny and complicated issues surrounding inequality in the United States, and I never felt uncomfortable speaking my mind, even when I disagreed with classmates,” Schwartz said.
“She did a really great job of making sure that the discussion was balanced. As an educator, she was peerless,” he added.
Despite the large theoretical focus of Social Studies — sophomores in the program spend a year surveying a range of social and political theorists — Bassett was ever-careful to remind her students of the practical applications of theoretical texts, Talbert said.
“She was able to take the actual work they did in Social Studies and reassure students and their parents and everybody that these were real life lessons that they had learned at the same time,” Talbert said.
“She would so easily be able to connect what was happening in the classroom with either students’ lives or what was going on outside,” she said.
After spending 26 years as an instructor at Harvard, Bassett took a job at Brown University in July 2023 as faculty director of Brown’s International and Public Affairs concentration.
Wendy J. Schiller, the interim director of the Watson Institute at Brown, lauded Bassett’s widespread impact on the IAPA concentration in her one year at Brown.
“Among her many accomplishments, she created advising pathways for IAPA students seeking to declare their concentrations, strengthened junior seminar offerings, worked with postdocs to offer classes in a wide range of subjects to our students, and increased our honors thesis class size,” she wrote in a statement.
“She had boundless energy and enthusiasm, and we were very lucky to have known her,” Schiller added.
‘Belief in the Goodness of People’
Bassett saw the interpersonal relationships she fostered as an essential part of her role as an educator and faculty member at Harvard, colleagues, students, and friends said.
To Bassett, Lamberth said, “relationships with people were an end in themselves.”
Brandeis University professor Eva Bellin, a long-time friend of Bassett, wrote in a statement that Bassett naturally went above and beyond as an educator in keeping in touch with students well after they finished their studies.
“She sustained a real interest in her students even long after they graduated, responding to emails and meeting them for coffee to serve as a sounding board as they navigated life’s opportunities and challenges,” wrote Bellin, whose two children studied under Bassett at Harvard.
Dingman recalled Bassett’s care for students, particularly in times of need, and her endearing demeanor as vital in building trust among her students.
“She would commit time — free time — to be there for students in important moments, and I think students, in picking up on that, felt very comfortable around her. There was nothing pretentious about her,” Dingman said.
“She was just down to earth. She had a lovely smile and extraordinary patience and belief in the goodness of people,” he added.
Several friends and colleagues said Bassett’s empathy was connected to her own struggles with depression, a lifelong battle about which she spoke openly.
“She’s a person who struggled. She struggled through depression. She was very open about that,” said Social Studies lecturer Nicolas Prevelakis.
When Elena R. Schwartz ’19, one of Bassett’s advisees and Benjamin Schwartz’s sister, graduated, Bassett gave her a book as a graduation gift. They both cried.
“Anya just had, it seemed like an inexhaustible amount of care for the people around her, the students that she worked with,” Schwartz said.
Several of Bassett’s colleagues at Harvard said the affection Bassett radiated into her surroundings was magnetic.
Bassett was the faculty member who interviewed Prevelakis when he first applied for a role in the program in 2006. Far before he had been offered the job, he said Bassett made him feel at ease within the department’s walls.
“I was young and very anxious at the time,” Prevelakis said. After meeting Bassett in the lounge just before the interview, he recalled, “I said to myself, ‘This is the place where I want to stay.’”
“The interview confirmed my first feeling,” he added.
The care with which Bassett treated fellow faculty members allowed her to become an effective leader in their eyes.
“When I think of her the two words that come to mind are “leadership” and “love,” wrote Thomas Ponniah, a professor at George Brown College and former member of Harvard’s Social Studies program.
“Underneath everything Anya did for students, staff, and faculty one sensed a commitment to service borne from profound care,” Ponniah added.
‘She Changed People’s Lives’
Bassett’s concern for students and their wellbeing was not limited to Social Studies.
Rather, she advocated across Harvard to give students a wider range of academic options and smooth their adjustment to college, particularly for first-generation undergraduates.
“Anya worked tirelessly behind the scenes to champion policies that would give all students more flexibility and freedom,” Dean of Undergraduate Education Amanda Claybaugh wrote in a statement. “It’s in large part because of her advocacy that students can now switch to Pass/ Fail later in the semester, take more than two courses in the professional schools, and double concentrate.”
Dingman pointed to Bassett’s efforts to support first-generation students as crucial in leading to the formation of the First-Year Retreat and Experience, a program for incoming first-year students of disadvantaged backgrounds that was permanently added to the College’s offerings of pre-orientation programs in 2019.
“She had particular interest in first-gen students, and went out of her way to do some research to understand more how Harvard was working for them or not working for them, and then was very good about putting her thoughts into a paper,” Dingman said.
Colleagues and former students also said that Bassett never shied away from disagreeing with the majority and always spoke for what she thought was right.
“She was never afraid to take a position on behalf of a student or colleague that was not the majority opinion. She was so brave — so brave — and so courageous in contexts where that was rare and not always easy,” Lamberth said.
Though Bassett left Harvard in 2023 to become a faculty director at Brown, several Harvard faculty and former students said Bassett’s methodical approach as an educator and the friendship she provided will not soon be forgotten.
“She changed people’s lives. She was there for them in moments when nobody else was. She knew how to deal with the really hard things,” Talbert said.
“She guided people through real life moments of transformation,” Talbert added.
—Staff writer Hana Rostami can be reached at hana.rostami@thecrimson.com.
—Staff writer Cam N. Srivastava can be reached at cam.srivastava@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @camsrivastava.