Lee Cuba is the Kenan professor of sociology at Wellesley College. He served as Dean of the College from 1999 until 2004. Before becoming dean, Cuba served as Associate Dean of the College for four years and was instrumental in a revision of Wellesley's curriculum and in developing innovative academic initiatives.
During his tenure as dean, Cuba led the faculty in formulating the academic priorities at the center of The Wellesley Campaign, the College's five-year $400 million fundraising effort. He helped create opportunities for students and faculty to share their scholarly work with the entire campus community through the Ruhlman and Tanner Conferences and an annual celebration of faculty scholarship. He helped expand students' off-campus learning experiences through internships, research, and other experiential learning opportunities. Cuba also expanded collaborations among faculty, academic departments and programs, and other divisions of the College and peer institutions. In addition, he led strategic reviews of many concerns of vital importance to the College, including, but not limited to, the role of instructional technology, the impact of electronic discourse, the honor code, multicultural education, and faculty development through the life cycle.
An authority on the connection between aging and migration patterns, Professor Cuba has done extensive research on communities in Alaska and Cape Cod, Massachusetts. He is also an expert on questionnaire design and quantitative and qualitative data analysis.
A member of the Wellesley College faculty since 1981, Professor Cuba served as chair of the department of Sociology from 1992-1995, and as Associate Director of the Writing Program from 1993-1995.
A member of Phi Beta Kappa, Lee Cuba received a B.S. degree, summa cum laude, from Southern Methodist University in 1976 and an M.A., M.Phil. and a Ph.D. from Yale University in 1977, 1978 and 1981, respectively. Prior to joining the Wellesley College faculty, he was an instructor in sociology at Yale in 1981 and at the University of Alaska in 1979.
Professor Cuba has received research grants from the National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Aging; the NIH National Institute of Mental Health; and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. He is the author of numerous articles on the nature of regional retirement migration, decision making models of elderly migration, the effects of retirement migration on family life, and the sources and location of migrant place identities. He is also the author of two books: Identity and Community on the Alaskan Frontier (Temple University Press, 1987) and A Short Guide to Writing About Social Science, Third Edition (Longman, 1997).
Lee Cuba is a resident of Worcester, Massachusetts.
Profile last updated: 7/04