Lisa Liseno

Lisa received her doctorate in Philosophy from FSU in 2007 and remained a great friend to the department. For the past nine years she was an assistant dean in the FSU Graduate School, directing both FSU´s Graduate Student Fellows Society and its Program for Instructional Excellence, in the latter capacity training the university´s graduate instructors. We greatly appreciate the work she has done. She´ll be sorely missed.

I have been lucky enough to work with Lisa at multiple times throughout my time at FSU, but of these, my favorite was my time serving as one of her PIE Associates. Lisa's unending enthusiasm and support for grad students, their goals and their development into dedicated, empathetic, and knowledgable instructors stood as a profound source of guidance for so many of us. As she would tell us at every opportunity, we were not merely her PIE Associates, but rather, her amazing PIE Associates, when it was Lisa herself who was amazing. I have been unquestionably changed through knowing and learning from her, and will forever value my memories of her unending joy and the lessons she taught.

I would like to use this space to reflect on the incredible life and legacy of Lisa (Dr. Liseno). I began my work with Lisa as her Graduate Assistant for the Program for Instructional Excellence in Spring of 2020. I was finishing up my master's degree at the time and we instantly connected over a love of teaching, pedagogy, and of course the delicious pie served at our events! Lisa brightened every room she walked into and made everyone feel like a welcome friend. After experiencing the joy and fulfillment of working with a fun, talented scholar like Lisa, I found I did not want to leave the institution and I had the great honor of being hired as her Assistant Director for PIE and The Fellows Society at FSU. We created new program initiatives to support our instructors at FSU together; we taught workshops and presented our work at conferences together; we talked and laughed together almost every day of the work week. Everything we did for our fellow scholars, we did as a duo. During one of our check-in conversations the week before her passing, she told me: "You're not just my assistant, you're my friend." I will miss my friend Lisa so dearly and will always cherish the incredible memories we have together.