In 1959, Fidel Castro led the Cuban revolution that overthrew the regime of Fulgencio Batista. That same year Ana Mari Cauce left Cuba with her brother to join her parents, who found protection in South Miami, Fla.

Her father, Vicente Cauce, was the minister of education under Batista, and had found asylum with his wife Ana in Chile and other South American countries before making his way to the United States.

When they called for their children to join them in the United States, Ana was 3 years old, and her brother Cesar was 5 when they flew to their new home on a Pan Am flight.

This is the beginning of Cauce's story, which is highlighted by challenges, diversity and the pursuit of knowledge. Her story leaves off two weeks ago, when Phyllis Wise, UW provost and executive vice president, announced Cauce's nomination as the next dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. This, however, is just the end of a bigger story.

Vicente worked in a dress shoe factory, while his wife Ana made tennis shoes.

"I knew my father as a factory worker," Cauce said.

If the family had a need, her parents would work extra shifts or through holidays. Cauce didn't realize how financially tight things were until she applied for college and received every type of financial aid available. She said that quality of life isn't determined by money.

"I had a fabulous childhood. ... I never wanted for anything," she said.

Although nonreligious, her parents sent Cauce to Catholic school through high school, and she'd walk to Mass every Sunday morning with her aunt.

"I would describe my parents' religion as education," she said. "My father would always say that education is the only thing they could never take away from you."

That saying had special meaning to her father, because in the revolution they lost their home and their prestige, Cauce said.

"They lost their country," she said.

In the 1960s they also lost their son, Cesar Cauce, who was killed in the Greensboro Massacre. Cesar helped organize the first protest against the Ku Klux Klan, when Klan members gunned down five protestors and injured 10.

At the time of the incident, police weren't on the scene, but cameramen were. Cauce first learned of her brother's death when she watched him killed on television.

"I was angry," she said. "My family was a mess. But you put one foot in front of another ... and life goes on."

Although her family members have passed, she looks to their examples for inspiration. She also looks to Edmund Gordon, a professor who was her adviser while she did graduate work in psychology at Yale during the early 1980s.

Gordon was a black instructor and the chairman of African studies during a time when black professors were uncommon. She said he was able to support and push her at the same time, and he helped her deal with her brother's murder.

"He had a strength of character," she said. "He believed in the best of people, when in fact he had seen the worst of people."

When she met with the advisory search committee for the deanship, she said they asked her several times if she was tough enough. She said there is a difference between toughness and difficulty, and that she enjoys working through difficult situations.

A reason for seeking the new position was her desire to be constantly searching for new challenges. She described her undergraduate education as a "traditional liberal arts background." She received her bachelor's degree from the University of Miami with majors in psychology and English and minors in history and philosophy.

"It's (the college) fulfilling in every aspect, my head and my heart," she said.

She came to the University of Washington from the University of Delaware and its surrounding college town in 1990. She said when she first flew into Seattle, the sun was out, it was a crisp winter day and the "mountains were etched in the skies."

"I had never seen a mountain like that before," Cauce said.

She was attracted to the beauty of Seattle, and she liked how Seattle wasn't a college town. Favoring art, music and drama for entertainment, Cauce considers herself a city dweller, which made Seattle a good place to both work and live.

The framed Husky Promise poster in her office shows her appreciation for the UW's high percentage of students from lower-to-middle-income families.

"Kids of modest means can really come in and enter a future that is limitless in terms of opportunity," she said.

As a psychologist and researcher, Cauce works with at-risk minority students. Although she stepped out of management roles, she still helps lead projects. Next week she's going to UC-Davis to meet with collaborators on a project that hopes to interview as many as 500 Mexican-American families.

"An appreciation of the importance of diversity in fulfilling our mission is uppermost in our minds with every recruitment that we make, particularly in recruiting our leadership positions," Wise said about Cauce's appointment.

Cauce isn't married and doesn't have any children, but has had a long-term relationship for 18 years. She also has three dogs.

Cauce also loves to hike, and has a "spit of a cabin" near the mountains.

[Reach reporter Celeste Flint at opinion@thedaily.washington.edu.]