Home / Alumni / Leaves Magazine: Fall 2025 / Features / Faculty Spotlight: Stephen Sarikas

He Came for the Work and Stayed for the Students

By David Nathan | Photos by Todd Dionne

After 37 years on the Lasell faculty, Professor Stephen Sarikas will teach the last sections of his Anatomy and Physiology course in the spring, leading the 73-year-old scientist to reflect on a career that began when Lasell was a two-year women’s college.

“When I first came here, I had no vision of being at Lasell as long as I have,” he says, marveling at both his longevity and the institution’s transformation into a four-year coed university with graduate programs. “It’s not perfect—no place is—but everyone here is completely invested in the success of our students. It’s what makes Lasell special.” Sarikas has come to embody the Lasell teaching ideal: He builds meaningful relationships with his students, understands the challenges they face, and seeks to meet them wherever they are in their academic journeys.

Professor Stephen Sarikas

“The students are all here to improve their lives and find a career that they enjoy. I do whatever I can to help them get there.”

At the beginning of each semester, Sarikas shows his students a picture of himself on his first day of kindergarten. He notes that the image not only represents the start of an academic expedition that has continued uninterrupted for 67 years, but a personal ride that veered in unexpected directions. The message: You never know where your education will take you.

“I want to highlight that there are different pathways you can go down and your decisions can make a big difference in your life,” he says.

After graduating from high school in Medfield, Massachusetts, Sarikas enrolled at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in the fall of 1970 as a premed student. “My parents wanted me to be a doctor and convinced me that that’s what I wanted to be,” he recalls with a laugh. After a few semesters, Sarikas concluded he would rather be a college professor than a doctor. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in zoology, added a master’s from Southern Illinois University, and then earned a doctorate in anatomy from the Boston University School of Medicine.

After doing his post-doctoral work at UMass Chan Medical School, Sarikas spent three unhappy years as a professor at BU. He taught a biology class in a massive lecture hall with 600 largely uninterested students. He spoke into a microphone tethered to a wall and showed slides on a giant screen. “I was miserable,” Sarikas remembers. “Most of the students weren’t paying attention. The tenured faculty would not listen to my ideas on how to improve the course. I knew I had to leave.”

Lasell represented a refreshing change. When he joined the faculty in 1989, Sarikas was the only full-time science professor. The dean encouraged him to redesign the existing biology courses and develop new ones. “I went from being in a repressive and confining atmosphere to a place that supported me and asked me to take the ball and run with it,” he recalls.

In addition to teaching Anatomy & Physiology I and II each year, he has taught a number of other courses, including Principles of Biology I; Global Ecology; Human Reproduction; Revolutions in Science; AIDS in America; Medical Ethics, Darwin, and Religion; and Science and Religion (the latter two with retired long time faculty member Joe Aieta).

Sarikas has also written two lab manuals for Anatomy and Physiology, both published by Pearson Education: Laboratory Investigations in Anatomy and Physiology and Visual Anatomy & Physiology Lab Manual.

Professor Stephen Sarikas | Photo by Todd Dionne

"I have been fortunate to teach in such an intimate environment where you get to know the students.”

A lifelong runner, Sarikas briefly considered one final Boston Marathon run in April to celebrate his retirement. He was enticed by the prospect of being cheered on by the Lasell community as he ran down Washington Street before turning onto Commonwealth Avenue toward the finish line in Boston.

He has completed 12 marathons with a personal best of 2 hours, 33 minutes. The last of his four Boston Marathons came in his first academic year at Lasell in April 1990. While a bad back and arthritic knees have limited his running in recent years, he still goes for runs of up to 3 ½ miles a few times a week. He also rides a stationary bike.

“The thought had crossed my mind that it would be great to run one more, but my body can’t take it,” he says.

Sarikas understands the myriad challenges facing today’s Lasell students: cost of attendance, part-time jobs, and diversions created by smartphones and social media. His earnings from high school and college summer jobs paid for half of his tuition at UMass. “Being a student today is much more difficult because of all of the potential roadblocks,” he explains.

Sarikas still cherishes the letters he gets from grateful students. He received one last spring from a student who was convinced that the key to her success in his class was memorizing the material, rather than seeking to understand it. She eventually absorbed his message and became more at ease and relaxed in class.

“I want to thank you so much for being such an amazing professor,” she wrote him in an email. “You have taught me how to be more confident in myself. Congratulations on your retirement.”

To give back to a place that has given him so much, Sarikas makes a generous gift each year to provide stipends to help students pay for science textbooks and lab manuals. “I thought I would stay here for three or four years and move on, but I just started to love this place more and more,” Sarikas says. “I have been fortunate to teach in such an intimate environment where you get to know the students.”