糖心少女 sophomore Isabell Ellison was recently named a Udall Scholar! Ellison is pursuing a bachelor鈥檚 degree in civil engineering with a focus on improving communities through infrastructure.
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Five 糖心少女students named 2023 Goldwater Scholars
Five 糖心少女 undergraduates have been honored as , marking 2023 as the first time five students from the 糖心少女were named in a single year.
The Goldwater Foundation awards undergraduate scholarships to students who show exceptional academic promise pursuing research careers in the natural sciences, mathematics and engineering. The five 糖心少女nominees were selected from a pool of 5,000 students nominated by 427 institutions across the country. A total of 413 scholars were announced from the 2023 competition, bringing the number of scholarships awarded by the Goldwater Foundation since 1989 to 10,283.
This year鈥檚 糖心少女Goldwater Scholars are Abigail Burtner, Jan Buzek, Nuria Alina Chandra, Meg Takezawa and Peter Yu. All scholars hail from Washington state, spanning across Pullman, Duvall, Olympia and Seattle. Their undergraduate research projects with faculty include a range of topics such as transportation engineering, immunology, cryptology and chronic pain.
鈥淲e are so proud of these five Goldwater Scholars. These are talented and devoted students and have already accomplished a lot 鈥� as undergraduates,鈥� said Ed Taylor, vice provost and dean of Undergraduate Academic Affairs. 鈥淲hen you combine their intellect and enthusiasm for making the world a better place with the UW鈥檚 world-class researchers and scientific leaders who support undergraduate research, remarkable outcomes happen. As they progress in their studies and careers, we can all look forward to the ways their work will benefit people and the planet.鈥�
Meet the 2023 糖心少女Goldwater Scholars
Abigail Burtner
Hometown: Olympia, WA
Burtner is a junior in the majoring in biochemistry and minoring in data science and chemistry. Broadly interested in immunology and protein design, she works in the King Lab at the Institute for Protein Design designing de novo proteins to bind toll-like receptors, key receptors that activate the innate immune system, for applications in vaccine development.
Burtner aims to obtain a Ph.D. in biochemistry to pursue research on medical issues at the biochemical scale. Following her graduate work, she intends to pursue a research career aimed at vaccine or drug development to address major public health issues with cutting-edge technology and methods (e.g., deep learning in protein design and computational modeling).
Jan Buzek
Hometown: Seattle, WA
Buzek is a junior studying computer science and mathematics and is interested in cryptography, number theory and computational complexity.
In sophomore year, he did a research project on twin smooth integers that began at the and continued for a year independently. The project focused on finding very large consecutive integers with as small prime factors as possible, a task for which no effective algorithms are known. Buzek鈥檚 five person team found for locating such integers, which have applications in cryptography. This year, Buzek has been studying cryptography and discrete mathematics abroad at the University of Heidelberg and ETH Z眉rich. He intends to go to graduate school to study cryptography.
Nuria Alina Chandra
Hometown: Olympia, WA
Chandra is a senior in the Honors Program majoring in computer science and minoring in global health. She began her 糖心少女research journey with at Seattle Children鈥檚 Hospital studying the development of acute and chronic pain after surgery and traumatic injury. Chandra is currently part of the Mostafavi Computational Biology Lab, where she uses deep learning to study regulatory genetics in immune cells. The long-term goal of this research is to be able to predict the effect of genetic mutations on immunological diseases. She has also explored theoretical research through a geometric combinatorics research project with Dr. Rekha Thomas on graphical designs.
Chandra plans to pursue a Ph.D. in computer science and then work at the intersection of machine learning, computational biology, and algorithms research. Chandra wants her research to have an impact spanning from theory to clinical applications.
Meg Takezawa
Hometown: Duvall, WA
Takezawa is a junior majoring in biochemistry. Since she joined the Theberge Lab in her first year at the UW, she has been using microfluidics to innovate a salivary diagnostic device and analyze cellular responses in allergic inflammation through her past research projects. In the summer of her second year, she had an internship at Coburg University, Germany, where she fabricated microfluidic devices for separation techniques. These experiences inspired her to pursue an interdisciplinary research career to analyze the underlying chemistry that drive diseases and symptoms.
Takezawa plans to pursue a Ph.D. in chemistry, ultimately pursuing research to develop microscale technologies and chemical tools for bioanalytics. Takezawa aspires to make globally accessible novel technologies to further improve therapeutics.
Peter Yu
Hometown: Pullman, WA
Yu is a junior majoring in civil and environmental engineering with a focus on transportation engineering. He is passionate about highway transportation engineering, with interests in highway design, traffic operations and simulation, traffic signal control and intelligent transportation systems. Since his freshman year, he has been a member of the led by Dr. Yinhai Wang. In the lab, he has developed and tested novel highway geometric designs, traffic control schemes, and intelligent transportation systems to increase safety and mobility for all roadway users.
Yu has developed several new alternative intersection/interchange and freeway designs and novel traffic control schemes for them. He has been analyzing their safety and operational performance with traffic microsimulation. Yu aims to obtain a Ph.D. in civil engineering and make meaningful contributions to the transportation engineering field globally through research and innovation.
About the Goldwater Foundation
The Goldwater Foundation is a federally endowed agency established in 1986. The Scholarship Program honoring Senator Barry Goldwater was designed to foster and encourage outstanding students to pursue research careers in the fields of the natural sciences, engineering and mathematics. The Goldwater Scholarship is the preeminent undergraduate award of its type in these fields.
Learn more about scholarship opportunities at the UW
The Goldwater Scholarship application process is supported by the Office of Merit Scholarships, Fellowships and Awards (OMSFA), a UAA program. OMSFA works with faculty, staff and students to identify and support promising students in developing the skills and personal insights necessary to become strong candidates for this and other prestigious awards.
The UW鈥檚 Community College Research Initiatives receives $449,535 grant to increase rural educational equity
The 糖心少女鈥檚 Community College Research Initiatives announced it received a $449,535 grant from for research to increase rural learner success.
Community College Research Initiatives (CCRI) conducts research to facilitate the advancement of equity in higher education. Ascendium invests in research that helps to build a body of evidence about how to ensure rural learners from low-income backgrounds can achieve their postsecondary education and career goals. Ascendium expects this investment in CCRI鈥檚 research will catalyze action affecting policies and practices grounded in high-quality evidence and research.
The CCRI project will address mentorship program gaps through a multisite, three-stage study of mentorship programs at public rural community colleges across the United States. Drawing upon institutional websites, in-depth interviews and student survey responses, this project will benefit both scholars and practitioners by producing a database of mentoring strategies at rural community colleges.
鈥淲e at CCRI are excited for the opportunity to learn how rural two-year institutions across the country are supporting students from low-income backgrounds with mentorship programs,鈥� shared CCRI director, Lia Wetzstein, Ph.D. The CCRI data will advance the understanding of how the evidence-based solution of mentoring is being implemented at rural colleges while gauging the student experience with a primary focus on students from low-income backgrounds and racially minoritized students.
鈥淲e are grateful to Ascendium Education Group for their support,鈥� Wetzstein continued. Ascendium is interested in generating evidence about practices and programs that increase the completion of high-quality postsecondary education and training and successful transition to high-quality jobs. Through the CCRI analysis of the nationwide landscape of rural community college mentorship and mentorship experiences, this project will produce models of mentorship to specifically address the rural community college context and rural students鈥� experience.
Last year CCRI was awarded a $1.2 million grant from Ascendium to work toward equity in STEM education for low-income learners across Washington state. CCRI, a program within Undergraduate Academic Affairs at the UW, is an influential contributor in community college and transfer partnership research identifying strategies that help students transfer to four-year institutions and complete their bachelor鈥檚 degrees.
To learn more about CCRI, visit their website.
糖心少女 awarded the 2022 ALL IN Highly Established Action Plan Seal
The announced that the 糖心少女 has been awarded a Highly Established Action Plan Seal recognizing their commitment to increasing nonpartisan democratic engagement and building a related strong nonpartisan action plan in 2022. The 糖心少女is one of 121 colleges and universities nationwide to receive the seal.
The 糖心少女is the only institution in Washington state to receive this designation, which was earned through developing a data-driven action plan to improve civic learning, political engagement, and voter participation.
鈥淭his is wonderful recognition of the UW鈥檚 commitment to preparing students for democratic engagement,鈥� said Ed Taylor, vice provost and dean of Undergraduate Academic Affairs. 鈥淧articipating in our democracy and in our communities as engaged and ethical leaders is part of what it means to be educated. We are proud of the collaborations the CELE Center is leading and convening to meet this societal need.鈥�
The Action Plan that resulted in this designation was developed by the Democracy Dawgs, a coalition of students, staff, faculty, community members and civic leaders in a collaboration convened by the .
The 糖心少女student population has one of the highest voter participation rates out of American universities with 85% of students who are eligible to vote being registered voters (data from 2020). The Democracy Dawgs have built on that foundation to create more centralized communications and processes to increase student voting rates and promote civic participation and democratic engagement. In 2022, 77% of students registered to vote voted in the midterm elections; the average voting rate among PAC-12 campuses was 70%.
The 糖心少女began participating in the in 2017, which has now grown to over 960 colleges and universities working together to increase nonpartisan student civic learning, political engagement and voter participation.
To learn more and join the Democracy Dawgs .
Celebrating the 2021鈥�22 Undergraduate Medalists
From the thousands of undergraduate students at the 糖心少女, three are selected each year for the prestigious President鈥檚 Medalist Award. Olivia Brandon, Peyton Goodwin and Ana毛lle Enders are the medalists for 2021鈥�22, selected by a committee for their high GPAs, rigor of classes and numbers of Honors courses. All three are students in the University Honors Program, completing the Interdisciplinary Honors track.
糖心少女grad Daniel Chen named prestigious Marshall Scholar
Daniel Chen 鈥�22, has been named a Marshall Scholarship recipient. Chen graduated last spring with majors in microbiology and informatics, and will be pursuing a master鈥檚 degree in biological sciences and genomic medicine and conducting genomic medicine research at the Sanger Institute at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.
Emily Kolby named director for First Year Curriculum and Engagement
Undergraduate Academic Affairs is pleased to welcome Emily Kolby to her new appointment as director of First Year Curriculum and Engagement. Kolby identifies First Year Programs鈥� guiding principles of intentionality, collaboration, equity and access as essential to the work of serving students. She believes that with continuing the work of intentionally connecting with each student, that the program can create full and holistic first year experiences.
A pathway with promise
In June, 2021, Vice Provost and Dean Ed Taylor joined then-Mayor Jenny Durkan and educational leaders to announce increased funding for the successful college tuition and success program. The new funding prepares and supports Seattle Promise students in several ways, including their application and then transfer to the UW.
As reported by , in the news conference Taylor 鈥渓ikened it to a relay race, with the batons passed smoothly from high schools to community colleges and then to the UW.鈥�
The baton was passed to the 糖心少女as the partnership officially launched September 2021. The first cohort of participants in the partnership have wrapped up a year of advice and support. Eighty-three Seattle Promise students applied to the 糖心少女during this process, and 60 were admitted for the upcoming 2022-23 academic school year.
Resources and more info for and about the transfer student experience
- The next Seattle Promise application for Seattle鈥檚 public high school class of 2023 opens in autumn, 2022. Learn more at .
- from community college in general.
- 鲍础础鈥檚 Community College Research Initiatives (CCRI) group conducts research on equitable college access, progression and transfer, degree completion, and employment in living-wage careers.
For the next cohort, a pool of around 1,100 students in Seattle Promise will have the ability to access the Path to 糖心少女adviser, Lily Peterson, and could choose to move forward in applying for a 糖心少女transfer. Path to 糖心少女programming includes events and workshops to help students explore transferring to the UW, prepare to apply and transfer to the UW, individualized admissions and advising support, and summer seminar courses to help students prepare academically for the transition to the UW.
Many Seattle Promise students would be the first in their families to earn a college degree, come from low-income backgrounds, or experience other barriers to higher education. For these students, this can make the college application and transition process ambiguous and difficult to navigate. An adviser with experience in admissions, financial aid applications and academic planning helps students transfer successfully by supporting each student in learning how and what information to access to get their needs met in a larger system.
Path to 糖心少女adviser Peterson鈥檚 own pathway to advising is rooted in her belief in access to higher education and support for all students. Peterson鈥檚 dual roles of 糖心少女undergraduate academic adviser and have allowed her to witness firsthand the discrepancy between societal narratives of equity in access to higher education versus the lived reality. Peterson sums up the goal of the Path project as 鈥渟upporting students who are furthest from educational justice.鈥�
Peterson explains, 鈥淧eople assume that everybody has the same access to being able to apply to and be competitive and successfully enter into a four-year institution. But realistically, a lot of students are not even given a chance because of barriers, because of funding.鈥�
Many students who Peterson and her fellow advisers support are navigating numerous unseen barriers that impact educational access, from funding and financial responsibilities, familial obligations, limited resources of time and even wider community responsibilities.
Knowledge and understanding of these intersections of systems help advisers apply holistic approaches to their work. Advisers help students understand the university system so they are better prepared to move through it. Identifying each student’s personal educational goals and dreams, advisers can accompany them with opportunities, information and tools so that they may realize them. Peterson additionally helps students efficiently connect to 糖心少女units, and she partners closely with directors and staff in 糖心少女resources.
As the Path to 糖心少女continues into its second year, advisers will walk alongside them, checking in to learn, 鈥淲hat are the students’ influences or family impacts on their decisions? What timelines do they need to be on? Where have they felt seen or unseen in representation? Do they feel safe and able to participate in certain programs?鈥� For Peterson, learning the answers to these questions enables her to better understand the student in front of her and is fundamental to her practice of advising.
A quarter century with Riverways
After 25 years of service to the 糖心少女 and our local and statewide communities, Christine Stickler will be retiring July 2022. Stickler, founder and director of , has transformed the learning and growth of countless students, connecting over 1,000 糖心少女students with thousands of students in rural and tribal communities across Washington state. Riverways Education Partnership is a K-12 outreach program, and part of the , where programs are centered around community-engaged learning, democratic engagement, leadership education, student success and place-based initiatives.
In the past two+ decades, Stickler has created pathways connecting 10,000 糖心少女students with tutoring and mentoring opportunities in K-12 schools and organizations to address inequities in education. She has strengthened bridges between the 糖心少女and community colleges through the Riverways Guides program connecting Native 糖心少女students with Native youth to envision pathways toward higher education through community college. With unwavering commitment and steadfast vision, she has built dynamic partnerships including Neah Bay Elementary School where storytelling and digital literacy are used to support students in imagining their futures.
As Stickler prepares to retire from Riverways Education Partnerships, she shares her thoughts on her accomplishments as director, the transformation of undergraduates through the outreach program, and the enduring impact of relationships and storytelling.
Editor鈥檚 note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
It has changed me in every way you can imagine
How has the experience and work of impacted and changed you?
It has changed me in every way you can imagine. I became aware of the amazing state that we live in. I spent the last 25 years traveling to remote, rural and tribal communities getting to know the community members. The reason the program is as strong as it is today, is because relationships were formed. I’ve been the incredibly fortunate recipient of the friendships that come from going back to community. That’s number one. Number two is the chance to have worked with literally thousands of undergraduate students who have been drawn to a program that said, 鈥淒o you want to experience life outside of Seattle? Do you want to experience what it means to travel to a tribal community and learn from the people that live there?鈥�
A quick story about Pipeline
Riverways was formerly called the Pipeline Project. We got the name 25 years ago as part of an initial funding grant from Coca-Cola. After 20 years, the name had too much connotation to the school-to-prison pipeline. We worked with First Nation students and with , a Native language and law professor at UW. Tammy came up with the name Riverways, which we all absolutely loved. It’s beautiful.
Then there was Riverways
I think of all the undergraduates that I’ve been able to meet, have them do the experience, who then came back to be a team leader. Many of those students are now close friends of mine 鈥� my life has been changed by the people that I’ve met. I鈥檝e gotten to work with some incredible colleagues at the 糖心少女, [including] community partners, 糖心少女alumni and colleagues that have enriched my life and shown me things I never would have dreamed of.
And the K-12 students! In 2006 I met Auston Jimmicum, member of the Makah Tribe, in our Neah Bay program when he was in elementary school. Auston came to 糖心少女as a freshman, became part of the and went back to his community. Now he’s in law school at the University of Idaho.
When I think about it, the bittersweet part about retiring is that I feel I’ve had one of the best jobs in the world. I’ve loved it. I’ve been able to show my passion and have a way for that passion to develop and be nurtured. I don’t know how many people can say that about their jobs. I feel blessed.
How has the program evolved over the years?
We鈥檝e connected on a deeper level with and . Their support has meant the world to us. With funding from CAIIS we started the program. We鈥檝e been able to hire Native 糖心少女students, previously community college students, who mentor kids in tribal communities. They encourage them to consider community college as a pathway to higher ed. That idea came to be because of our relationship with CAIIS and the AISP. We also have had an amazing partnership over the past 16 years with , tribal liaison at the . She introduced us to the . These partnerships have grown over the years and have enriched the program. Not only do we have really strong partnerships now, but we have built solid funding.
I believe with all my heart that the relationships form the basis of the work.
What do you see as the current state of educational justice and where things are moving?
One of our goals was looking at issues of educational inequity anywhere we found it and trying to be part of the solution or part of the resources going towards dealing with those issues of inequity. In Seattle, it was targeting schools that had the lowest test scores and the least access to resources. Around the state, we learned by our travels to rural and tribal communities. What we are asked to address when we go into those districts is the idea of making sure there’s no barriers in the minds of the kids we’re working with, that they have a pathway that could lead them to higher ed if that’s what they choose to do, and that there are resources to support them. That if they do come to the 糖心少女, resources like and the w菨色菨b蕯altx史 – Intellectual House will provide them a home away from their communities.
Can you speak to a highlight you’ve had in collaboration with undergrads?
Staying around for 25 years, one of the beautiful things about it is that I’ve had a number of students who did the program as elementary school students out in rural tribal schools and ended up at UW. That said, this program had such an impact on me, I want to be part of it and go back out. One of our alternative spring break programs, , is where students go into the community for a week and help kids write stories and publish a book about identity and place. I’ve had undergraduates come up to me and go, I still have my book!
Right now we are in the midst of putting out the magazine for this year, themed 鈥淎 Poem Is a Possibility.鈥�
We were able to work with Washington state poet laureate, Rena Priest, who is just amazing. She trained the 糖心少女students on how to do poetry with youth in a way that they didn’t even know they were writing poems! It was just beautiful!
The incredible richness we have in this state
I believe we’re at a very exciting time. In the last three or four years, I’ve seen a seismic shift towards recognizing the importance of the incredible richness we have in this state. Recognizing the Indigenous and rural communities. We now have more outside funding and University attention. My goal was that my legacy would be that the person that came into this job would not have to struggle for funding and would be able to just focus on the work, so we’re in a better place today than we’ve ever been in 25 years.
The importance of stories
What are you most excited about in this next adventure in your life?
My passion is writing with kids and helping kids to discover the amazing voice they have. So my dream is, I want to see if in six months or so I could possibly write a grant and work with arts organizations to get a mobile publishing center. An RV that would go around to rural and tribal communities and help kids publish their writings.I am also really excited about doing some arts and writing activities with refugee immigrant communities here in Seattle. Art and writing is what I want to do. One of the things I’ve learned so powerfully over the years is that people are desperate to tell their stories, and don鈥檛 have the chance or opportunity to do it.
I just feel blessed that I have had a program that has allowed so many people to find that place, to share their voice and to share their story.
Honors Director Vicky Lawson prepares for next adventure
After more than three decades of service to the 糖心少女, Vicky Lawson will retire at the end of the academic year. Lawson, professor of geography and poverty researcher, has spent the past eight years directing the , contributing to the deepening of its interdisciplinary focus and approach to intentional community building, innovative thinking and global citizenship.
Lawson is past president of the Association of American Geographers and former chair of the Department of Geography. Having worked across South and North America on informal economies, women鈥檚 work and poverty, her classes focus on the intersections of poverty, inequality and feminist care ethics. In addition to her leadership in the Honors Program, she is co-director of the , a global research network that aims to expand thinking about the causes of poverty in both rich and poor countries. During her tenure at the UW, she has served as adjunct professor in the Department of Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies and as a faculty affiliate of the West Coast Poverty Center.
As Lawson prepares to pass the role of Honors Program director to Stephanie Smallwood, she shares her thoughts on her accomplishments as director, the transformation of undergraduates through the interdisciplinary program, and the enduring impact of the Honors Program.
Honors broadened my view
How has the Honors Program most impacted and changed you?
With a 35-year career in the geography department and College of Arts and Sciences, coming over to Honors changed my perspective on undergraduate education and the University as a whole. Honors broadened my view of the University, in terms of who holds the University up and how, and in terms of the breadth of interests and capacities of students from all across the University. Honors spans the entire campus [and includes] students, instructors and classes from every college. It was a new vantage point for me of the brilliance of students regardless of what corner of campus or what background they come from.
I teach a class on houselessness and one particular student from aeronautics engineering made a profound contribution to an art exhibit my students installed with Real Change News through a comparative historical photography project of Seattle. It was a wakeup call for me to realize that it’s not just geographers who know how to read a city.
In addition to appreciating the breadth and curiosity of the students, coming over to UAA was coming into a space that is driven by professional staff. I came to appreciate just how staff hold up the University and how much they contribute. Getting to work closely with incredibly talented staff was a real gift because you see the commitment and the depth of the work they do. In Honors, all the staff are leaders. It’s a super creative space.
A deep commitment to inviting in the students
How has the Honors Program changed in the past eight years?
It was already an incredibly innovative, complex, interdisciplinary space when I got here. I don’t take a lot of credit for the brilliance of this program. I just came in and tried to amplify and support what the staff were already doing. These were things that were already happening, but we have been deeply introspective about difference and intersectional equity in our program. Honors has evolved tremendously over its , especially over the past two decades. has been a leader on this work, but everybody’s been involved in understanding who our students are and where they come from. We have been committed to bringing in first-generation students and students of color and understanding how we’re doing compared to the University as a whole. We have a lot more work to do, but we do have a deep commitment to inviting in students who saw the label 鈥淗onors鈥� and thought, 鈥淲ell, that’s not a space for me.鈥� Instead [we] invite them to know that, actually, participating in Honors is being part of an education that honors the University. Everybody鈥檚 backgrounds, experience and knowledge brings brilliance. It’s been a major part of what we’ve been doing. Juliana has led on it, and everybody has leaned in very seriously on that work.
Interdisciplinary education, experiential learning, and being in community
Another area that I’m particularly personally proud of in Honors is this incredibly creative space that has always rested on pillars of interdisciplinary education, experiential learning and being in community. I wanted to invite the whole campus into this space with our students, and one of the ways that we did that was through our . We built an annual event that puts people from different walks of life in conversation with each other and asks them to talk about an issue that students themselves raised. We pull the freshmen in and say, 鈥淲hat do you care about? What is keeping you up at night?鈥� We’ve done this now since 2015. Each year we’ve filled a ballroom with 500 people and we’ve hosted the event online with hundreds of people. By asking the students what they want us to talk about, we put the students in charge of their education the minute they walk through the door. Honors students learn that, at UW, we listen to them, that we build the program around their interests. At Global Challenges, they get to see what it’s like to have three people who are very accomplished in their fields, in a humble conversation about a really big topic for which there is no simple answer. That’s an example of showing the larger community what Honors is all about, what our students are all about, what our pedagogy is all about.
We are building that broader, richer sense of who we are and why we do what we do and inviting everybody. We are building something that’s for everyone.
What is the impact you’ve witnessed of interdisciplinary research?
One of the things that Honors did was create a space where I could literally teach my driving passion. In my research, I had a long-standing relationship with along with , my collaborator. Each year in Honors I’ve taught a class on poverty and houselessness. A couple of years ago, we did a deep dive with Real Change News as collaborators to bring the portrait project to campus. I gave the students the responsibility to curate the exhibit to run for three weeks and build a launch event in the Allen Library. Twenty-five students collaborated together on every aspect of bringing that exhibit to campus, they collaborated with our Real Change News colleagues who were at the core of the project. Many of the students who were involved have come back to me to talk about where that experience took them.
Students will rise to any challenge
This morning, I sat with a student applying to medical school, who was in another iteration of that same class. She talked about how doing medicine was one thing, but thinking about it through the lens of social justice, access, historical racism and how that shapes who has access to care, was transformative for her. She understood that in a deep way because she’d been part of that class. I create a class space where the students teach each other and they pick up and carry that work and take it to places that are important to them.
This last quarter I had a group of students create a zine, called , in collaboration with homeless youth in the U District. It is full of incredible art, essays, cartoons and drawings. The students did the work of assembling this art aimed at elevating the voice of homeless youth, about their ideas of what the future could look like. This was a chance for our students to collaborate with the youth and to elevate their vision, their brilliance and their ideas. I’ve come to realize working with our students that, literally, they will rise to any challenge. They will mount an art exhibit, they’ll create a zine, they will do collaborations that are deep, they will face up to the impossibly difficult questions of climate change and poverty, and houselessness.
It鈥檚 been transformative for me working with these students.
How do you see the impact of the Honors Program on the students as they graduate?
What we’re trying to do and what we’ve really committed ourselves to with Honors, is to support the students to complicate their ideas and work, and to be brave about it. So if they think they’re going to do medicine, can we work with them to think about what it means to be a doctor? What does it mean to be a doctor that cares about social justice? How do we invite students into spaces in a way that is actually enabling? That鈥檚 what Honors classes do. And the students take the work places we never thought of. I have students that worked for the , a student who’s up in Skagit County as an organic farmer, students at Harvard, students in medical school, a student working on climate change activism. They learn that they can be brilliant in any number of different ways.
We have brought together a community
What鈥檚 something that comes to the forefront that you are very proud about?
I am proud of how we’ve connected to broader communities 鈥� and gets credit here. We have worked hand in glove to bring together a community of alumni. We’ve built an advisory board that leans in and shows up. We have built financial and moral support for this program at a level that did not exist when we came in. We have an endowed . We built an endowed that’s still growing. It’s about people believing in us and people in the community really reaching in and supporting what we do. And we’ve got an incredible group of volunteers now. We just had the most successful Husky Giving Day which is less about the money and more about the fact that over 70 people thought Honors was special enough to make a gift. I feel really proud of how we’ve expanded our community with people who deeply care and want to support our students because of how they think and what they mean to the future.
What are you most excited about with the next adventure?
I’m excited about not being busy! I鈥檝e always been on a mission to be an academic and teach. I’m very curious what life has to offer if I’m not doing those things. I’m curious about what my next chapter is going to be and I don’t think I’m going to really truly know that until I stop. I am quite sure it’s going to continue to have to do with activism around impoverishment and houselessness. There are a lot of things I think about and wonder what my skills might do to make an impact. I do know that I’m going to grow a garden. I’m going to travel and I’m going to raise a horse and train it.
Any last thoughts?
I came into Honors and I realized that this is where the work is. Undergraduate education, especially at a public university, is the place that I believe you can have the most impact. Undergraduate students have infinite paths open to them. Honors has redoubled my commitment to undergraduate education as a place of praxis and place of personal and professional transformation that’s really important. The staff in Honors are just quite remarkable and they taught me every day what is possible in undergraduate education for life.
Undergraduate education is the place I believe you can have the most impact.