Seattle Half Marathon Tackled by Graduate Students First Team
On the cold, sunny Sunday after Thanksgiving, UW Sociology Professor Bob Crutchfield and the 100-member Graduate Students First Team tackled the Seattle Half Marathon. They wore their Husky colors proudly and drew plenty of attention to their effort to raise need-based graduate fellowship funds.
Their goal: bring in $100,000 in gifts and pledges to the Graduate Students First Challenge Fund, triggering a $50,000 match from the University.
The team approached the athletic and fundraising challenges with equal enthusiasm. Richard Boyce, a biomedical and health informatics graduate student, said, "I love to run and I love the UW; what could be more fun than running for UW?" Faculty team member and Biology department chair Tom Daniels spoke of his motivation succinctly: “Graduate students are the center of gravity at UW.”
Together, the Graduate Students First Team runners and walkers pushed themselves to the limit to highlight how faculty-graduate student teamwork produces amazing results in UW labs and classrooms every day. The team members' research—on topics such as alternative energy, freshwater resource management, HIV transmission, and youth violence prevention—reflects the diverse and vital work that fellowship dollars support.
The team included graduate students, faculty and staff from 45 departments. Participants ranged in age from 20 to 64, with experience varying from first-timers to ultra-marathoners. Some team members faced significant health challenges, including a cancer survivor, a walker with two artificial hips, and a runner with a chronic kidney ailment. But they still made it to the finish, just like their role model, former Washington Governor Dan Evans. At age 81 he walked 13.1 miles in the 2006 Seattle Half Marathon to raise funds for undergraduate student scholarships. A dedicated friend of UW, Evans happily passed the baton to Crutchfield and his team, encouraging them and soliciting support for their effort.
At the Jan. 25, 2008 UW Foundation Board meeting, Evans made a surprise announcement: the Graduate Students First Challenge Fund had qualified for the Students First matching money. Now the University will continue to match all gifts to this fund on a 50% basis--that’s fifty cents on every dollar!--until June 30, 2008. So though the marathon is over, the fundraising goes on. Crutchfield and his team remain fired up to secure as many matching dollars as possible. Your gift can help them build this fund and provide talented UW graduate students from all economic backgrounds with the resources they need to innovate and excel.
For more information about the team and to make a gift, visit www.grad.washington.edu/supporting/gs_students_first.htm