UW News

June 1, 2006

Faculty Field Tour participants get to know their corner of America

This year when 30 UW faculty members tour the state on the Faculty Field Tour, those of us back on campus will be able to follow along. “Tim Hamp, a UWTV producer, will be shooting video at various sites along the way and beaming video clips back to the tour’s UW Web site for anyone interested to view.

“They’ll be edited on a laptop while we’re speeding down the highway,” said Harry Hayward, director of strategic communication and coordinator of the tour.

The eighth annual Faculty Field Tour, set for June 12 to 16, gives relatively new faculty members — those employed here two years or less — a chance to get to know the state that most of their students come from. They spend five days on a bus experiencing the geography, economy and culture of Washington.

This year the group will be led by Provost Phyllis Wise. Wise is stepping in for President Mark Emmert, who can’t come along this year because he will be out of the country, but she’s happy to do it because she too is new to Washington.

Thanks to the video, Emmert won’t entirely miss out on the trip. And he also suggested to Hayward that there be a blog for the tour. “The idea is to have members of the tour post their thoughts so the audience back here on campus can see what kinds of experiences are created when the University goes on the road,” Hayward said.

The multi-user blog will also be posted on the tour’s Web page. In addition, the Web page will include still photos and links to newspaper and TV stories that appear in the towns where the tour stops.

This year’s tour participants include faculty in a variety of fields, from architecture to zoology. Four of them are from UW Tacoma.

“Eligible faculty receive a letter or e-mail from President Emmert inviting them to come on the tour,” Hayward said. “Faculty who are interested submit an application.”

Crispin Thurlow, a professor in the Department of Communication and a participant in last year’s tour, called it an amazing experience.

“Not being from the United States or Washington (he is a native of England), it really opened my eyes to the size and diversity of the state and its range of people and economies,” Thurlow said. “No one living on this side of the state can understand all of it without traveling, and traveling some distance.”

Thurlow also found himself enjoying the interactions with other faculty more than he had anticipated. “A lot of people go into this sort of skeptical about the idea of being holed up for five days with a load of strangers,” he said. “But once you get over your summer camp anxieties, it’s a rare opportunity to spend a decent amount of time with colleagues from different departments. I found it to be an unexpected pleasure.”

Sometimes what comes out of the trip turns out to be more than friendships. Karina Walters of social work and Jane Simoni of psychology, for example, who were roommates on the tour, wrote a grant based on a segment of an underserved population they encountered. And another group from the tour — Beth Kolko of technical communication, Sarah Kim of family medicine and Lynn Schnapp of pulmonary medicine — wrote a publication together and built a poster that was presented at a national conference.

It’s just those kinds of relationships that tour organizers hope to foster. Recently, a reunion of past tour participants was held (there are 250 tour alums at this point) and Emmert attended. “We had a lively half hour discussion on how to keep building this community,” Hayward said. “He’s immediately embraced the tour as a way to improve our outreach and access.”

Each day of the tour is packed with about five different activities, and each year is somewhat different from the past. Faculty with specific expertise often come for portions of the trip to share what they know. This year, for example, History Professor John Findlay will give a talk about the history of Washington.

Among the stops on this year’s tour are the British Petroleum Cherry Point Refinery where Alaska crude oil is refined into gasoline, the family-owned Cascades Organic Orchard in Omak and Janicki Industries in Sedro Woolley — another family-owned operation that has one of the largest three-axis computerized milling machines in the western U.S.

“We’re also going to visit a Toppenish middle school where a UW graduate is working as part of the Gear Up Program,” Hayward said. “Conan Viernes did an internship with NASA, and now he’s gotten a grant to do a NASA program at the school.”

Hayward has been running the tour for six years, and said he’s learned “how friendly and welcoming the people of Washington are when you say you’re from the UW. I’ll call somebody I’ve never talked to before and say, ‘I’ve got a bunch of faculty and I’d like to come and tour your plant or your farm or whatever,’ and they’re thrilled at the opportunity.”

That runs counter to the idea many people have that the University is elitist and not well liked outside Seattle. “I suspect that over the eight years this tour has been going on, that barrier has begun to break down because of the contacts we’ve made,” Hayward said.

He told the story of Lloyd Bourne, who has a wheat farm near Spokane that the group has toured more than once. “I think it’s one of the highlights of Lloyd’s June that we come visit him,” Hayward said. “He has an old dusty Husky hat that I think he only puts on when we come.”

The Faculty Field Tour Web site will be at http://www.fieldtour.washington.edu, starting on June 12.