July 31, 2012
Athletes, accountants and more: UW hosts visitors all summer
Athletes, accountants, leaders, teachers, gamers, programmers and more — all manner of groups use the University of Washington campus facilities during the summer, all hosted by Housing and Food Services.
Students take turns teeing off at Green Lake Pitch ‘n Putt, a nine-hole, par three golf course. The four were participants in the Nike Coed Golf Camp, one of dozens of camps and workshops of all types held at (and near) the UW in summer.Mary Levin
And new this summer, Teach for America trainees, athletes with disabilities and a new precollege recruitment program from the Office of Minority Affiars will join the long list of summer conferences.
From just hours after the end of spring quarter until just before classes start in the fall, the UW campus is home to thousands of visitors, both student age and adult. Some spend an afternoon, others live on campus for a week or more. Housing and Food Services staff stay busy preparing accommodations quickly between groups — sometimes even within a matter of hours, which they call a “same-day turn.”
According to Penni-anne Bricker, operations manager for the housing office’s Conference Services division, about 145 conferences will take place at the UW campus throughout the summer, bringing more than 8,000 guests — up a bit from the last couple of years — many of whom stay in the residence halls and use campus dining services while here.
These include all kinds of young athletes — swimmers, runners, bikers, golfers as well as players of football, basketball, volleyball, lacrosse and more. Also for young students, there’s the Alexander Hamilton Friends Association, Spanglish camp, Gear-Up, a Summer Math Institute, a summer academy for the deaf and hard of hearing.
There’s also a group teaching a class for young students called Economics for Leaders, which seems an excellent idea given the headlines.
Among the new additions this year are Adapt2Achieve Northwest, a three-day conference offering training in adaptive sports; and Strive North America, a digital media and 3D game development program for international students.
Also, the Office of Minority Affairs has begun a new summer program called Shades of Purple, a three-day overnight conference for underrepresented minority high school juniors and senior interested in attending the UW.
And then, of course, there is the visiting group that beats all others, hands down, for longevity. The Pacific Coast Banking School has been sending adult students to the UW for a summer residency since 1938.
