UW News

October 17, 2014

UW president touts innovation, public commitment in annual address

UW News

The University of Washington fosters innovation on its campuses not only because of its deep economic impact “but because, more importantly, we know it can create a world of good,” UW President Michael K. Young said Wednesday at his annual address.

“Equally important is the extraordinary advantage that teaching innovation and creativity gives our students, whatever path they ultimately choose to pursue,” Young said. “We do good, and we train the next generation of people who will do good.”

The UW teaches through its research, offering a world-class education to students who in many cases otherwise could not afford the opportunity. But reductions to higher education funding are “an immediate and long-term threat to the access and availability of education for all,” Young said.

“We need to be imaginative as we work with our state leaders, donors, alumni and students to make sure there is continued investment in higher education, as well as an increase in availability of scholarship funding and the optimal distribution of financial aid for all our students,” he said. Young noted the creation last year of an Enrollment Management Council with the task of ensuring the university can continue its public work and keep “The Husky Promise,” a program that guarantees to cover tuition costs for qualified students from Washington state who otherwise could not afford to attend.

“Access and affordability go hand-in-hand and we remain proud and committed to our track record of educating more first-generation and Pell-eligible students than all the Ivy League schools combined,” Young said. “We also do it in the most effective, cost-efficient manner of any major research university. These are the realities in which I’m enormously proud and 100 percent committed to carrying forward.”

Young also highlighted the university’s effort to address the shortage of qualified graduates in science, technology, engineering and math, noting that UW Bothell opened its School of STEM one year ago and the university has increased its number of STEM grads by 9 percent. The UW is seeking funding for a new computer sciences building that will push this effort even further, Young said, and ensure that more non-computer science students can take classes in the field.

“There are virtually no fields of study at this university that don’t require some basic knowledge of computer systems and programming,” he said.

Young closed with a vow to do more to communicate the university’s leadership and innovation, which will be new ground “because here in the Northwest, there is an ethos that we should keep our heads down, do superb work and disregard others who shout from the rooftops about their excellence.

“But, after hearing countless times that the UW is a best-kept secret, and, frankly, seeing our peers across the world get recognized for activities with respect to which our work is actually having an even greater and more profound impact,” Young said, “we have decided to change that and to do what’s necessary to better tell our story.”

Talking about the university’s accomplishments and its ambitions, Young said, will inspire the campus community and its supporters.

“We do it by transforming one student at a time,” Young said, “one scholar at a time, one spark at time.”