Herbert Blau

Blau’s six-decade theater and academic career was extraordinary for a Brooklyn-born plumber’s son who studied engineering as an undergraduate and attended not a single play while growing up.

He earned both a master’s degree in speech and drama and a doctorate in English and American literature from Stanford University. Though a longtime professional theater practitioner, Blau was ambivalent at best about academic theater departments.

A stage experimenter, Blau co-founded and co-directed the Actor’s Workshop of San Francisco from 1952 until 1965 with partner Julius Irving, overseeing a famous production of Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” at California’s San Quentin State Prison.

He co-directed the Repertory Theater of Lincoln Center in New York until 1967. After a brief stint as provost of the then-new California Institute for the Arts, Blau founded another experimental theater group called Kraken, borrowing the name from a letter Herman Melville wrote to Nathanial Hawthorne.

At the UW, Blau was the Byron W. and Alice L. Lockwood Professor of the Humanities and professor emeritus of English and comparative literature, with an adjunct appointment in the School of Drama.

Blau was the author of dozens of articles and many books, notable among them being “The Impossible Theater: A Manifesto” in 1964, and “As If: An Autobiography (Volume 1),” in 2011.

He was annoyed by productions that played “Godot” for laughs, and preferred it when the audience didn’t know what to expect.

Interviewed by A&S Perspectives in 2011, Blau said, “I often say to my students, ‘When I know what I think, I couldn’t care less. It’s when I don’t know what I think, when I’m utterly baffled, that I really like it, because that’s when I have to keep thinking. It keeps the mind going.”

A memorial is being planned, possibly for June 22. Memorial contributions may be made to the Joseph and Yetta Blau Fund for Graduate Fellowships at the UW.

• Listen to a Katz Lecture Blau gave for the Simpson Center in 2004.
• Read Blau’s obituary in The New York Times.

Q: What is the concept behind the book?

A: An examination of ordinary families and the individuals that comprise them may provide the fullest and most constructive understanding of a given historical period. This, I think, is the main idea behind my book.

For instance, what better example can you have in trying to understand the economic and social underpinnings of Mexican immigration to the United States than my uncle Miguel arriving in Tucson, Ariz., a day after crossing the border on foot in 1922, and within hours being offered a job by an American agent for the Southern Pacific Railroad to do work in northern California?

And when my mother and grandmother crossed the border at Nogales, Ariz., a few weeks later, they too were offered a job inside of an hour or so.  My mother wrote in her memoirs, “trucks were lined up waiting for us — to pick cotton.”

Here is a clear example of the “pulling” factors often described as the mechanisms that trigger migration across international borders. What is the obvious pulling factor here? The answer is cheap labor to fuel economic development in the American West. It’s been going on ever since.

Q: How did you turn decades of family memories into this book? 

A: My book is based on long interviews I recorded of my old folks decades ago, all of them now deceased. And so, as they spoke, sitting in their favorite chair or at the kitchen table, they culled their own memories of what was most important.

In terms of the process itself, I transcribed and translated from rustic Spanish to plain American English.  It was hard work but completing the task was heartwarming and personally rewarding.

Q: You write that the chapters about “putting down roots” were the most challenging as you sought to understand your family’s evolution after settling in San Fernando, Calif. Why was this the case and how did you resolve the challenge?

A: The memories that my old folks shared with me involved the days of migration itself, leaving their home in Mexico and traveling over hill and vale with a knapsack on their back, literally, looking for new communities and benefactors on the road north. After I boiled down my text I came to realize that their journey stood out as an amazing and worthwhile experience no matter how trying it might have been — one they would never repeat.  For this reason I think it became a golden memory for them, though a costly experience.

The story about their settling down in my hometown of San Fernando, getting married, having children, facing ever greater challenges because of the growing family, less money to go around, the Great Depression coming on, wrestling with the new social mores and cultural ways — these memories were not so golden.  They were stressful and seemingly never-ending, and so I think my old folks seem to have shut them out.

As a consequence, I had to reconstruct them with the aid of my siblings who remembered far more than I did — hurtful things, all human experiences, of course — but I had to give these recollections a literary body. It wasn’t easy because I had to re-live much of what I had mentally put into a closet myself, visualizing our growing up from our parents’ perspective. Doing so was cathartic for me and for those of my siblings who survived to read my pages — they told me this much.

Q: You write that “taking up life in a completely different land is akin to reforging one’s personality or one’s sense of self … and demands a process that is highly complex in itself.” Would you tell a bit about that process?

A. The immigration experience is indeed underappreciated by those of us who don’t immigrate. My grandmother’s world, for example, was marked by the traditional order of late-1800s Mexico where everything in life was measured by how you dressed, the color of your skin, the Spanish inflection in your voice, how devoted you were to Catholicism, and much more — all this defined her 100 percent.  In 1930s southern California these values didn’t count as much and yet she couldn’t set them aside like you take off your coat.

Q: What do you hope readers take away from this book?

A: What I hope my readers take away is that Mexican/Latino immigrants attracted to America by giant economic “magnets,” so to speak, then as now, go through a transformational experience when they leave their world and try to fit into ours; that the complexity of it depends on many factors.

We, their children, the new Americans, do not always appreciate this — a sad loss in my view. I hope my own descendants avoid this blankness.

• Gil published “We Became Mexican American” through Xlibris in late 2012.

David Notkin, professor of computer science and engineering at UW.

David Notkin, University of Washington professor of computer science and engineering, died April 22 at the age of 58. He will be remembered as a gifted mentor and world leader in software engineering.

Earlier this year, the David Notkin Endowed Graduate Fellowship in Computer Science & Engineering was established at the UW in his honor. His family has asked that memorials be sent to several organizations, including this fund that supports graduate students and their studies.

Notkin came to the UW in 1984 after receiving his doctorate from Carnegie Mellon University. He served as chair of the computer science and engineering department from 2001 to 2006, helping to open the Paul G. Allen Center for Computer Science & Engineering. He most recently served as the College of Engineering’s associate dean of research and graduate studies.

Notkin’s research was in software engineering, with a particular focus in software evolution. He received a number of awards for his work, including a National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award and the UW Distinguished Graduate Mentor Award.

In February, hundreds of Notkin’s friends honored him at Notkinfest, a tribute to his personal and professional contributions. The graduate student fellowship was announced at the event.

A memorial service will be held at Bikur Cholim Cemetery in Seattle at 3 p.m., April 23. All are welcome to attend. More information is on Notkin’s CaringBridge webpage.

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David Shields

David Shields, University of Washington professor of English and author of 14 books including the New York Times best-seller “The Thing About Life is That One Day You’ll Be Dead,” has a new book out titled “How Literature Saved My Life.” He answered a few questions about the book for UW Today.

What’s the concept behind your new book?

My previous book, “Reality Hunger: A Manifesto,” burned literature down to the ground — for myself (and apparently for a lot of other people). I wanted to reconstitute literature for myself. I’d opened a space; now I wanted to fill it — take what I’d theorized about in “Reality Hunger” and attempt to apply it, practice it, vivify it, visceralize it, vulnerabilize it (not sure if the last two are words).

Is it difficult to work in such a deep vein of autobiography? Is it a necessary part of your process?

An interesting question, but to me rather like asking a fish if it’s difficult to work in a deep vein of water. It’s what I do. I’m a personal essayist. I write book-length essays. I proceed under Montaigne’s idea that “Every man contains within himself all of humanity.” I want to explore myself to the bottom of myself, in the hope that I will get to something “universally human,” thereby making other people feel “less freakish,” as Phillip Lopate says, more human.

You write that you “no longer believe in ‘The Great Man alone in a room writing a masterpiece.” Can you explain?

I grew up under the sway of modernism — writing the great novel — a la Proust, Woolf, Joyce, Mann, Kafka. I was in awe of pure voice — voices such as Ford Madox Ford’s, Nabokov’s, Hawkes’s, Barth’s, Camus’s. I now want to do something that is more choral, more collage-like, more pointillistic, more undemocratic — my voice, for sure, but a more demotic voice and one that incorporates other people’s voices as well.

You write, “The writers I like tend to present the ambiguities of genre as an analogue to the ambiguities of existence” and note the work of the late memoirist Spalding Gray in this regard. Can you elaborate?

This is a rather fancy way of saying it on my part, isn’t it? What am I trying to say here? Only that it’s very difficult to know who we are exactly, and I like work that jumps boundaries and troubles genres as a way to convey the difficulty of knowing what a self is. Hope that clarifies somewhat. I resist quite a bit works that exist safely within genre; such works pretend that identity is more knowable than it really is.

Finally, what do you hope readers will take away from “How Literature Saved My Life”?

I hope that readers will take away from “How Literature Saved My Life” a deep mystery story, a detective novel: I’m the detective. I’m lost — unable to talk, aware of the difficulties of love, of communication, of the body’s limits, of mortality. I find refuge in literature, but that curdles; I want literature to save me, but I can’t abide a literature in which the membrane isn’t very thin between life and art. Do I love art or just art-like life?

In the last chapter I try to find a way to save my life via literature. Do I do so? That is the journey I hope readers wish to go on.

Existing home sales increased 3.4 percent from the second quarter, to seasonally adjusted annual rate of 97,860. This sales rate is also 11.9 percent above this time last year.

“Washington’s housing market, similar to reports from around the county, is clearly stronger than a year ago, with many real estate brokers reporting a shortage of homes for sale,” said Glenn Crellin, associate director of the center. “Sales in the third quarter were higher than any time since the opening quarter of 2008.”

Further evidence of the improvement in sales and shortage of listings, Crellin said, is seen in the $243,100 third-quarter median sales price statewide, 7.9 percent higher than the July-September quarter in 2011. The statewide median price reached its highest level in two years. Among metropolitan counties, the King County median was $379,900, 8.5 percent above a year ago.

The rise in home prices offset savings from lower mortgage rates, resulting in a slight drop in the Housing Affordability Index, which measures the ability of median-income families to buy median-price homes, assuming a 20 percent down payment and 30-year mortgage at prevailing rates. The index shows that middle-income families, at an annual income of $72,650, “have the capacity to purchase a home nearly 70 percent more expensive than the median,” Crellin said.

Meanwhile, the first-time buyer index, which assumes a less expensive home, lower income and a smaller down payment, improved a bit driven by increasing household income statistics.

“The first-time buyer improvement underscores what Realtors are seeing: Young households, who have been written off as long-term renters, are actually eager to own,” said Faye Nelson, president of Washington Realtors.

Regional data suggest urban markets are stronger than smaller communities.  In fact, only three of the 11 counties reporting slower home sales in the third quarter are in metropolitan counties. All those are east of the Cascades, and two represent the Tri-Cities market, which generally outperformed the state throughout the recession.

Homes remained affordable for median income families in all Washington counties except perpetually expensive San Juan County, Crellin said. The most affordable housing market was Lincoln County where a middle-income buyer could afford a home price more than three times the local median. For first-time buyers, in metropolitan areas, Benton County was again the most affordable and King County the least affordable.

“With employment increasing and housing construction finally improving, the housing market is clearly improving, but the impending fiscal cliff, international uncertainty and the continuing overhang of distressed properties provide reasons to temper optimism,” Crellin said.

The Runstad Center produces home sales statistics in partnership with Washington Realtors. Each quarterly release coincides with information from the National Association of Realtors regarding median home prices by metropolitan area.

Sales, median home prices and affordability data for each of Washington’s 39 counties are available at the Runstad Center’s website.

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For more information, contact Crellin at 206-685-8020 or crellin@uw.edu.

Lustbader’s books on aging and caregiving are available at the University Book Store:

“Counting on Kindness: The Dilemmas of Dependency”

“Taking Care of Aging Family Members: A Practical Guide”

“Whats Worth Knowing”

“Life Gets Better: The Unexpected Pleasures of Growing Older.”

Challenges in Caregiving Conference, June 4 at the Tukwila Community Center. Pre-registration required; space is limited; see the conference’s brochure (pdf) for registration instructions. The conference is organized by the Aging & Disability Services Administration, part of the Washington State Department of Social & Health Services.

Other resources for caregivers:

Alzheimer’s Association

Senior Services Family Caregiving Program

Hotlines:

Senior Services Family Caregiver Support Program: 206-448-3110 or Toll Free:1-888-435-3377

Several years ago, Wendy Lustbader cut back her counseling, teaching and writing career to spend one year as a caregiver. Her mother-in-law, in the final stages of colon cancer, moved from Florida to be looked after by Lustbader and her husband at their home in the Montlake neighborhood of Seattle.

As most caregivers would predict, it was a rough year. “I got so desperate, I read my own book,” Lustbader, an affiliate associate professor at the School of Social Work at the University of Washington, said of “Taking Care of Aging Family Members,” her 1994 work on caregiving co-authored with Nancy Hooyman, professor in the UW School of Social Work.

A part of the book on loneliness had particular relevance. Lustbader’s mother-in-law had her rich community of friends back home, and Lustbader and her husband had been trying to make up for that loss by spending all of their leisure time with her.

“I read in the book that no matter how hard you try, no matter how much of your life you give up, you can’t take away another persons loneliness,” Lustbader said. “The guilt that kept getting in the way of our going out on our own Saturday nights lifted. We were released.”

Lustbader is a nationally known speaker on how to cope with aging, disability and end-of-life issues. She draws upon her caregiving experience and her expertise as a counselor to give lectures and workshops for caregivers around the United States and Canada.

She’ll speak at the Washington state ”Challenges in Caregiving: Giving Care, Taking Care” conference, to be held June 4 in Tukwila, Wash. (Pre-registration is required and space is limited. See sidebar for more details.)

“No one understands like a fellow caregiver, and this event will be a chance for people to experience an incredible community of family caregivers,” Lustbader said of the conference. “It’s a marvelous relief to be with others who really understand how you feel.”

Lustbader will give practical advice on how caregivers should take care of themselves, something caregivers often neglect. One caregiver proudly told her, “I kept a slice of selfishness for myself.” Lustbader agrees. “I’m going to advocate for people to keep that slice. That reduces bitterness and resentment,” she said. “And, who wants to be taken care of by someone who is resentful?”

She suggests that at least one day a week caregivers should set aside time when they’re “back in life somehow.” It could be a weekly card game, a part-time job or something else. “We get patience from the perspective which comes from getting away,” she said.

Caregivers should also hold on to their hopes and dreams, which is the topic of Lustbader’s keynote talk at the June 4 conference. To this end, she advises caregivers to understand how guilt and resentment can bubble up when people have to put their own lives on hold.

“It helps people be honest with themselves, that it is natural to feel thwarted and captive when they can’t pursue their own aims. Everything is for the sake of the person whose illness has taken center stage,” Lustbader said.

Wendy Lustbader

Grief can arise during situations of giving and receiving care, stemming from many sources, she added. Spouses of people with Alzheimer’s often yearn for the personality their partner once had. Sometimes people coping with chronic pain turn inward and become entirely self-oriented, leaving family caregivers bereft with the feeling that the person they love and have depended upon has vanished.

Lustbader urges caregivers to attend support groups where they can grieve openly and receive comfort.

In her 1993 book “Counting on Kindness: The Dilemmas of Dependency,” Lustbader describes caregiving from the recipient’s point of view and gives insights on what ill people wish their caregivers knew. One caregiver gave the book and a yellow highlighter to her mother, asking her to highlight anything that expressed how she was feeling.

“It spurred them to talk deeply, for the first time in their lives,” Lustbader said. “Many people use this book as a tool of understanding. Some even read it long after the person they took care of is gone, and it helps them comprehend what went on during those difficult times.”

Lustbader will use humor and storytelling to convey her knowledge at the caregiver conference. “People dont remember didactic material,” Lustbader explained. “They remember stories, and then the wisdom contained in the story comes to mind when they need it the most.”

Caregivers who seek Lustbader’s counsel frequently have these questions:

I feel so guilty thinking ahead to when the caregiving will be over; does this mean I’m insensitive or unloving?

Lustbader says that caregivers should keep thinking about their own lives. “Think about how there will be life after caregiving, and don’t feel guilty about it.” She encourages caregivers to think about what they will do after the responsibility is over, even though that time will bring sadness. “Looking forward to when you’re free is totally natural and people should indulge quietly in this; it brings perspective. Lift your head from your labors and see life as a whole.”

Why does my mom yell at me when I’m being so good to her?

“Don’t take it personally when a dependent person takes out their anger and frustration on you. This is a universal problem: we bite the hand that feeds us,” Lustbader said. “We do it because the caregiver is the safest person. We have nowhere else to let out the frustration of being dependent.”

I’m resentful toward family members who aren’t helping – what do I do?

Emotions often run high between siblings in caregiving situations, especially when old rivalries and resentments present themselves. Lustbader says, “You never regret the care you give, but people do regret the care they didn’t give.” She points out that research shows that the grief process is relatively simple for those who have provided care to a loved one, but it’s more complicated for those who weren’t involved. Also, there is solace in knowing that our children are learning from our caregiving. “I think that’s why the Fifth Commandment says you will get length of days when you honor your father and your mother,” Lustbader said. “Caregiving gives you hope that when your time comes, people might go out of their way to help you.”

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For more information on Lustbader’s work: www.lustbader.com.

• Catch Bethany Staelens and the Smith-Stalens Big Band the first Wednesday of every month at Tula’s Restaurant and Nightclub, at 2214 Second Avenue in Seattle.

• And listen to snippets from The Big Band Theory CD at her website

Josephoto and Design

Bethany Staelens sings at downtown nightclub Tula’s on the first Wednesday of each month.

Bethany Staelens is a lifelong performer, and jazz is her chosen language.

She has sung at New Yorks famed Algonquin Hotel and Birdland, in New Orleans, touring Europe and in shows, nightclubs and jazz festivals over many years.

These days, Staelens is an administrative assistant in UW Educational Outreach, capably guiding that offices affairs — but the first Wednesday evening of each month she still sings and swings away with her husband, Bruce Staelens, and a big band at the downtown jazz club Tulas.

You could say shes an example of how you dont have to cast your dreams aside just to settle down a little in life.

Staelens chatted about her performing career one recent afternoon at her desk high in the UW Tower, a spectacular view of Seattle in the background. Tall and blonde, shes an alto/contralto who can hit high notes “for fireworks” and a wickedly funny mimic. On stage, she is Bethany Smith Staelens.

Her website says she was “bitten by the show business bug” when first hearing audience applause in second grade. But Staelens took up her own story in the 1990s in New York, where she was a working actress and singer — and things began to change.

“I had booked, like, five commercials back to back — it was like, wow! Im finally getting my foot in the door.” Then her union went on strike and the jobs vanished, along with many production companies. Afterward, many casting directors shed known had been replaced by younger newcomers who saw her in a different light. (One, when told Staelens was a “young Bette Davis type,” asked, “Whos Bette Davis?” Staelens just sighed.)

“I had been the ‘older mom, but now I was being sent out for the grandmother role,” she said, laughing. “Mind you, I was in my mid-40s. Id go for these auditions and thered be me and two or three people my age, and then a room full of old ladies — and the old ladies would always get the gig! It was like, really? Do I have to put on old age makeup for an audition?”

Getting cast in a production of the 1940s-style musical Swing Time Canteen seemed perfect, at first. “About halfway through rehearsals I said, ‘This is fun. And then we opened and I realized: I like rehearsing. And I really just didnt enjoy performing anymore.”

Still, work kept coming, including an enjoyable European tour in a production of 42^nd Street, where she was treated like a star and met her future husband, trumpeter and bandleader Bruce Staelens. Theyve been collaborators in life and music ever since. An experienced jazzman, Bruce Staelens has played for several Broadway shows, including Chicago and Wicked, as well as in clubs.

Mary Levin

Bethany has a great view from her office in UW Tower.

Staelens decided her “starving artist” days were done and snagged a good-paying regular job — she always had day gigs, even working a while in the office of Rolling Stone Keith Richards — but commuting though Grand Central Station felt “like going through hell 10 times a week.”

The city seemed different, too, angrier since 9-11 (Staelens was 20 blocks away that day). “Or maybe it was that I was aging, or a combination of both. A lot of the jazz clubs were either going out of business or converting to cabaret, so there was less work for both of us.”

There were highlights, though — such as when Bruce gathered together “18 of the most amazing jazz musicians in New York” for a big band to back her singing. They had fun and repeated the event every year for a while, swinging with lush arrangements of tunes like “I Got it Bad and That Aint Good,” Duke Ellingtons classic “It Dont Mean a Thing if it Aint Got That Swing” and the hauntingly sad “Heres That Rainy Day.”

She decided to record the songs, “If only for the sake of when Im 90 to be able to say, ‘I used to sing really well.” The project emptied her savings but they had a great time (and many of the musicians quietly handed back their checks when she tried to pay them).

Still, they knew it was time to relocate, but where? The answer came when they traveled west to see their friend and mentor, composer Steve Sample in Bellingham. He fell ill and canceled, leaving them in Seattle on a crisp, sunny day. “We fell in love with it. We liked this area culturally and politically, and its beautiful.” She swept a hand toward the splendid view. “I mean, just look at it!” They moved here in June of 2008.

She applied for the job with Education Outreach, run by Vice Provost Dave Szatmary, who saw the famous name on her resume. It happens Szatmary is also a rock and roll historian whose book, Rockin in Time, is still in print. They both recall that he told her, “I figure if you can keep Keith Richards organized you could keep me organized!” He hired her and she flourished, providing, Szatmary said, “a highly professional, extremely organized and upbeat face” to the office.

And so here they were, but they still had a bunch of swinging big band tunes recorded, so decided to press CDs, get a band together and hold a release party. This they did at Tulas in January 2009. They did good business, the owner offered them a regular spot, and theyve been there every month since.

“Every month its a scramble for Bruce to come up with 17 guys who dont have another gig,” Staelens said. The results, she said, can be “fabulous … when we get musicians who work well together and really listen to each other, and are in the mood.”

One such musician is UW music major Collin Provence, a pianist with whom the Staelens are very impressed. “Occasionally you find this gem,” she said. “Ive worked with a lot of the great accompanists out here and they dont have anything on him. Hes got a great feel.”

Asked her favorite song to perform, she said, “From a lyrical standpoint I think the favorite — one I probably do too often — is ‘A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square.” She also loves the songs of Cy Coleman (author of “The Best is Yet to Come”) and confesses a fondness for “Cry Me a River” and other of what she smilingly calls “poor helpless mistreated woman songs.”

Some of the sadder songs cast her mind back to other times and lost friends and family, but singers must deal delicately with emotions. “Sometimes you have to shut off what gets you there and let the technique take over,”
Staelens said, “but somehow let those emotions kind of bubble up around the edges.”

Whats next? She has several ideas, and a growing love of gardening, too.

Staelens and a collaborator wrote a gently bawdy, hourlong revue back in New York called Sex Because it Sells that she feels might work well in a casino, where people tend to need cheering up. “Id like to get that musical back on its feet,” she said.

She also appears for pledge drives on the public television station KBTC, which helps her maintain her “on-camera chops.”

Regrets? Too few to mention, really. “All the years I was working my voice wasnt as good as it is now,” she said. “Ive finally got the voice I wish that I had 20 years ago. Ive known singers who have finally gotten their voice when they are 70 years old.”

She even wonders if shed have survived the nonsense and excess that often accompany a life pursuing stardom. “Another part of me says, ‘Wouldnt it have been nice to be able to find out?”

But Bethany Staelens is content, and The Smith-Staelens Big Band, their regular gig, continues each month at Tulas — bringing her, in a very real sense, the best of both worlds.

And for a girl singer, thats a happy ending indeed.

Courtesy Eve Riskin

John Sahr is Associate Dean for Undergraduate Academic Affairs — but he’s also a regular player n the Humans vs. Zombies Tag game. “The guy’s got spirit,” one student zombie hunter says.

But thats OK — hes an excellent professor of electrical engineering and associate dean of undergraduate academic affairs. And hes likely the first UW administrator to regularly play the Humans vs. Zombies Tag game with students.

Sahr talked awhile in his Gerberding Hall office about fighting in the campus battle of living versus undead. It started a couple of years back, he said. “When I saw these kids running around with these orange bandanas and their Nerf guns, I thought — what theyre doing looks so goofy.”

He stopped a student and was told about the game. “It just instantly sort of resonated with me — the goofiness of it,” he said. “And I understood immediately the structure and point of what they were doing.”

Sahr, whos just short of 50, said hes not otherwise much of a gamer, though he did play a version of Dungeons and Dragons with some graduate students a few years back. But when he learned about zombie tag, he knew he had to play, so he signed up.

“Its kind of a funny way to have a connection with students,” he said. “Im a completely incompetent player. I always get killed on the second or third day, and then I starve.”

Courtesy Eve Riskin

Eve Riskin, professor of electrical engineering and associate dean of academic affairs in the College of Engineering, dressed and ready to play the Humans vs. Zombies Tag game. In front of her is her son, Aden, 10, and at left is family friend Leo Traisman, now 10 (9 when photo was shot). Riskin holds a rubber zombie baby she found at a Halloween store. She said to herself when she saw it, “I know what I’m going to do with that!”

The rules are pretty simple: There are two teams, the Zombie Horde and the Human Resistance. Everyone starts out the week human in a game seeded with a few zombies. Humans “killed” by zombies also become undead, and must “infect” others, making them zombies too, or die of starvation. A human can “stun” a zombie with a dart gun, to give time for an escape. Those wearing a bandanna on their arm are human; zombies wear their bandannas on their undead heads. The game has now grown to about 900 participants campuswide.

Sahr said, “I took advantage of my unusual position. For the first three or four games I was the only professor. So I created in some sense a kind of mythical character, Associate Dean John Sahr — you always had to say the whole thing.”

He used the games Facebook page to taunt opponents and issue challenges. “Id spend the early part of the game trash-talking the zombies and the second half of the game trash-talking the humans.”

As a zombie, he once announced he would walk twice around the Drumheller Fountain. “That one was funny because about 50 zombies showed up, and made it just impossible for any humans to get near me.” Another time he promised to be on Red Square at a certain hour and to give a business card to any human who stunned him. The result? “I was out there for about 20 minutes and then a human came, guns blazing, and got me.”

Once, after losing a dare, Sahr taught a class with his face covered with “zombie blood.” He said, “It was funny how little they seemed to notice.”

Sahr is no longer the only faculty member — or administrator — to be infected with playing zombie tag. Eve Riskin, a fellow electrical engineering faculty member and associate dean of academic affairs in the College of Engineering, got involved last year, partly because her 10-year-old son, Aden, wanted to play.

“So I signed up, too — I needed to keep an eye on him. And I am arguably the worst player,” she said. “Ive played four times and I have never killed a human.” Riskin said since shes slower than the students, “Im easy cannon fodder for somebody.” Scott Hauck, a fellow professor of electrical engineering, also suffers from the zombie tag infection and plays the game.

John Sahr

John Sahr on the Humans vs. Zombies field of play, left, alongside student Ryan Alumbaugh. For a zombie and a human, they seem to be getting along well.

As for Aden, Riskin said the students always have an eye out for his safety. “The kids will take him under their wing, and run off for a couple of hours on a mission. Someone is always looking out for him,” she said. “Its something hes going to remember when he grows up. He says he wants to pick a college based on whether they play tag.”

Sahrs 12-year-old son doesnt come to campus and play, but has seen a couple of good battles and loves it. “He tunes up my Nerf guns,” Sahr said.

One might ask, zombie tag is all in good fun, but how is it relevant to higher education? “I guess Id say its relevant to my administrative work, in the sense that Im interested in the students and community building,” Sahr said.

He sees team-building in the game, too. “You can see three zombies whove never met before suddenly encounter each other and realize theres a human nearby — and all of a sudden, theyre a team, coordinating strategy, introducing themselves to each other and having a lot of fun.”

Riskin, too, said the game occasionally gives her time to talk with students interested in engineering, and provide a bit of informal guidance.

Sahr is impressed by the students running Humans vs. Zombie tag each quarter. “I just have great respect for the students who are organizing the game. They have done a tremendous job of tuning the rules to address all kinds of things — primarily safety issues.” They stay in close touch with the UW Police as well, “so everybody knows whats going on.” When President Obama visited in 2010, for instance, the game shut down entirely and efficiently for two days.

Students who have battled or been zombies alo
ngside Sahr return his compliment. Erin Brown, a biology major, said in an email that shes tried to “zombify” Sahr every time shes played the game, but others always get him first.

Brown said she knows Sahr doesnt have much free time for the game, but added a bit of high praise: “The guy’s got spirit. Having him play the game with us has been incredibly fun for everyone, and it definitely adds a ‘cool factor to the game for all of the students.”

Eric Clapp, one of the student organizers, said its great to have Sahrs participation. “One of my more favorite memories of him during the game was running into him behind Loew. He had a Nerf blaster, but likely wasn’t able to operate it if he were to be attacked by zombies, as he had a coffee mug in the other hand.”

Finally, how do Sahrs own colleagues feel about his humans vs. zombies adventures?

Sahr said, “I guess people who know me — including my tremendous boss, Ed Taylor, dean of undergraduate affairs and vice provost — they know that I am a kind of prankster, and that whimsy and goofy kind of work for me. They roll their eyes, but in an affectionate way, I guess.”

Courtesy of Hussein Elkafaifi

Hussein Elkafaifi sits in front of a mural in Benghazi created by a young man subsequently killed by a pro-Gaddafi sniper. Similar cartoons have appeared all over Benghazi.

A UW associate professor of Arabic and applied linguistics, Elkhafaifi arrived as protests sweeping the Middle East reached Libya. In Benghazi, Libyas second-largest city, a crowd armed with rocks and gasoline bombs protested outside a government office, demanding the release of a human rights advocate. Troops loyal to dictator Muammar Gaddafi responded with bullets, and scores of people were either wounded or killed.

“People were really angry. It was like sitting on a volcano,” recalls 62-year-old Elkhafaifi.

But he was focused on his family, particularly his mother. Soon after arriving at the Benghazi airport, Elkhafaifi drove with his brother, sister and nephew to Jamahiriya Hospital, where his mother lay.

“The room wasnt fit for rats,” recalls Elkhafaifi. All over the hospital, built in the 1930s by Italians occupying the country, windows were cracked, linens filthy, and staff in short supply.

Hussein Elkafaifi

A young opposition fighter stands atop a Gaddafi tank burned outside Benghazi.

Thats the problem with Libya, Elkhafaifi said. Gaddafi and his family have abused the country for 42 years, pocketing the revenues from Libyas resources so that basics such as education,  healthcare and infrastructure have crumbled. “Its happening in a country that should be the richest in Africa – so much oil and natural gas,” he said.

On the way home from the hospital, Elkhafaifi and his family drove past the Italian consulate where five years before, Libyan soldiers shot demonstrators during a protest. Elkhafaifi had anticipated that a commemorative demonstration would be launched, and indeed, they were the beginning of the revolution.

At the consulate, Libyan soldiers waited with clubs and shields. One of them spotted Elkhafaifis nephew in the back seat of the car taking photographs.  “Hey,” the soldier yelled, “you arent supposed to do that,” whereupon he flung his helmet at the car, and another soldier threw rocks.

Elkhafaifis brother hit the gas, whipped around the corner and zoomed away.

A day or so later, Elkhafaifi saw photographs of corpses at the scene. “If the riot police had caught us, we might have been tortured and killed,” he said.

As the days passed, good mingled with bad.

Courtesy of Hussein Elkafaifi

Hussein Elkafaifi stands with a tank in Benghazi. The Arabic on the tank says, “Gaddafi’s gift to Benghazi.”

On Feb. 20, for example, a usually quiet, middle-aged manager crashed his car, packed with gasoline cans, into the front gate of the Katiba, a large military garrison near the Elkhafaifi home, leading the way for fellow citizens to rout the Libyan army and mercenaries.

That night, residents of Benghazi, including members of the Elkhafaifi family, celebrated in the streets. At one point, however, they heard a large explosion. A young man had stepped on a land mine.

Elkhafaifi had gone inside the garrison and was returning to his family outside. When he reached them, his sister noticed spatters on the back of his jacket. Touching them, she realized they were clumps of human flesh.

Benghazi is a big city, about 800,000 people, but word of the hundreds of deaths traveled very fast because many Benghazi families are related. Many people attend funerals for those killed, whether they know the deceased or not, out of respect and solidarity with the revolution, and funerals are getting larger and larger. “It adds fuel to the fire. People want Gaddafi and his family gone,” Elkhafaifi said.

Hussein Elkafaifi

On his jacket, Elkhafaifi wears a pin with a photograph of Omar al-Mukhtar, who in the early part of the 20th century led the Libyan resistance against Italian colonization. The pin carries al-Mukhtar’s motto, adopted by Libyan freedom fighters: “We will never surrender. We will win or we will die.”

Word on the street, he added, is that Gaddafi not only wants Benghazi flattened and everyone killed, but that soldiers have been instructed to look for male residents 10 to 40 years of age, who constitute a large part of the population. As potential participants in the revolution, they are targeted for arrest and execution.

Elkhafaifi recalled his own youth in Benghazi, where in 1971 he obtained an undergraduate degree in Arabic language and literature from the University of Libya. He left Libya several years after Gaddafi took power in 1969 but over the years has heard about Libyan agents invading homes, sometimes in the middle of the night, to interrogate and abduct residents. The government hanged several students in public and citizens were required to attend the executions.

Agents have visited the Elkhafaifi home a number of times. Their son had a government scholarship for graduate studies at the University of Utah, but was regarded with suspicion simply because he was abroad.

Elkhafaifi lost his scholarship in 1976 when he ignored a summons to return to Libya. “There were indoctrination meetings we were required to attend. Indoctrination via the Green Book,” Elkhafaifi explained, referring to Gaddafis book of socialist and nationalist philosophy.

When checks from the Libyan government ceased, Elkhafaifi obtained a teaching assistantship at Utah, finishing his doctorate in 1985 and becoming an American citizen.

Hes married to Susan Benson, a lecturer in the UW Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilization, and they have two daughters, Zahra at Western Washington University, and Leila, a student at Redmond High School.

During the nine weeks her husband was gone, Benson spent many sleepless nights. For 12 days, she had no idea whether he was dead or alive, as the Gaddafi government had disabled Internet connections and cell phone towers. Benson finally learned her husband was alive and wel
l in a phone call from Ali Tarhouni, a senior lecturer at the UW Foster School of Business who is now oil and finance minister for the Libyan opposition.

Online in March, Benson read about Gaddafis troops massing outside Benghazi. Rumors were that Gaddafi and his sons wanted an unimpeded view from the city of Ajdabiya to the Green Mountain. Benghazi lies between them…

Meanwhile, Elkhafaifis mother had died and been buried. His siblings urged him to go home, to get out of the country while it was possible. However, on some days, it was too risky to leave the house at all. “Snipers shot mourners as they carried their dead to the cemetery,” Elkhafaifi would later write in an email. Moreover, Islamic tradition calls for 40 days of family mourning after a death. “I could have gone at various times during this period,” he said, “but I did not want to just leave my family before marking this important date. I also wanted very much to be present to celebrate the end of the Gaddafi regime, but that was not to be.”

Finally, after 40 days, Elkhafaifi rented a minivan with six other people and drove to Cairo, where he boarded an airplane for Amsterdam and then Seattle, arriving April 11.

On his jacket, Elkhafaifi wears a pin with a photograph of Omar al-Mukhtar, who in the early part of the 20^th century led the Libyan resistance against Italian colonization. The pin carries al-Mukhtars motto, adopted by Libyan freedom fighters: “We will never surrender. We will win or we will die.”

Rick Neitzel comments on light rail noise locally.

Going to a concert? Wear earplugs, Rick Neitzel advises — the kind musicians wear.

The term “occupational hygienist” doesnt bring to mind the same image as “doctor” or “nurse” or, even, “scientist” for the average person.  Rick Neitzel , who is technically a research scientist in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, understands this. “The profession doesnt get a lot of visibility,” he said.”The assumption is that an occupational hygienist scrubs gears in factories to make machines run well.”

Neitzels work, however, is pretty straightforward and, actually, interesting.  He and other occupational hygienists study health and safety issues in the workplace. “We study many different exposures, ranging from chemicals to radiation to temperature extremes to bacteria and mold,” he said. Also included: a workers risk of falling from heights or being crushed by a crane, and employees affected by noise and vibration, such as construction workers running jackhammers or the other kind of hygienist  operating ultrasonic dental equipment.

UW Research Scientist Rick Neitzel evaluates noise levels on a construction site in Sunnyside, Wash./photo by Sabrina Somers

Neitzels work has focused primarily on noise and vibration.  His name has become well-known in research circles and with East Coast media in the last few years, even if hes still a bit under the radar here in the Pacific Northwest.   He has teamed up with researchers from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health to measure noise levels at transit platforms and stations, as well as inside vehicles on New York City subways, buses, ferries, commuter railways and the Roosevelt Island tramway.

Study findings from the team published in the American Journal of Public Health in August 2009 concluded that Metropolitan Transit Authority subways had the highest average noise levels of all mass transit in New York City, with levels high enough to potentially increase the risk of noise- induced hearing loss.

Neitzel and the team are now delving into how long people are exposed to the noise levels and for what groups of people is transit noise the primary risk of hearing loss. “Groups Ive worked with in the past include construction and forestry workers and people in manufacturing,” he said. “Its pretty clear that what they do on the job will be the primary risk of hearing loss. But if you look at New York City, the vast majority of people are either in the service industry or in white collar jobs.  I dont expect most of them to be getting much, if any, exposure at work.” Neitzel said.

What those people do in their spare time—commuting, hunting, going to sporting events and rock concerts, listening to MP3 players for hours at a time—may present more of a risk of hearing loss. “Im particularly interested in seeing what we should focus on from the public health standpoint,” he said.

How did the Seattle-based researcher get linked up with counterparts in the Big Apple? Neitzel chuckles when he gets that question. “I got a phone call one day in 2006 from the researchers at Columbia and they said, ‘Are you this person we saw on the Internet that studies noise?” Yes, thats right.  Google brought the team together.  “Its a funny story, with all the networks and professional associations that exist,” he said. “Sometimes, its the Internet that gets you where you need to be.”

Research scientist Neitzel also shared his thoughts on Sound Transits light rail and related noise and provided tips on how to reduce exposure to high levels of noise.

Greg Barnes holds the prize in hands muddy from digging. | Photo by Brice Semmens.

It isnt the first time hes performed such a feat. In 2007 he was the one to find the medallion in the annual Emerald City Search, a citywide community building event in which a medallion is hidden somewhere in the city and clues are provided to help players find the prize.

This year the Canlis brothers who own the restaurant, which is known as one of the classiest — and most expensive  — in Seattle, decided to do a similar thing. They first hid 50 of their 1950 menus all over the city, with clues provided on Facebook and Twitter. The finders of those menus were then eligible to compete for the grand prize.

“A friend heard about the Canlis competition and sent me a message on Facebook,” Barnes said. “She said, ‘If anyone could solve these clues, it would be you.”

He took up the challenge, at first somewhat lazily, tuning into the clues on Facebook. But he soon realized that the real go-getters were picking up the clues via Twitter. And while he first decided not to follow a clue because it led too far away from home, “by the end I was trying to drive to Issaquah in rush hour traffic, which was impossible.”

The menu he found was at the Museum of Flight. The clue read: “Have no fear, Church is here. But how did she get from here to there?”

Members of Greg Barnes’ “home team” man their laptops. Standing at left are Lauren Bricker and Mike Schuh. Seated left to right are Dorothy Neville, Elizabeth Walkup, David Walkup (Barnes’ father-in-law, who was observing), Christy Semmens and Terry Farrah. Hidden behind Christy is Erik Selberg. | Photo by Franz Amador

The Wikipedia list contained only a few women, and one was listed as the first stewardess, a registered nurse named Ellen Church who had told Boeing officials that they should have trained personnel on board their planes to serve the passengers.

“She only served on one model of plane, and I knew that plane was at the Museum of Flight,” Barnes said.

How did he know? He had attended a party at the museum years before and remembered seeing an informational card about the stewardess and the plane. It was a distinctive looking plane, he said, so it stuck in his mind. The clue went out on the first Thursday evening of the month, the only evening the museum is open. Barnes headed straight there and found the menu on a support holding the plane between levels of the museum.

Finding the menu won Barnes a dinner for two at Canlis at 1950 prices. He still has the menu, which shows lobster as the most expensive entrée at $4. Food for himself and his wife ran $10 to $12, Barnes said, but of course drinks, tips and valet parking were all at present day prices.

“It was a substantial discount but it wasnt really 1950 prices,” he said of his first meal at Canlis.

But then, the prize was never really the point for Barnes. The grand prize was advertised as a card allowing a person to have a free dinner at Canlis once a year for life, but the winner of the prize had to give it away. That didnt stop Barnes from going for it with zeal. Helpers were allowed — two with him in the car and as many as he wanted by phone or Internet. Barnes had two searchers with him and eight people with their laptops gathered at the house of a friend “who has very good internet connectivity.”

Most of his team has UW ties, including one staffer, Elizabeth Walkup (his wife), a research consultant in Genome Sciences. The others are mostly UW graduates: Franz Amador, Eric Bone, Lauren Bricker, Terry Farrah, Dorothy Neville, Mike Schuh, Erik Selberg, Brice Semmens and Christy Semmens.

The search began at 10:39 a.m. on New Years Eve at Canlis. The 47 teams gathered (some people had found more than one menu) were each given five clues taking them to five locations. At each location they were to get a sticker, and when theyd accumulated all five they got a sixth clue that led them to Gas Works Park.

Some clues were easy — at least, to Barnes team. One, for example, read “Two many rooms, and Elizabeth sent the youngest students home.” This was in downtown Seattle, at the site of the first public school house.

“I pulled up to a stoplight by the site, let out my passengers and they were back in the car before the light changed,” Barnes said.

What he called the hardest one read: “In the shadow of sisters with full hearts displayed, King County’s first refuge for the body betrayed. Two options before you, but history will show, downtown is too north, now hurry and go!”

Barnes knew this had to be the site of the first county hospital, started by the Sisters of the Sacred Heart, which was in Georgetown, but he didnt know exactly where.  His team finally found the answer in an old news story about a ghost tour in Georgetown, which included the site of a cemetery next to the hospital. The story mentioned that the site was the current Georgetown Playfield.

Once at Gas Works Park, a greater challenge awaited to find the card. There, people were walking around with t-shirts with letters on them. Some were decoys, but some gave a clue that consisted of a number and sometimes punctuation. Together, the letters spelled out “Light up Seattle,” (a phrased that was part of the clue leading to the park) which put the clues in the correct order for longitude-latitude coordinates.

Barnes and his team got that far, but they could only approximate the coordinates using Google Maps. In the end, since no one else was even close to solving the riddle, the Canlis brothers nudged Barnes in the right direction and he found the card buried near a bench.

It was all over by just after 1 p.m., and Barnes had found not one but two cards, one of which he gets to keep.

But that doesnt mean him personally, since he had a lot of help. “My wife and I have already had a dinner at Canlis, so someone else on the team will get first dibs on this years dinner,” he said.

As for the card to be given away, he says the recipient hasnt been chosen yet. “My team and I have decided well get together and hopefully choose someone by consensus.”

Why do all this, just to get a card to give away?

Said Barnes, who is also active in orienteering, “Its an intellectual challenge.”

For more information

If you would like to receive your or your family’s health care at UW Medicine, ask about services or make an appointment please call 206-520-5050 or send an e-mail.

Dr. Katherine Keech, pediatric fellow in Anesthesiology & Pain Medicine, shares her UW Medicine story. Dr. Keech is based at Seattle Children’s. Husband  Dr. John Keech is a surgery resident at the UW.

Some of the reasons for choosing UW Medicine are very specific to us. When we found out we were having twins, we were very shocked.

I was originally planning to see Dr. Ann-Marie Amies Oelschlager, but she referred us to Dr. Jane Hitti at the Maternal Infant Care Center, when we found out about the twins and I had some early complications.

We had talked about how we may need to have a high-risk OB provider. We know all the hospitals around the area and the level of care of OB that they provide. For us, the two options were either Swedish or UW Medicine. When we sat down and talked about it, it was partially the convenience that my husband, a surgery resident, would be able to come to ultrasounds and appointments. With me being a fellow at Seattle Children’s, it was also easier for me to get to appointments instead of driving downtown. We also recognized the importance of having specialty-trained providers, which is what you get at UW Medicine.

I  had complications throughout my pregnancy. Dr. Hitti had me stop working pretty early on, when I was about 15 weeks pregnant. She made clinical decisions that were obviously in my best interest, based on her experience and everything she has learned throughout her career. She was so comfortable dealing with twin pregnancies that when I had some signs that were concerning but not necessarily indicative of later problems in pregnancy, she picked up on it and was conservative about her approach with me. With my job, where I’m on my feet 12 hours a day, it was thanks to her care and advice that the boys weren’t born too early. I attribute the fact that I did make it to almost 34 weeks to her care. She’s had a lot of experience dealing with twin pregnancies. Some things you just can’t find the answers to in a textbook. But when your doctor has all of that experience, and combines intuition with his or her knowledge and medical skills, it really can be beneficial.

When I spent 18 days on Labor and Delivery for pre-term labor, only those directly involved in our care or the friends/staff we told knew we were there; our privacy was respected. But it was also nice to have friends from work come up to visit me when I was there for so long.

Our twins, Jack and Conor, were born on June 26, 2010. I was at 33 weeks and 5 days in my pregnancy.

Dr. Sarah Waller, who is one of the fellows in Maternal Fetal Medicine, delivered us. We ended up having a pretty scary c-section. We had been planning to have a vaginal delivery and Jack was almost out when Conor’s heart rate dropped down to the 60s. We moved really quickly to have the c-section. I know Dr. Waller and the chief resident and the nursing staff did everything so fast. From the time they made the decision to do the c-section until the time the boys were born was about four minutes. Some of the nursing staff said it was the fastest c-section they’d ever seen at the UW. With everything that happened, we were so thankful we were at the U. I hate to think of what might have happened if we were at another medical facility that wasn’t as well-prepared. We were very thankful we were somewhere that they were ready to deal with anything that could have come up.

Jack was in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at UW Medical Center for 17 days and Conor was there for three weeks.

The level of care at the NICU is wonderful. I think it will even be a more comfortable place for families once they open the new NICU. The nurses were amazing. Thankfully, we had relatively little interaction with the medical team since our boys were pretty low-maintenance.

I can’t say enough good things about the nurses. Part of that time for me was a little bit of a blur. I was exhausted and had a c-section. My parents were there and they felt that the nurses were very helpful. They were very very impressed with the level of care.

If anyone I knew who was having twins or has a complicated pregnancy for any reason, I would definitely recommend Dr. Hitti and UW Medicine to her. When we did find out that we were having twins, we felt that with all of the specialty-trained physicians so easily accessible to us we should utilize those services.

We would recommend UW Medical Center for labor and delivery,services and care. We had a very positive experience there and had the best possible outcome for our now four-month-old twin boys!

Editor’s Note:  Dr. Ann-Marie Amies Oelschlager is an obstetrician at the Women’s Health Care Center. Dr. Jane Hitti is a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at the Maternal Infant Care Center,

It was 1977, in Williamsburg, Va. Hertzog, now the new director of the University of Washington’s Robinson Center for Young Scholars, was a new teacher in a public school that had integrated black and white students in the late 1960s, well after the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision that ruled against separate schools for black and white children.

Hertzog was teaching fourth and fifth graders who read at the second grade level. And, she was trying just about anything to help them.

“I love active teaching,” she said. “So, I would get down on the floor with the students.” Once at eye-level, Hertzog could engage her students better and get them more excited about the stories they were reading together.

But, school administrators were skeptical of her methods. Hertzog, who grew up in Indianapolis, became frustrated and decided that she needed to get validation for the hands-on, creative teaching she wanted to do. She enrolled in a gifted and talented education master’s degree program at the University of Connecticut to work with Joseph Renzulli, early pioneer in the gifted education field.

Upon completing her master’s in 1981, Hertzog returned to the classroom. Or, more specifically, classrooms. As her physicist husband David Hertzog — a new professor in the UW physics department — received his doctoral and post-doctoral training at various research centers, Hertzog moved with him, landing gifted education teaching gigs in each new hometown. “At one point, I had teaching certificates in five states,” Hertzog said, pausing before remembering them all: Connecticut, Virginia, New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio.

She taught a talented and gifted pull-out program in Long Beach, NY, and taught and coordinated gifted programs in New Kent, Va. and Imperial, Penn. “Wherever I went to teach gifted children, it was different and the children were interested in different things,” Hertzog said.

In 1986 the couple moved to Champaign, Ill. Hertzog’s husband had accepted an assistant professor position in the University of Illinois’ physics department, and Hertzog became the head teacher at the University of Illinois’ University Primary School, a school for very young (ages 3-6) gifted children.

At University Primary School, Hertzog revamped how the staff and curricula nurtured gifted children. “We de-emphasized IQ scores and focused more on talent development.” Hertzog began to realize how the curriculum could be used to nurture all children, including those with cerebral palsy, autism and Asperger’s. In 1994, Hertzog completed her doctorate in special education at the University of Illinois, and then became an assistant professor in the university’s special education department while serving as director of the University Primary School.

She’s worked with gifted children and children with special needs, but Hertzog says “we should not be labeling kids. We should look at children as unique individuals with unique needs.”

All children should have challenging classroom environments regardless of their abilities, she said. “I look at students’ needs and talents and what they need to keep growing and be challenged.”

Hertzog and her husband lived in Champaign for 24 years, raised two sons and built their dream house. In August, the couple celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary while packing boxes.

The move to Seattle is a new chapter in their lives. They’re empty-nesters now. Their younger son is a business major at their alma mater, Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio. Their older son — who was born prematurely and weighed two and half pounds at birth — is a jazz guitarist in Brooklyn, NY. He’s being considered for the ballot of 2011 Grammy nominees.

In mid-September, Hertzog began her new job as director of the Halbert and Nancy Robinson Center for Young Scholars, which has administered early entrance programs to UW since 1977. More than 500 gifted young scholars from the Seattle area have entered UW through the Robinson Center, and each year 400 children participate in the center’s summer programs. The center is affiliated with UW’s Undergraduate Academic Affairs office. Hertzog is also a professor in the College of Education’s educational psychology department.

Located in Guthrie Annex 2 — a cozy outbuilding tucked between Guthrie Hall and 15th Avenue — the Robinson Center is a homebase for middle school-aged children who are entering the University early and who are too young to live in the dorms. Through the Center’s transition school, students come to campus every day to take college classes in math, history and English. In between classes, they come to the Robinson Center to hang out in the lounge, chat with friends and use the kitchen to prepare lunch. They take classes at the center that help bridge middle school to college curricula.

The Center is also home to students in the UW Academy, a program for students who enter the UW as freshmen after their tenth grade year of high school.

Though the Robinson Center was created for children who have a need to accelerate their academic curriculum, Hertzog envisions the center as serving a larger population. She hopes to develop partnerships and collaborations with researchers and schools in the Seattle area to bring rigorous learning environments to all children.

“My challenge is looking at the programs we have developed and figuring out how they could be offered to the Seattle community,” Hertzog said. “The Robinson Center can be more than a haven for gifted children. We can also provide professional development for all teachers who want to enrich their kids.”