Despite a challenging year, our community has achieved something incredible — not just sustaining our commitment to our mission, but strengthening it.
Category: Graduation
Congratulations, Class of 2020!
This year, it was my honor and privilege to deliver the commencement address to the graduating seniors, graduate and professional students who earned their degrees during a quarter unlike any before.
Updates on commencement and summer quarter as we weather the pandemic
As we continue social distancing to fight the pandemic, our University is planning for the future, including commencement and summer quarter, to ensure we serve our students and community well.
Congratulations and thank you for a year of excellence
As we wrap up another academic year at the University of Washington, we have much to celebrate. I am deeply grateful to be marking this milestone with all of you – students, faculty, staff, alumni, friends and neighbors who make up our diverse and vibrant community.
A message to alumni: Proud of our community of shared values
As we conclude another successful academic year, some 15,000 or so new graduates will go forth from the University of Washington and begin to carve their post-college paths. Among them are visionaries who dream of interplanetary travel and asteroid-mining, newly minted Ph.D.s with expertise in everything from classics to bioengineering, and Washington students who were the first in their families to enroll in college and will leave the UW with a diploma and untold opportunities. Each graduate’s story is unique and powerful.
Congratulations to this year’s graduates!
This year, close to 16,000 degrees will be awarded to graduates from the University of Washington in Seattle, UW Bothell and UW Tacoma. And this week, thousands will turn their tassels and change the world for the better.
Earning a college degree is an outstanding achievement for every student, and, in particular, for those who are the first in their families to achieve this tremendous milestone. Whether you are graduating as first-, second-, third- or even fourth-generation Huskies, this is a time to celebrate all the inspiring work to which you have devoted yourselves over the past several years at the UW.
So many of our seniors embody the undaunted spirit of the University. Let me mention just a few:
Law, Societies & Justice major Dashni Amin has long been an advocate for the underserved. After taking an Honors Program class on education in prison, she turned her compassion into action by creating a program that helps improve prisoners’ access to educational materials.
While juggling a packed academic schedule, mechanical engineering major Ryan Smith applied his growing knowledge to innovative research: He worked 20 hours a week for a UW-propelled startup that combines engineering and medical science to create safer football helmets.
Saloni Parikh, a computer science and public health dual major, put her technical expertise to work in several interdisciplinary global health projects — even traveling to Kenya to help train community health workers to collect digital data for a UW study that aims to curb HIV transmission.
And Ganita Musa, a social welfare major at UW Tacoma, was also a member of the Global Honors Program. Driven to connect with and learn from her fellow students, Ganita immersed herself in student life: She was a member of the Student Services Committee, the Student Social Work Organization and the Muslim Student Association.
The Class of 2015 has an array of remarkable individuals, and I wish I had enough space to tell you about them all. Our University is home to students of brilliant ideas and diverse backgrounds, of entrepreneurial minds and passionate hearts. With optimism and pride, I know we all look forward to the impact our newest graduates will make on communities here and around the world.
Faculty and staff, thank you for everything you have done to prepare the Class of 2015! Your commitment, guidance and passion for research, learning and discovery are at the heart of the UW’s unparalleled excellence as a premier public university.
Graduates, you now join the pantheon of proud UW alumni. Stay connected to your purple and gold roots; work hard and be a force for good in the world. And, most of all, go forth with optimism and fortitude — and Be Boundless!
Congratulations!
Helping UW students prepare for life after graduation
Amid the national debate on the value of a college education, the UW is working hard to improve the Husky Student Experience in ways that help our students prepare to succeed after graduation, in careers and in life, even as the world is changing rapidly around us.
Our first report in a series about the UW’s efforts, Helping UW Students Prepare for Life after Graduation: It Takes All of Us, stresses the following points:
A UW education is a major … and more.
For UW graduates to be ready for a complex, demanding world, UW students need intellectually challenging majors, and they need broad skills to translate that knowledge into the workplace.
It takes a whole campus to support student success.
Ongoing conversations across all three campuses show a growing consensus on the importance of integrating curricular and co-curricular learning so students graduate with a major … and more. This will help students build the intellectual and collaborative skills that enable personal success and civic engagement.
We’re well under way, but there’s more to be done.
Many UW groups and individuals already excel at meeting these goals; this report shares some of their stories. However, we must do more. Helping our students prepare for the world—and prepare to change the world—is our shared work. Indeed, it is our responsibility.
Reading this report will provide you with a deeper understanding about why this is a priority and what our goals are to prepare students to contribute to a healthy society and vibrant economy and to live a productive life.