Desert Social

Robert J. Jones took office as the 34th president of the University of Washington on Aug. 1, 2025. He holds a faculty appointment in the Department of Biology in the College of Arts and Sciences. Prior to leading the UW, Jones served as chancellor of Illinois’ flagship university, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and prior to that as president of the State of New York University at Albany (SUNY Albany). He is a distinguished scholar whose research focuses on crop physiology, and he has served in leadership roles in national academic organizations and the Big Ten Conference.

Jones served for nine years as the 10th chancellor of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the state’s largest and flagship land-grant university. He was previously chair of the board of directors for the Association of American Universities (AAU), board chair of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) and chair of the Big Ten Council of Presidents and Chancellors.

At Illinois, Jones led the university in establishing a bold new vision of the land-grant university for the 21st century and beyond, while honoring the institution’s long history of achievement. Under his leadership, the university completed a $2.7 billion philanthropic campaign, the largest in its history. Jones also oversaw the launch of the Carle Illinois College of Medicine, the first accredited engineering-based medical school in the world. During his nine years as chancellor, he grew the university’s enrollment by 25%. He also significantly expanded the Illinois Commitment, a program that guarantees four years’ free tuition to state residents with family incomes less than $75,000, making the university’s founding promise of an accessible and affordable world-class college education the centerpiece of his administration.

During Jones’ tenure, the university’s research enterprise became a central component of Illinois’ efforts to build an infrastructure for innovation and discovery. He was selected by Governor J.B. Pritzker to co-chair the Innovate Illinois partnership to coordinate the state’s efforts to secure critical federal research investments, and he led the university in being selected for multiple high-profile research partnerships. Under Jones’ leadership, the university was also recognized as the state institution best positioned to convene public and private partnerships and collaborations to solve problems that are too large and complex for any single institution to address alone. He also served for more than a decade as a consultant to Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s South African Education Program, designed to educate Black South African students in American universities to help advance the nation post-Apartheid.

A Georgia native, Jones is a first-generation college student who earned a bachelor’s degree in agronomy from Fort Valley State College, a master’s degree in crop physiology from the University of Georgia, and a doctorate in crop physiology from the University of Missouri–Columbia. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and is a fellow of the American Society of Agronomy and the Crop Science Society of America. He began his academic career in 1978 as a faculty member at the University of Minnesota, where he spent more than three decades as an internationally respected authority on plant physiology and a nationally recognized university administrator. For more than 30 years, Jones also recorded and performed with the Grammy-award winning choral ensemble The Sounds of Blackness.

Jones is married to Dr. Lynn Hassan Jones, M.D., a musculoskeletal diagnostic radiologist. Together they have five children and a growing number of grandchildren.

Patrick Chun, one of the foremost leaders in intercollegiate athletics, was named the 17th Director of Athletics at the University of Washington on March 26, 2024. Chun also has the distinction of being the first Asian-American Power Four athletic director.

The 2024-25 academic year was historic for Washington as the Huskies competed as a member of the Big Ten Conference for the first time. Sixteen of UW’s 22 varsity teams advanced to postseason competition, with men’s rowing winning the Intercollegiate Rowing Association (IRA) national championship for the second straight year, and for the 21st time in program history, and women’s rowing claiming UW’s first Big Ten team championship. The UW enjoyed its most outstanding season in the history of women’s track & field, with both the indoor and outdoor teams finishing fourth nationally (both the highest in program history) and the combined cross country and track & field programs ranking second nationally. UW student-athletes earned four individual NCAA championships and nine Big Ten titles, with 80 student-athletes honored as All-Big Ten Conference selections and 32 as All-Americans. Five student-athletes were named Big Ten Athlete or Freshman of the Year.

In the classroom, UW student-athletes recorded a school-record 3.48 GPA in 2024-25, with all 22 programs exceeding the 3.0 benchmark. The university celebrated 304 Academic All-Big Ten honors, more than half of its student-athlete population.

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In 15 seasons on Montlake, Jamie Clark has orchestrated the meteoric rise of Washington men’s soccer, distinguishing the team as one of the nation’s top college soccer programs. During his time at Washington, Clark has led the Huskies to a record of 190-72-41, the first national title in program history, three Pac-12 titles, and 12 trips to the NCAA Tournament. Of those postseason appearances, Clark’s Huskies have made five trips to the NCAA Quarterfinals, including three straight NCAA Quarterfinals appearances from 2019-21, two College Cup Finals in 2021 and 2025, and the pinnacle of college soccer with an NCAA Championship in 2025.

Clark, a former Stanford All-American, was named Washington’s ninth head coach on January 26, 2011. He immediately found success, leading the Huskies to their first-ever trip to the Elite 8 in 2013 and, in 2014, guided the program to their first No. 1 national ranking since 1997. Under Clark’s direction, 30 players have been drafted or selected as Homegrown picks by MLS clubs. In the last four MLS SuperDrafts, 11 of Clark’s players have been selected, including seven first round picks and four top-10 selections. Following the 2023 season, Nate Jones was picked fifth in the MLS SuperDraft, Washington’s highest draft selection ever.

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Jedd Fisch, who spent the previous three seasons restoring the football program at the University of Arizona and bringing it to its highest level in decades, accepted the position of head football coach at the University of Washington on Jan. 14, 2024.

After arriving in Seattle, he wasted no time in making his mark on a Husky program that had experienced an unprecedented amount of turnover, leaving Fisch and his staff to quickly re-assemble a team that returned just two starters on defense and none on offense. In his first season, 2024, Fisch’s Huskies stretched their home winning streak to 20 games (longest-ever at Husky Stadium) and earned a berth in the Sun Bowl.

In the meantime, Fisch began building for the long term, recruiting some of the top-ranked recruiting classes in history, while also firmly embracing the new realities of college football in the era of the portal, revenue sharing and NIL. And, in spring of 2025, his team complied a cumulative grade point average of 3.27, highest in program history.

Fisch, 49, came to Seattle with a long and dynamic history of coaching in college and the NFL.

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Hired on Jan. 4, 2020, Nicole Van Dyke has continued the excellence demonstrated throughout the decades by the Husky program. Not only has Van Dyke kept Washington at the national forefront during her six seasons on Montlake, but she has ushered in a new era for the Huskies, immediately establishing UW as a championship side in the prestigious Big Ten Conference.

A veteran with nearly 20 years of experience as a head coach at the collegiate level, Van Dyke has set her players up for both team accomplishments and individual success, having guided numerous all-conference, all-region and all-American honorees.

Owning a 60-32-27 record during her stint in Seattle, Van Dyke’s Huskies have not only built resumes worthy of a postseason bid, but have done damage once there. UW has reached the NCAA Tournament three times under Van Dyke, making runs to the Elite Eight in 2025 and the Sweet 16 in 2020-21. Over the course of 19 seasons as a head coach at Cal State Stanislaus, Cal State Bakersfield, Penn and UW, the Husky gaffer owns a 163-130-62 career record.

Just as importantly, Van Dyke has developed and positioned her players for future success. Van Dyke has guided six former Dawgs to NWSL contracts during her time on Montlake in Olivia Van der Jagt (Seattle Reign), Shae Holmes (Seattle Reign) and Summer Yates (Orlando Pride), Olivia Sekany (Racing Louisville FC), McKenzie Weinert (Seattle Reign) and Kolo Sulifu (Kansas City Current). In the last five years alone, Van Dyke, a former professional player in Scandinavia herself, has seen 15 of her former Huskies move on to professional careers around the world.

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