'As measured by our impact'
The UW presidency of Ana Mari Cauce
From the moment she was appointed interim president of the University of Washington, in February 2015, Ana Mari Cauce hit the ground running. With nearly 30 years of experience at the UW, she brought a deep understanding of the University’s people, culture and values. She had served in a series of increasingly senior leadership roles that touched many different parts of the UW, giving her a broad view of its strengths and needs. And throughout her years of teaching, research and leadership, she’d fostered deep personal relationships with faculty and staff that gave her a unique credibility in the UW community.
From her earliest actions as interim president, including the launch of the Race & Equity Initiative as her first major policy, Cauce showed she was unafraid to stake out ambitious goals for the University of Washington — or, as she often calls it, the University for Washington — positioning it for global stature and impact while focusing first and foremost on its public mission to the serve the needs and well-being of the state.
Despite the UW's vast scope, Cauce sums up her ambition for it: “To be the world’s greatest public research university as measured by our impact.”
Six months after naming her as interim, in announcing her appointment as president, then-chair of the Board of Regents Bill Ayer predicted that Cauce would “both embody and remind us all about the deep importance of our work as a proudly public university.” In the decade to follow, her vision, values and leadership would help fuel a wide array of efforts, collaborations and programs to that end, amplifying the UW’s positive impact for students, patients, Washingtonians and communities around the world.
A world-class education within reach
Central to that impact has been expanding access to an excellent education and economic opportunity for every Washington student. Even as the UW has increased the number of in-state undergraduates it has accepted over the last 10 years, it remains a source of frustration to Cauce that the University lacks the capacity to enroll more of the Washington students who apply.
Growing enrollment and degree options at the UW Bothell and UW Tacoma campuses was a key part of her strategy, along with increasing capacity in some of the UW’s highest-demand programs and majors and creating the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering. Access to the social sciences, arts and humanities increased on her watch as well, with the opening of the new Burke Museum and new Floyd and Delores Jones Playhouse and expanded offerings from the Meany Center for the Performing Arts and the Henry Art Gallery.
Above all, she’s been determined to tell families across Washington that financial means are never a barrier to a UW education and the benefits to life and career that flow from it. As provost, Cauce led the creation of the Husky Promise, a public commitment that UW tuition and fees would be fully covered for every in-state UW student eligible for the Pell Grant or the Washington College Grant. Over the next 18 years, more than 60,000 Washington students would benefit from the Husky Promise, which is part of why 71% of UW undergraduates leave the UW with no known student debt. Over the same period, the UW’s 6-year overall graduation rate increased to 84%, far above the national average.
60,000
Washington students have benefited from the Husky Promise
71%
UW undergraduates leave the UW with no known student debt
Throughout her presidency, Cauce has championed the opportunity for every UW student to make the most of their Husky Experience — each student’s unique combination of academic and extracurricular pursuits during their UW career. She believes that every UW student should have access to transformative opportunities that connect with their passions, whether through study abroad, learning leadership skills, serving the community or doing undergraduate research. Speaking at the annual Undergraduate Research Symposium in 2023, she told the crowd, “The value of research is impossible to quantify — not only for the world, but for the students and scholars who are transformed by the experience. As undergraduates, you’re engaged in solving real-world problems, but also you’re learning life skills — building collaborations, devising innovative solutions and approaching new challenges with rigor and perseverance.”
As a teacher, grad-student mentor, administrator and leader, Cauce’s focus has always been on students and creating access to excellence.
The value of research is impossible to quantify — not only for the world, but for the students and scholars who are transformed by the experience.
Cauce has made it a priority to use her public platform in service of educational opportunity for all Washingtonians. This work culminated in a broad-based campaign, a partnership among the state’s public four-year institutions, community colleges, UW alumni and business community, to secure more public investment and support for higher ed in Washington. When the Workforce Education Investment Act passed in 2019 by a single vote, it expanded the Washington College Grant, making Washington one of the most generous financial aid states in the nation.
Leading the way in research and health care
Cauce has bolstered the strength and reach of the UW’s world-class research enterprise and health care system. The UW is the largest public recipient of federal research dollars, with many graduate and research programs ranked among the best in the world. Similarly, the health care provided by UW Medicine and the medical training provided by the UW School of Medicine are consistently ranked among the nation’s best programs in primary care and rural medicine.
With impact as her North Star, Cauce set out to harness the UW’s vast expertise and relationships in the health sciences and public and global health spheres with the 2016 launch of the Population Health Initiative — an interdisciplinary, multidecade approach to improving the health of entire populations. That audacious strategy has cultivated innovation and collaboration among the academy, communities and the many public health organizations based in the Pacific Northwest.
In 2016, Cauce launched the Population Health Initiative. With support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Hans Rosling Center was built to house much of the initiative’s work.
With impact as her North Star, Cauce set out to harness the UW’s vast expertise and relationships in the health sciences and public and global health spheres with the 2016 launch of the Population Health Initiative — an interdisciplinary, multidecade approach to improving the health of entire populations.
At the Population Health Initiative’s core was the idea that the health of populations is deeply dependent on not only human health but also environmental resilience and social and economic equity. In this framework, any and every academic discipline could help improve how long and how well people live. The initiative proved to be a success, attracting creative and novel collaborations with pilot grants, as well as a transformative investment by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to build the Hans Rosling Center for Population Health. As this interdisciplinary, cross-sector strategy for creating broad impact began to pay dividends, Cauce looked beyond population health and envisioned applying this same approach to the world’s most pressing and complex challenges, from the environment to ethical computing — a framework she called “the impact ecosystem.”
While Cauce has been tenacious in promoting public investment in higher education, she’s also been a highly effective advocate for private philanthropy, and for building coalitions between private and public entities to support projects that serve entire regions and communities. Under her leadership, the UW’s largest-ever fundraising campaign, “Be Boundless — for Washington, for the World,” raised a record-setting $6.3 billion to support scholarships, research, faculty, capital projects and other needs not met by state investment. More than 500,000 donors supported the campaign, and Cauce led the effort to help donors connect through the UW to the causes most meaningful to them.
Some of the world’s leading philanthropists also recognized in Cauce’s vision an opportunity to create lasting impact, especially in cutting-edge medical research and patient care. In 2017, a gift established the Brotman-Baty Institute for Precision Medicine. In 2019, a major gift established the Garvey Institute for Brain Health Solutions, and the UW was chosen as a founding partner of the Weill Neurohub to speed the development of new treatments for neurological and psychiatric diseases. In 2024, the Center for Behavioral Health & Learning, built in partnership with the state, opened to provide desperately needed behavioral health care for patients and training for practitioners. The UW’s Institute for Protein Design also grew during Cauce’s term, and the institute’s leader, UW Professor of Chemistry David Baker, won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry on the strength of his cutting-edge work in computational protein design with the potential to transform fields from medicine to technology.
Professor of Chemistry David Baker, winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, was able to advance his cutting-edge research in protein design at the Institute for Protein Design, which grew under Cauce’s leadership.
Professor of Chemistry David Baker, winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, was able to advance his cutting-edge research in protein design under Cauce’s leadership.
In Eastern Washington, Cauce was instrumental in establishing the UW Medicine–Gonzaga University Health Partnership, including construction of a cutting-edge health education facility. The partnership provides health care education, including a medical school, in the eastern part of the state, and it’s helping create a pipeline of providers to some of the most underserved communities in Washington. The RIDE rural dentistry program, which also serves the region, doubled in capacity as well, in partnership with Eastern Washington University.
Investment and partnership during this period were not limited to medical and health sciences. In 2019, the UW created the Center for an Informed Public to combat misinformation, and in 2023, the UW was selected as founding partner of the New York Climate Exchange due to the quality and reach of its College of the Environment. In partnership with the community, the College of Education began work on the Rainier Valley Early Learning Campus to provide affordable, high-quality childcare and train early-learning educators. Entrepreneurial education also emerged as one of the UW’s strongest suits during Cauce’s presidency, as CoMotion and the Foster School of Business grew and expanded their offerings.
Navigating turbulence
Cauce’s 10-year term in office occurred during an unusually turbulent period for both the world at large and higher education in particular, and Cauce faced a number of serious challenges during her presidency. In an increasingly polarized political environment, college campuses like the UW found themselves on the front lines of an array of debates — over speech, equity and inclusion, racism, religious liberty and many other issues that roiled the broader society.
In navigating divisive issues that sometimes boiled over within the University community, Cauce worked closely with students, faculty and staff to advance collaborative efforts to make the UW a welcoming place for all while defending Constitutionally protected speech. Often calling for both “safe spaces” and “brave spaces,” she noted that a public university is not and cannot be a refuge from the outside world. Rather, it should strive to be a place where people choose to be in community together in order to engage with the world in constructive ways. In one of her many campus communications about the sanctity — and the difficulty – of free expression, she wrote:
“[W]hy do we allow those who intentionally seek to generate heat, not light, to speak at a university? Their messages often go against the very values of our institutions … [T]he answer starts with the First Amendment … the UW cannot discriminate based on the viewpoints expressed, no matter how repugnant … But, for me, it also goes beyond the legal obligation. Speech by people we strenuously disagree with, and that is in fact hateful and repugnant, is the price we pay for democracy and to ensure our own freedom of speech.”
Speech by people we strenuously disagree with ... is the price we pay for democracy and to ensure our own freedom of speech.
In 2020, a crisis of a different magnitude struck as the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19 spread across the world and throughout the U.S. The UW quickly found itself at the center of the nation’s efforts to track and slow the spread of the virus after the Seattle Flu Study team — a partnership between the UW, Fred Hutch and Seattle Children’s — identified the first documented U.S. case of community transmission.
Based on counsel and guidance from the UW’s many experts in public health and medicine, on March 6, 2020, Cauce announced that the UW would switch to completely remote learning — becoming the first major U.S. university to do so. Schools and businesses across the nation followed suit as the pandemic swiftly remade the world. During the next two years, the UW continued to deliver instruction largely remotely, and Cauce made sure the University was providing the support and resources to enable students to learn virtually, including technology loans and guidance to faculty on providing effective remote instruction.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the UW emerged as a key player in testing and vaccinating people throughout the region to slow and eventually stop the spread of the virus.
During this period, the UW also emerged as a global leader in the fight against COVID. UW experts, including at UW Medicine, the UW’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation and the School of Public Health, provided crucial guidance to leaders and to people worldwide.
During this period, the UW also emerged as a global leader in the fight against COVID. UW experts, including at UW Medicine, the UW’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation and the School of Public Health, provided crucial guidance to leaders and to people worldwide. UW scientists were instrumental in the development of groundbreaking vaccines that brought the health crisis to an end, and UW providers worked tirelessly to help people get tested, treated and vaccinated throughout Washington.
The Big Ten
In 2023, Cauce made the watershed decision to move the UW from its historic home in the Pac-12 athletic conference to the Big Ten Conference. During her term, UW Athletics had had one of its best decades of performance in the post–Don James era, with football winning three Pac-12 championships and appearing in four major bowl games, as well as the 2024 National Championship Game. Husky teams and student-athletes in multiple sports won titles and championships, including both men’s and women’s rowing, continuing the UW’s iconic tradition in crew.
Though controversial, Cauce’s decision to move to the Big Ten was based on the confluence of declining opportunities for the Pac-12 and the growing strength and influence of the Big Ten. In the midst of rapid conference realignment for many college sports programs and a swiftly evolving landscape around student-athlete compensation, Cauce saw the Big Ten as the UW’s natural home, in part because it was made up largely of other prestigious research universities with robust academic and professional alliances. “The move to the Big Ten,” she wrote, “will enable our Husky teams to continue to compete at the highest level on a national stage, while also providing the stability and resources that are needed to support their quest for excellence in the classroom and in competition.”
In 2024, facing a declining Pac-12 Conference, Cauce made the bold decision to move the UW to the Big Ten, joining a network of other top research universities.
The move to the Big Ten will enable our Husky teams to continue to compete at the highest level on a national stage, while also providing the stability and resources that are needed to support their quest for excellence in the classroom and in competition.
The University’s next chapter
Now, as she prepares to step down from the presidency and welcome Robert J. Jones as her successor, Cauce describes her time in office as “a joy and a privilege.” It’s easy to point to a profusion of reputational gains for the UW during her time in office — in fundraising, in national rankings and in recognitions of her leadership, including being elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and National Academy of Medicine and serving as an invited speaker at both the World Economic Forum in Davos and the Aspen Institute. But Cauce is most proud of the extraordinary faculty, staff, students and alumni who contribute so much to the world. She celebrates their positive impact as a community committed to public service and is supremely confident in the University’s next chapter of expanding access to world-class education and opportunity, producing discovery and innovation that will shape the future, and serving the people and communities of Washington and the world for generations to come.
Cauce addresses the crowd in the UW’s Alaska Airlines Arena.
Cauce is most proud of the extraordinary faculty, staff, students and alumni who contribute so much to the world.