News and Updates

I’m off to Washington DC later this week to meet with staff to our congressional delegation about two critical issues facing the UW and other higher education institutions in the United States.

First, the House version of the Higher Education Reauthorization Act known as “PROSPER” is slowly working its way to the floor of the chamber, although as of today there are still not enough votes to pass the measure.  Authored by Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-North Carolina) with little input from the broader higher education community, the measure would make higher education more expensive for millions of students and families by eliminating in-school interest subsidies for undergraduates, the Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant program, and loan forgiveness and other benefits currently available in federal student loan programs.  Graduate students would also be hit hard by the measure by limiting federal loans forcing them to borrow at higher costs and fewer protections in the private market.

The UW’s letter of concerns with the PROSPER act can be found here.

The other issue on our advocacy radar screen in the nation’s capital are the increasing attacks on international students, particularly those coming from China.  While we share everyone’s interest in insuring our nation’s national and economic security, we must ensure that any changes to our visa system don’t negatively impact our ability to continue research and develop cures and technologies that drive our economy.

Over the past few weeks, a number of proposals have been floated in the administration as well as Congress that would place severe limits on how long students from China could study in the U.S. as well as making it harder to be granted a visa in the first place.  We believe that student-visa policies for Chinese citizens to protect against security concerns should be much more narrowly tailored to ensure they don’t needlessly deter the brightest students from studying in our nation’s top research universities.

For more up to date information on these and other critical federal issues, make sure you check the Federal Relations Blog on a regularly basis.

I’m back on campus from a week-long visit to Singapore with the Seattle Metro Chamber of Commerce and I can safely say that 65 degrees and low humidity never felt so refreshing.  After my long plane ride home and a few days

to recover from jet lag, I’m starting to try and formulate some major takeaways from the trip that might end up being beneficial for our state and our university.  Here are three major lessons I gleaned from this visit.

First, Singapore and all of Southeast Asia has become a critical part of the world and our state’s economy.  The 10 nations that comprise the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) (of which Singapore is a member) has the 3^rd largest population in the world and a GDP of $2.4 trillion.  It’s the 5^th largest economy in the world and will

likely eclipse the European Union for 4^th place by 2050.  The state of Washington is the nation’s third largest exporter to ASEAN behind California and Texas, accounting for almost 47,000 jobs in the Evergreen State.  Singapore has truly become the Gateway to ASEAN so strengthening economic, cultural and educational ties with this powerful nation-state is clearly in our state’s interest.

Second, Singapore is relentlessly transforming its economy into one based on knowledge and innovation. For a nation with no natural resources to speak of, Singapore realized early on in its history that their economic future would be based on attracting and retaining the best workers in the world. Today, every first world economy is trying to win the “human capital” competition since the nation with the best ideas for new products and industries will be the winners in the 21^st century economic sweepstakes.

So how does a nation of less than 6 million people (one third of whom are from Europe, North America and other non-Singaporean nations), compete with the U.S., China and other stronger economies? The answer came from a dinner conversation I had with a U.S. native currently working in Singapore for an autonomous vehicle start-up

called Nutonomy. According to this MIT grad who manages the company’s operations, Singapore went out of their way to both recruit Nutonomy to the country and then bent over backwards to help them establish a base of operations and clear regulatory hurdles to make testing the cars on city streets much easier than the U.S. I heard variations of this same story from other U.S. companies located in Singapore from Microsoft, Expedia, IBM and Tableau – Singapore’s government is a true partner with the business community and goes out of their way to make things easy for them to conduct and expand their business.

Third, Singapore is able to work and speak with a singular voice and focus because there is really only one level of government and one ruling political party in the entire nation. As a city-state, the People’s Action Party has ruled Singapore since its birth more than 50 years ago. There are no states, cities, counties or special district government entities to deal with as we have in the U.S. and the legal system is not used as a way of slowing down or stopping government initiatives. While Singapore is not a complete totalitarian state as their citizens do enjoy some freedoms, dissent is not tolerated and security is very tight. While I’m still convinced American democracy and government is still the envy of the world, the ability of Singapore to execute and coordinate economic growth strategy while simultaneously looking 10-15 years ahead and laying the groundwork now for future success is truly enviable.

Here in Washington and the Puget Sound region in particular, we do plan for the present and the future in a coordinated and thoughtful way. Our political system, however, can oftentimes make following through on these plans clunky at best based on leadership changes resulting from elections or lack of trust among different political jurisdictions. As with any of these delegation visits, time will tell if we can take the best of what we’ve learned and adapt it successfully for our unique Pacific Northwest sensibilities.

I’m currently visiting the nation of Singapore as part of a delegation from the Seattle Metro Chamber of Commerce.  This is my first visit to this tiny island nation and it’s been a truly eye-opening experience on a number of fronts.

Born as a nation in 1965 after more than a century of British colonial rule, this city-state of less than 6 million people has rapidly become one of the most advanced nations in the world with architecture and infrastructure that is truly 21^st century and an economy based on global trade and knowledge-based industries committed to innovation.  It’s a place where research universities like the National University of Singapore work hand in hand with government and business to advance the industries of tomorrow.  From clean energy, to artificial intelligence to smart cities to biomedical research, Singapore is pulling together in the same direction and it’s quite astounding to see.

I’m well aware that democracy in Singapore does not flourish quite the same way it does in the U.S. or other western democracies and that dissent is not well-tolerated.  However, the amount of money that the government puts into “common good” needs like housing, mass transportation, parks and green spaces and health care is admirable and ensures that basic needs of citizens are well provided for.

Tonight we will have a reception at the U.S. ambassador’s residence where I will have a chance to meet some of our UW alumni who live and work in Singapore.  We have more than 500 Huskies in the country and I’m anxious to meet them and learn more about this amazing place where innovation is happening everyday.