Dear UAA Colleagues,
Welcome back to school!
While summers on campus bring a different pace, lest you think it’s all ice cream and summer strolls, our work continues. Here are a few things we’ve been up to:
- Honors students studied abroad in Berlin, Istanbul, Tokyo, Argentina, Kenya, and other global destinations. Before heading to Brazil to play, the women’s soccer team worked with Honors Program director Jim Clauss to learn about Brazil’s culture and history—a great continuation of our growing work with Athletics.
- Amgen scholars studied and contributed to new research in biomedical sciences and humanities students found a community of researchers in the 8th Summer Institute in the Arts and Humanities.
- First Year Programs oriented 5,342 freshmen, 1,299 transfer students, and 3,257 parents. More than 20 peer leaders welcomed freshmen and began the process of inculcating them to what it means to be a Husky.
- We are beginning a partnership between the Teaching Academy and Athletics to connect Distinguished Teaching Awardees with coaches and student athletes. This should lead to some wonderful conversations about the role teaching plays in inspiring excellence in both the classroom and on the field.
The rigor and vitality of our work remains evident during the so-called lazy-days of summer and the undergraduate experience remains the heart of the University of Washington.
Our primary goal is to ensure that the undergraduate experience is one of intellectual discovery; cultural and intellectual diversity; purposeful, sustained, and integrated personal development; and sustained engagement in the larger University community. In short, an experience that is seamless, enriched, stimulating, and transformative.
Doing this requires intentional and meaningful collaboration and in the coming year, we’ll be working closely with the Office of Minority Affairs and Diversity, Student Life, the Graduate School, the College of Arts and Sciences, and deans and faculty across campus. Our work is a shared good on campus. We increase access to experiential learning, ensure students make academic progress, deepen and refine the core of the undergraduate experience, set a national standard for innovation in teaching and learning, and sustain excellence in learning environments.
While there are more than 20,000 ways to experience the UW—one for each undergraduate—there truly is only one UW. We need to ensure that every student experiences that which is rich and vibrant about this University.
Sincerely,
Ed Taylor
Vice Provost & Dean