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Undergraduate Academic Affairs

Tag: Vice Provost and Dean Ed Taylor

“The Power of the River” is not Ed Taylor’s first book, but it is a first for him

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Portrait of Dr. Ed Taylor
Dr. Ed Taylor is the vice provost and dean of Undergraduate Academic Affairs. His new memoir is “The Power of the River.”

Ed Taylor, vice provost and dean of Undergraduate Academic Affairs, professor in the College of Education, academic author, scholar, board member of several international and community-based organizations and former college basketball player, will soon add memoirist to his long list of accomplishments. His memoir, “The Power of the River,” will be released by Seattle-based Hinton Publishing on April 21.

Taylor has been part of the University of Washington community since his days as a graduate student more than 30 years ago. In “The Power of the River,” readers learn about his journey from a childhood marked by loss in Lompoc, California, to his rise as an educator, scholar and leader. Along the way, he invites readers into a story grounded in community, shaped by pivotal relationships and sustained by a search for meaning in the face of adversity.

Image of the book cover featuring a sepia-toned photo of a small child and adult woman fishing by a river.
“The Power of the River” is Ed Taylor’s memoir.

In “The Power of the River,” Taylor writes in a way that is self-reflective and personal yet expansive and universal at the same time. It is a story about what it means to belong, to be guided and to grow. Through moments of doubt and determination, from navigating the pressures placed on young Black men in collegiate athletics at Gonzaga University to finding purpose in higher education, Taylor offers readers a deeply human story about becoming. His examination of mentorship, community, education and growth offer points of connection that can open pathways forward.

At a time when higher education is under fire, Taylor’s story demonstrates the purpose and potential universities can have in individuals’ lives and in the lives of our communities.

Several public events are scheduled to celebrate Taylor’s book.

Public events

Book Launch Celebration at the Northwest African American Museum
April 29, 2026 // 7:00 p.m.
In conversation with Reggie Brown.
RSVP to this event.

Third Place Books Ravenna
May 7, 2026 // 7:00 p.m.
Q&A with Taylor to follow his book talk.

Elliott Bay Book Company
May 22, 2026 // 7:00 p.m.
In conversation with Enrique Cerna.

Folio: The Seattle Athenaeum
June 2, 2026 // 6:00 p.m.
In conversation with Colleen Echohawk.

I am breathing, but I’m not OK

Written by Ed Taylor
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Are you OK? People have been asking me, and I’ve been asking others. I appreciate the question and those asking. Please keep asking. The truth of the matter is that things are not OK. As I write this, I’m staying home because of COVID-19, and a citywide curfew resulting from threats of violence throughout our city and county. I am also grieving the death of George Floyd. The simple answer is I am breathing, but I’m not OK. Nothing about the moment is OK.

An education road trip around Washington state

Written by Ed Taylor and Thaisa Way
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Fresh off of graduation ceremonies, but before next year’s classes are fully prepped, new faculty and librarians from the University of Washington will take to the road.

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Some of our fellow travelers will be new to Washington, unsure of what to expect. Others grew up here and studied elsewhere only to return to begin their careers in Seattle, Tacoma, Yakima or Bothell.

What we have in common is that this week we will board a bus and travel together across the state of Washington for five days, a school bus of sorts. Our purpose is to better understand the place where we teach, do research, serve and live. As one traveler from last year noted, “I knew the state too little. This way (by bus) it seemed great.”

We begin our bus tour on the Seattle campus at Mary Gates Hall, a place for teaching, student learning and support. This is where students orient and connect. Thus, we start where many of our students start.

From here, we can view Rainier Vista, an introduction to the landscape of Washington and the Pacific Northwest. We ground ourselves here in a space that was once home to Coast Salish tribes and today provides a shared space for students, faculty, and staff from around the world

Along the way, we will visit the Yakima Valley Farm Workers Clinic in Toppenish and Heritage University, then go on to visit Two Mountain Winery in Zillah. On Tuesday, our second overnight stop is in Richland, the center of the state, and on Wednesday morning we will see the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory or LIGO at Hanford.

It’s important that we visit the Tri-City area because this region sends more than 400 students to the UW each year — about 100 of whom have been eligible for the Husky Promise, which ensures the cost of tuition and fees are covered for low-income students.

We travel this road because 75 percent of our students are from Washington and our region, and many will remain here when they graduate. Our work is intimately connected to the inhabitants, structures, values and ideas that make us who we are.

To be sure, the human and geographic diversity of our region is awe-inspiring.

The five-day trip is concise and intentional. We listen to farmers who nurture and grow Granny Smith Apples in Brewster, Washington. Apples from this farm will be baked into pies in local homes and will make their way through deep water ports that end up in school lunches in Shanghai.

We will learn that — although different in size, scope and location — The Evergreen State College, Heritage College in Toppenish, Spokane Falls Community College and Gonzaga University are all in the same vocation: advancing knowledge and educating people to be intelligent, down-to-earth, brave and decent citizens of our state and in our world.

We are truly in this together.

We learn from legislators in Olympia and Spokane that government matters and their understanding of and support for education matters. Along the way we will make note that the hardware store in Centralia, the community in Grant County who helped our marching band last November, the feed store in Yakima, the Western wear store along the route and the Boeing plant in Everett are all connected and have a purpose.

Democracy is not only a form of government; it is a way of living, participating and belonging.

As we travel the roads of Washington, the beauty of our state will take our breath away. Lake Washington, Mount Saint Helens, the Gorge, Grand Coulee Dam, the wheat fields that line I-90. Majestic Mount Rainier will humble the brainiest among us.

We will be reminded of our place among myriad creatures in a vast ecosystem of beings that includes rainbow trout, quail, whitetail deer, diminutive lichens, giant Palouse earthworms, deer-ferns — all of which help check our human view of the world.

Upon our return from our journey we should be grateful, humble, a bit more learned, and above all — connected. And we will be in awe of the rich and mystifying state in which we are so fortunate to work and live.

Ed Taylor is vice provost and dean of Undergraduate Academic Affairs at the University of Washington. Thaisa Way is an urban and landscape historian at UW.

This article first appeared in the Tri-City Herald.

Remembering King: Students’ voices push arc toward justice – and we should listen

Written by Ed Taylor
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Some 48 years after his death, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day will undoubtedly bring protests to college campuses around the country, including here at the University of Washington. The students will march peacefully and forcefully. They will ask how long it will take to create a climate that welcomes every student. They will ask how we, as a university, plan to address “economic colonialism“ and how administrators plan to create a true multiracial campus that will serve as prelude to a “multiracial nation where all groups are dependent on each other.”

Vice Provost and Dean Ed Taylor receives College of Education Distinguished Graduate Award

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Ed Taylor, vice provost and dean of Undergraduate Academic Affairs, has been selected for the 2014 Distinguished Graduate Award by the University of Washington College of Education. The faculty of the College of Education votes upon and bestows this award.