Member E-News

From the UWAA President

September, 2017

What is your UW story? As UWAA members, we all have stories about our Husky Experience and what the UW means to us. For many, the Husky Experience is life-altering, from being the first in your family to attend college to finding your future spouse. Since my time as a transfer graduate student at the UW, I have learned that nearly one third of the undergraduate degrees from the UW are earned by transfer students, a reminder that there are many roads that lead to the UW. The UW has been a defining institution for my entire life, and I am reminded every day of its life-changing, global impact and our dynamic community of nearly half a million UW alumni.

This is a critical time for public higher education and supporting the UW’s higher purpose of shaping innovation, research, culture, communities and lives. We need to engage and mobilize our community to continue the legacy from which many of our Husky Experiences were born.

UWAA Priorities

Your UWAA board and staff are working hard to build on the UWAA’s 128-year history and tremendous record of success. Over the next year, we will prioritize efforts to maximize our impact through high-caliber programming as well as advocacy that mobilizes the UW community in support of increased access and affordability for students, and increased public investment in higher education. We will continue to champion and scale alumni-student connections through Huskies@Work, Career Treks and other mentoring initiatives. And we will continue to advance the powerful difference-making of our Race & Equity programming, including expanding the successful and thought-provoking Interrupting Privilege course.

Keenly aware of our divided global, national and statewide environments, we are increasing civic engagement programming to foster a truly “big tent,” including traditionally less-represented viewpoints and content that addresses active citizenship, civil discourse and community participation. There is no more important time for us to authentically listen to one another, attempt to understand perspectives different from our own, and support strong public institutions that work for the common good.

Membership Counts

My family will be sporting purple with pride as we celebrate the UW and its powerful impact on countless lives. UWAA members are among the UW’s most passionate and loyal supporters. Thank you! I hope to have a chance to hear your personal story about what this incredible, world-class university means to you. Please also share your UW story with your elected officials and others in your community as we work together to support our UW. Please join our UWAA and UW Impact teams and actively engage in all that the UW has to offer.

Go Dawgs!

Suzanne Dale Estey, ‘01

UWAA Board President 2017-2018