We are preparing to welcome the largest freshman class in the University of Washington’s history on two of our three campuses this year! In Seattle, there will be about 7,050 first-year students and 1,500 transfer students. The UW Tacoma is also expecting 702 freshman – a record-breaking number for that campus. Read more from The Seattle Times.
Today is the final day of competition for the 2018 U.S.A. Special Olympic games here in the greater Seattle area and at the University of Washington. It’s hard to believe that the planning and coordination to host these games that began on campus more than two years ago has finally concluded with an incredibly successful week of
competition and sportsmanship. Let me be one of the first to thank everyone at the University who helped plan and execute the logistics of hosting thousands of athletes, coaches and spectators and to the many faculty, staff, students and alums who served all week as volunteers or who simply attended events. As I have participated in activities all week, walked around campus and visited the athletic venues, I have heard numerous visitors enthusiastically remark on what a great welcome they have 
received from our campus community and what great memories of Seattle and the UW they will take home to their various states. Well done UW!
As a board member for the U.S.A. Special Olympic games for the past two years, I have had the good fortune to meet dozens of people who have been involved in this movement for many years. To a person, they kept remarking on how much our involvement in hosting the games would mean for us – not just for the athletes who were here to compete on behalf of their home states – but how the games themselves would change how we view our broader community and especially our fellow citizens with intellectual disabilities. I don’t think I realized exactly what that meant until I rode back on light rail Thursday night from Seattle Mariners game with some athletes and coaches from the Nevada Special Olympics basketball team. As we chatted on the trip back to Husky Stadium, they expressed how excited they were to be part of these games, and as we talked they had a million questions about Seattle, the UW, how much longer before the light rail system is completed and so on. Their friendliness and excitement were infectious and just talking to them brightened my evening. My wife Tina and I promised we would be there the next morning at 8:00 a.m. when they would play Indiana in the gold medal basketball game at Hec Ed. They also wanted to know if I had any extra “W” pins which I was sad to say I did not remember to pack along with me.
Friday morning we showed up to watch the Nevada team
play the gold medal game which they lost in a close contest 31-30 to Indiana. Tina remembered to bring along a few W pins and after the game she presented them to one of the athletes and one of the coaches who we sat next to the night before. U.S.A Games CEO Tim Shriver said it best recently in the Seattle Times. The U.S.A. Games are in Seattle because we are taking a stand for inclusion, for the knowledge that everyone has a gift, and we are better when we celebrate others’ gifts than when we demonize each other’s differences.”
So here’s to the 50th anniversary of the Special Olympics and the UW’s role in the history of this marvelous movement. As the week comes to a close, let’s hope that we keep the spirit of these games in all we do. Each day we smile a little more, we work to be a little kinder, we strive to be a bit more tolerant, we try to be more patient and if we do these things, we will fulfill our goal to be the inclusive community we were meant to be.
This week the U.S. Senate took up and passed its version of the first three-bill “minibus” packages and the Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Subcommittee reported out its FY2019 bill. For more on these measures and news from Washington, DC read updates from Federal Relations.
The U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee approved the Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) and Interior Appropriations bills last week. For details on the contents of both bills, check out this post from our colleagues in the Office of Federal Relations.
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.