Zillow Group has pledged $5 million toward the development of a Computer Science & Engineering (CSE) building on the UW campus. The new building will be the second CSE building and will allow the university to double the number of CSE degrees awarded each year and reduce the number of qualified students who are turned away from the program. Read more from UW News & Information.
The 2017 Regular Session of the Washington State Legislature began on Monday. Both the House and Senate convened to as the 65th Legislature and begin a 105-day budget writing session. Tomorrow, Governor Jay Inslee is scheduled to give his second inaugural address to the legislature.
The University of Washington released its 2017 Legislative Agenda prior to the commencement of the session. See it here. The Office of State Relations also welcomed new staff in 2017. Joe Dacca serves as director and Jillian Kilby as associate director.
UW President Ana Mari Cauce was on board the first West Coast commercial flight to Havana on Thursday. Read more and watch video of President Cauce’s remarks from News & Information.
Seattle to Portland in 15 minutes? A group of University of Washington students is trying just that. They are attempting inventor Elon Musk’s dream of hyperloop, a conceptual form of high-speed travel. The UW students are finalists in a collegiate competition to build a hyperloop pod for competition in January. Read more from The Seattle Times and visit the UW’s team website to learn more about their project.
Earlier this month, President Obama signed Senate Bill 3028, the “Daniel J. Evans Olympic National Park Wilderness Act,” which re-designates the 1,370 square miles Olympic Wilderness within Olympic National Park as the Daniel J. Evans Wilderness. Comprising more than 95% of the park, it is the largest wilderness area in the State of Washington.
The Evans School was established in 1962 as one of the nation’s first schools of public policy at a public university. Formerly known as the Graduate School of Public Affairs, the Evans School was renamed in 2000 to honor Evans. In 2015 the school was renamed the Daniel J. Evans School of Public Policy & Governance to reflect the school’s intellectual and practical contributions to the fields of policy design and public leadership.
Read more here.