May 22, 2008
Etc: Campus news & notes
UW HERO: Northwest Dollars for Scholars has selected UW President Mark A. Emmert as the recipient of the 2008 Community Hero Award. Under Emmert’s leadership last year, the University established the Husky Promise program, guaranteeing qualified Washington state students from modest and low-income families that they can attend the UW without paying any tuition. This fall, more than 5,500 students — about 20 percent of all undergraduates — are benefiting from the Husky Promise program. Dollars for Scholars is an organization with more than 2,000 volunteers in over 150 Washington and Oregon communities that raises more than $6 million and awards 2,400 scholarships to Washington and Oregon students each year.
STRIKING GOLD: Viewpoints, a publication of the UW Alumni Association which is edited by Jon Marmor, has received a Gold Award in the Hermes Creative Awards 2008 competition. The annual contest is put on by the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals, an international organization of marketing, communications, advertising, public relations, media production and freelance professionals. Viewpoints was recognized in the Publications/Magazine category. The competition received 4,000 entries from throughout the U.S. and several foreign countries.
MATH WHIZ: Christopher Hoffman, associate professor of mathematics, has won the 2008-2009 Centennial Fellowship from the American Mathematical Society. The award recognizes excellence in research achievements early in a mathematician’s career. The fellowship provides a stipend of $70,000 for the academic year plus an expense allowance of $7,000. Hoffman, who studies probability, plans to use the award to attend programs at the Institut Mittag-Leffler in Sweden and the Centre de Recherches Mathematiques in Montreal. The society sometimes awards more than one fellowship at a time, but Hoffman was the only fellow named this year.
A-PLUS PAPER: Cindy Atman, professor of industrial engineering and director of the Center for Engineering Learning and Teaching, has received the American Society for Engineering Education’s Wickenden Award. The honor recognizes an exemplary research paper published the previous year in the Journal of Engineering Education. Atman and UW co-authors Jennifer Turns and Susan Mosborg will share the honor; the award will be presented in Pittsburgh in June. The journal is also publishing a special summer issue on “Educating future engineers” in which six of the invited authors are UW researchers.
HONORED RETURN: English Professor Herbert Blau has received an honorary Doctor of Arts degree from the California Institute of the Arts. As the founding Provost of Cal Arts, in 1968, he was responsible for its conception, and was asked to speak at the graduation about “the original vision.”
DISTINGUISHED GRAD: Governor Christine Gregoire has been named the UW College of Education’s Distinguished Alum of the Year. She will accept the award at the college’s commencement ceremony.
Do you know someone who deserves kudos for an outstanding achievement, award, appointment or book publication? If so, send that person’s name, title and achievement to uweek@u.washington.edu.
