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Presidential Blog

Category: Presidential messages

Progress in sexual assault prevention at the UW

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We are in the midst of a transformative national conversation about sexual assault on college campuses. Two years ago, I established the UW’s Task Force on Sexual Assault Prevention and Response, a group of students, staff and academic personnel, to take the lead on this issue. The group established guiding principles to lay the foundation for creating cultural change, including: highlighting that the majority of sexual assaults are perpetrated by a person known to the victim; challenging the propensity for victim blaming; and understanding and defining the meaning and nature of consent. And on campus today, the UW hosted the Washington State Council of Presidents’ Conference on Sexual Assault Awareness & Prevention. Leading innovators and researchers working on sexual assault response, prevention and education issues — including our own faculty and staff — shared critical information and raising awareness about this issue in important ways.

As a public institution the UW has a leadership responsibility to help resolve this national, societal issue, and we are fully committed to doing all we can to prevent and properly respond to incidents in our community.

Over the past year, the Task Force has made significant progress in our campuswide prevention efforts:

  • More than 7,000 incoming first-year and transfer students completed sexual assault prevention training during fall 2014 orientation;
  • The UW launched a comprehensive sexual assault website last month that includes support and reporting resources;
  • We funded two permanent positions: a Title IX investigator, responsible for ensuring an investigation and disciplinary process tailored to handling sexual assault, and a training and program coordinator, charged with creating a comprehensive education and outreach program for students, staff and academic personnel.

Last January, I encouraged everyone in our community to read the Task Force’s full reportand to personally commit to being part of the solution to this systemic issue in higher education. I am asking the same again today. The Task Force’s remaining implementation items for 2015 include developing robust institutional data collection and reporting procedures, updating the Student Conduct Code to be more student centered and easy to navigate in addressing sexual assault investigations and disciplinary processes, and implementing a comprehensive education and outreach program.

Thanks to the tireless work of our faculty, staff, students and the Task Force, led by Ellen Taylor, and to our institutional commitment to ending sexual violence, I am optimistic that we can — and will — lead the way to safer communities for everyone.

Sincerely,

Michael K. Young

Accomplishments and aspirations

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Dear Students, Faculty and Staff:

During this Homecoming weekend, Husky friends, family and alumni visiting campus will have a chance to participate in our extensive efforts to operate as a sustainable university. For the past few years, our entire community — students, faculty and staff — has done amazing work to be responsible citizens and caretakers of our environment. As a great tribute to what happens when our community works together toward a common goal, just last night Seattle Business Magazine awarded the University of Washington the Community Impact Award for Sustainability. This is a wonderful achievement. Congratulations to all who made it happen!

The Community Impact Award for Sustainability is the latest example of the UW’s exceptional record of student, faculty and staff excellence. Our research, teaching and public engagement have built a reputation that inspires our work together, energizes those who support us and adds value to the degrees our students earn. Our standing in the region, nation and world — including our recent No. 10 ranking by China’s Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s world university rankings — reflects the UW’s real impact on people’s lives and our values as an institution.

As I said in my Annual Address last week, our vision as a university is simple yet profound: to be the greatest public university in the world, as measured by our impact on our students’ lives, on our region and on people around the world. In the address, I described how we advance this vision in four critical ways:

  • Through the Husky Student Experience, where we unleash the curiosity and potential of every student and in the process transform their lives and our world, one student at a time, one spark at a time.
  • Through the profound impact of our world-class research, here and around the globe. Virtually every major issue our society faces today, from Ebola to early education, is being addressed by somebody affiliated with the UW. We must continue to support this work at all levels — by attracting top talent, securing resources and engaging the best minds in the world as collaborators.
  • Through innovation and creativity, and our emerging Innovation Agenda. From addressing the STEM shortage, to bringing our best creativity and innovation to bear on both technology and societal challenges, we are using our long-standing track record in this arena to deepen student engagement and expand locally and globally.
  • And finally, through our deep commitment to access and the public good, which permeates everything we do. We are proud of our role as a catalyst for social mobility and as a place where we focus our research and discovery on the ways in which it can have the greatest impact.

You may have also noticed we are telling our story in bold new ways. I’ve heard countless times that we are the Northwest’s “best kept secret” and would like to change that. We will use this video, Be Boundless, and other media to tell our story better, and I hope in the process be clearer in communicating what we stand for: a belief in possibility, in unleashing human potential and in the undaunted quest for discovery.

Tomorrow is the UW’s 153rd birthday celebration. We have a lot for which to be proud, thanks to your passion for excellence and steadfast commitment to discovery and education for a better world. Please join me, Provost Ana Mari Cauce and our campus community in Red Square as we celebrate all that we have accomplished — and all that we will — on behalf of those we serve.

Celebrating the launch of Startup Hall

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Seattle is a global hub for innovation, and much of that spirit and mindset begins at the UW. Our shared passion for entrepreneurism unites us as a university and a community of change creators. We are committed to fostering innovation, not just because of its economic impact, but because we know it can create a world of good.

Last year, the UW spun out a record 18 startup companies based on work done by our professors and students. During the last decade, more than a hundred UW-based startups have grown out of collaborations between our students, faculty and the business sector.

These bootstrap companies are the inspiration for the creation of a new Seattle home for passionate startup founders, funders and mentors: Startup Hall.

An exciting partnership between the UW and three local startup leaders — Founder’s Co-op, Techstars Seattle and UP Global — Startup Hall opened its doors just today. It’s the proving ground where entrepreneurs will ignite new ideas and test their visions, reaching out from the UW to the entire Puget Sound region.

Startup Hall will also launch a new era in the University District as it attracts other early-stage companies seeking to gain a foothold and grow their businesses.

This nexus of innovation is located just steps from campus, where scientists and students are conducting world-class research every day. The companies that call Startup Hall home are independent from the UW, but their proximity will spark unique connections between UW-based innovators and Seattle’s thriving startup community.

Startup Hall, the UW and the entire University District are poised to become an epicenter for innovation. By providing unparalleled experiences and support for students and entrepreneurs, we believe that our culture of commercialization will propel the greater good.

Research support from the NIH helps

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What does it take to be the first in innovation, to solve the challenges that face our region, our country and our world? Certainly, it takes tenacious, brilliant minds, with a drive not only to answer the questions but also to question the answers. And, just as importantly, it takes a strong, consistent commitment of national support.

Earlier this week, we welcomed two of the most ardent supporters of groundbreaking UW research to talk about its future, Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, and Patty Murray, Washington state’s U.S. senator. Dr. Collins and Sen. Murray met with the top leaders in the Pacific Northwest’s NIH-funded research organizations, as well as groups that support and promote research development at our incomparable South Lake Union (SLU) campus.

Our group joined Dr. Paul Ramsey, CEO of UW Medicine and dean of the UW School of Medicine, for a tour of two labs at SLU. One was Michael Gale’s lab. Professor Gale and colleagues at Kineta, a Seattle biotech company, have identified compounds that stop the spread of Ebola and other viruses in laboratory experiments on human cells. His team is sharing in a five-year, $8.1 million NIH grant to identify compounds that rev up the natural infection-fighting ability of cells, allowing them to repel many types of viruses. This is just one example of how UW research can translate into saving lives around the world.

The NIH is the largest funder of biomedical research in the world, investing nearly $30 billion each year in medical research. Last year alone, $835 million of that funding flowed into our state through our SLU campus. Yet the federal investment in NIH has not kept pace with the need. During the last decade — and particularly following the government sequester in late 2013 — federal funding of the NIH has steadily declined, putting on hold research efforts here in Washington and across the country.

In addition to biomedical breakthroughs, the NIH’s investment in research has led to new startups in the region, creating high-quality jobs, attracting additional investment from outside the state and increasing the state’s exports. And at a time of unprecedented scientific opportunity, it is critical that the United States make forward-thinking investments that promote medical breakthroughs and maintain our international leadership in biomedical research. We appreciate Sen. Murray’s and Dr. Collins’ continued support of our boundless pursuit of the greater common good.

Fostering opportunities for our veterans

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Veterans make for some of the best students. They hold discipline, drive and innovation in the highest regard. They know when to lead and when to follow. When they fall down, vets get right back up. And they know that education — with the help of trusted compatriots — is the key to overcoming any obstacle.

As we celebrate Independence Day, I want to showcase how the University of Washington is committed to helping our veterans transition from service to the classroom. Combined, they’ve served thousands of tours of duty; our duty as a university is to acknowledge and reward their service with support.

Last spring, I was honored to meet a host of Husky veterans at UW Tacoma who are transforming their civilian lives through the Veterans Incubator for Better Entrepreneurship (VIBE) program. It’s a first-in-the-nation approach to developing the talent of military veterans as entrepreneurs and gives them access to valuable resources — idea development, mentoring, coaches, financial advice, work space and networking — while they pursue their UW degrees.

As deployments in Afghanistan wind down, military personnel are concluding their active duty at nearby Joint Base Lewis McChord (JBLM) and returning to civilian life. JBLM and UW Tacoma leaders founded VIBE to enhance the South Sound’s start-up culture and to provide more options to a group of men and women perfectly suited to entrepreneurism.

VIBE’s focus on developing talent and turning ideas into viable businesses is part of the environment of opportunity we’re fostering at the UW. Watch this video to learn more about VIBE and the extraordinary veterans who are leading the charge in a new chapter of Husky entrepreneurism.

The power of unleashing ideas

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One of the things I most appreciate about a major research institution like the University of Washington is that our ideas are limitless. In every UW college, school, program and discipline, people are individually and collectively engaged in the pursuit of ideas with the potential to become something transformative. With thousands collaborating in the creative process each day, the UW is able to sustain an environment of ongoing discovery, and the possibilities for innovation are boundless.

Much of the university’s focus is on finding ways to unleash this vast storehouse of human ideas and potential, and one of my principal endeavors is to lead that effort. We strive to empower people and to create an environment in which everyone feels encouraged to think expansively and broadly for the greater common good. At the same time, we aim to provide people the freedom to innovate, knowing they have the support and resources to take risks, choose unexplored paths and try bold approaches. And when great ideas are conceived, we take them where they have the capacity to make a difference.

Innovating with a purpose is and always has been fundamental to the UW’s mission. Like many others engaged in the creative process, our ideas are not complete until we connect them with the larger world, to the great opportunities and challenges of our time. One way we achieve this is through commercialization — licensing faculty research or incubating student startups.

Korvata Inc., a UW student-led startup, won the top award at the 2014 UW Environmental Innovation Challenge. Launched in April, the company provides customers in the food and beverage and consumer-packaged goods industries with cutting-edge alternative chemistry products to help mitigate their environmental impact. Members of this student team succeeded in turning their passion for cleantech into a marketable opportunity that meets a genuine need, and many other UW students are engaged in similar pursuits.

Photo of members of the Korvata startup team
Korvata Inc., a UW student-led startup, won the top award at the 2014 UW Environmental Innovation Challenge.

Commercialization and incubating startups are not the only creative ways we link with the larger community. Ideas with impact can be found in scholarly publishing, delivering health care, crafting public policy and creating partnerships with the community on a host of activities essential to a vibrant, successful society. Indeed, nearly every aspect of our world is predicated on ideas that can be applied in solid, practical ways.

No matter how our faculty, staff and students innovate, the UW is committed to providing the opportunities and the resources that will unleash their ideas. This is the higher purpose of higher education — where the real strength of our thinkers, creators and doers will flourish.

Gifts from Washington Research Foundation fund Husky innovation

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President Young recently sent an email to the University community announcing a new, generous gift from one of the UW’s biggest supporters, Washington Research Foundation. Below is the official email announcing the details of the gift.

 

Dear Colleagues,

New opportunities are on the horizon for Huskies and the people we serve, thanks to an investment in innovation by Washington Research Foundation (WRF). Today, we announce a $31.2 million investment by WRF in four UW research initiatives, a show of support that speaks volumes to the UW’s strength as a center for enterprising innovators in our region.

The size and scope of WRF’s gifts to the UW are unprecedented. This represents entrepreneurial Washington investing in its research university and makes a strong statement about the importance of local investment. The four teams of grant recipients are among the UW’s most productive and creative faculty. We are incredibly proud of their achievements and deeply grateful to the foundation for its vote of confidence in their work.

The first award is an $8 million gift to launch a postdoctoral fellowship program for the Institute for Protein Design (IPD). Postdocs are critical to the success of the IPD’s outcomes, and this investment will help bring ideas out of the laboratory and into the lives of people who will benefit most from breakthroughs in protein design.

WRF also committed $7.2 million to jumpstart an Institute for Neuroengineering, which will bring faculty, students and postdoctoral researchers from several disciplines on board to develop new technologies for people affected by neural disorders.

The eScience Institute was awarded $9.3 million to embolden its global leadership in Big Data. The funding will support the institute’s work to find data-intensive breakthroughs in a breadth of disciplines.

And the Clean Energy Institute will receive $6.7 million to help recruit innovative faculty and postdoctoral fellows focused on advancing solutions in solar energy production, storage and delivery.

Details on each of these gifts are available on the UW Today website.

This is a watershed moment for the UW and WRF. Through this incredible partnership, we will bring our shared vision of innovation and implementing ideas into action to address some of our greatest challenges. Our sincere thanks to Washington Research Foundation. We are fortunate to have such a good friend.

Sincerely,
Michael K Young signature
Michael K. Young

Staying engaged with the UW beyond retirement

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President Young and Provost Cauce recently sent an email to University staff, faculty and retirees announcing new opportunities for UW retirees.  Below is the official email announcing the new Encore program.

 

Dear University of Washington Faculty, Staff and Retirees:

At the UW, we’re committed to finding ways we can continue to benefit from our “brain trust” of UW retirees and soon-to-be-retirees. We want to create opportunities for post-midlife adults, including our faculty, staff, retirees, alumni and friends, so that they can continue to make a positive difference in fresh ways that make best use of their accumulated skills and experience. With this commitment in mind, we are pleased to announce the launch of the UW Encore Initiative.

The UW Retirement Association (UWRA), with a grant from Encore.org, is partnering with the UW Alumni Association and University Advancement to develop guidelines and create opportunities for retirees to engage in community service for the greater good. This partnership began identifying pathways on and beyond our campuses to engage members of the UW family in Encore—an organization founded to support individuals to transition from a first career into a second act.The UW is the first four-year university in the country to support the creation of this initiative for all of our constituents, and opportunities to participate are under way. Our first campus Encore workshop recently concluded with an attendance of more than 70 (and a waiting list!).

We invite our leaders to join with the UW Encore Initiative to help our retirees find ways to stay engaged, give back and make the world a better place. Expanding our service through the UW Encore Initiative will be challenging and exciting. It will mean thinking creatively about how to engage highly skilled older adults. It also will enable the University to build stronger relationships with the communities beyond our campuses.

Please watch for further information from the UWRA about Encore-related workshops, websites and other opportunities as this initiative unfolds. And thank you to all of our staff, faculty and retirees for your service to the University—past, present and future.

Sincerely,

Michael K Young signature Ana Mari Cauce Signature
Michael K. Young Ana Mari Cauce
President Provost & Executive Vice President

Celebrating faculty excellence

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President Young recently sent an email to the University community announcing new research funding initiative, the Innovation Awards. Below is the official email announcing the details of the initiative.

 

Dear Campus Colleagues,

Breakthroughs occur every day in laboratories and classrooms across our campuses as Huskies work to tackle some of the world’s most intractable problems. Our faculty are at the heart of these innovations, and today I’m pleased to recognize a few who truly transform our world.

Benjamin Hall, professor emeritus of genome sciences and biology, and Eric D’Asaro, a senior principal oceanographer at the UW’s Applied Physics Laboratory and professor of oceanography, were among the 84 new members and 21 foreign associates elected as fellows to the National Academy of Sciences just last week. Chosen for the distinguished breadth and continuing depth of their original research, Professor Hall and Professor D’Asaro’s significant contributions to academia, science and the University community have spanned decades.

As we celebrate Professor Hall and Professor D’Asaro’s storied accomplishments, we also want to inspire innovative faculty who are early in their careers. So today, we are announcing a new initiative to fuel their research: the Innovation Awards.

The Innovation Awards recognize the most creative thinkers in our midst who are addressing the problems of humanity through research and education. These awards support unusually creative early and mid-career researchers engaged in the medical, natural, social and engineering sciences, as well as researchers fostering new levels of student engagement and understanding through active learning.

The application deadline is September 1 each year. The selection committees are organized and run by the Office of Research and the Office of Academic and Student Affairs. In its inaugural year, three outstanding faculty members have been honored with Innovation Awards to fund their transformational work in research and education:

Brandi Cossairt, assistant professor of chemistry, is focusing on chemical innovation in solar energy capture and storage. She is devising novel materials and devices that use abundant natural resources and low-cost processing methods geared toward advances in clean energy technology.

James Carothers, assistant professor of chemical engineering, will create new approaches to produce renewable chemicals. He will address fundamental questions of cellular design, which will be used to redesign living systems for biotech applications.

Eric Klavins, associate professor of electrical engineering, and his colleagues aim to revolutionize how laboratory courses are taught. Students will learn to encode their experiments as computer programs and use advanced technology to automatically generate their lab notebooks.

Join me in congratulating Professor Hall, Professor D’Asaro, Professor Cossairt, Professor Carothers and Professor Klavins for their outstanding efforts in powering creative research at the UW. Their work nurtures our experimental and enterprising culture, and we celebrate their accomplishments in fostering Husky innovation and imagination.

Sincerely,
Michael K Young signature
Michael K. Young

Looking forward to this week’s trip to Asia

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Call it an itinerary of opportunity. This week, I’ll travel to Taiwan to attend the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM) Asia Conference in Taipei to give the AUTM Conference keynote address on innovation and entrepreneurism in higher education based on the UW’s great success in commercialization.

In 2013, the UW had a banner year, placing us among the top five schools in the United States for startup formation by producing a record 17 new companies through our Center for Commercialization (C4C). The UW is first in the number of licenses issued as well as first in different types of licenses, such as biotech, metadata, etc. And we intend to top our record in the coming years, thanks to 80 robust projects in the startup pipeline through our C4C New Ventures Program. I’m pleased to share our success story at the AUTM Conference and to strengthen our connections in Taipei.

During our visit, we are honored to accept the special invitation of Taiwan’s Ministry of Education to visit National Taiwan University, National Chung Hsing University and National Chiao Tung University.

I especially enjoy connecting with Huskies whenever I travel, and I am especially looking forward to the personal visits and receptions with our strongest supporters, Husky alumni, partners, family and friends in Taipei and, also in Tokyo, Japan.

The UW delegation expects to make inroads in key partnerships that will benefit the UW, our state and our world. As a first-tier world university, it is incumbent upon us to be engaged with our international partners so that we can extend the extraordinary work of our faculty and students to places where it can do the most good.

Accompanying me are Vice Provost of Global Affairs Jeff Riedinger, Vice Provost for the UW Center for Commercialization Linden Rhoads, Chair of Electrical Engineering Vikram Jandhyala, Associate Chair of Research for Electrical Engineering Jenq-Neng Huang, and Director of International Advancement Ray Li.

In the coming days, I’ll be posting updates of my journey on this blog and Facebook page. I invite you to follow along and help us spread the word about the progress the UW is making with our partners in Taiwan and Japan. Go global Huskies!