Category: Presidential messages

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

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!

One of the great pleasures and privileges of being president of the University of Washington is getting to meet remarkable students. Yesterday I was honored to pay tribute to three truly outstanding undergraduate students: sophomore Jeffrey Lee, junior Megan Kufeld and senior Connor Lynch. They were selected as our 2013–2014 Presidential Medalists, based on their high scholastic standing and difficulty of coursework at the end of the 2013 school year.

These students’ contributions to the UW aren’t just limited to the scholastic. They lead diverse, well-rounded lives outside of class too! Jeffrey is a skilled amateur photographer, Megan is the starting goalkeeper for the UW women’s soccer team and Connor shares a passion for skateboarding with his brother (a 2013 UW chemistry graduate).

I invite you to learn more about these students and their ambitions for making the world a better place.

The Civil Rights Movement in the mid-20th century is an important chapter in our country’s history. The stories of courageous acts and sacrifices made to advance equality for all citizens are a mix of inspiration and oppression, agony and elation, and personify the struggles and victories during that time.

Indeed, the stories I heard directly from the families who were involved in the Brown vs. Board of Education case when I served on the 50th Anniversary Commission over a decade ago are fresh in my memory, and I have looked at the world differently ever since.

A group of UW supporters, students, friends and faculty are experiencing some other civil rights stories firsthand. UW Department of Communication Chair and Professor David Domke is leading the group to visit various landmarks and meet with individuals involved on a pilgrimage through the Deep South. To read about their journey, visit their blog.

The group visited Smith Hall (pictured below), where Ms. Autherine Lucy — the first black student at the University of Alabama — attended her first class.

The University District Partnership is an organization that is poised to set this district apart.  Last week I had the good fortune to address this group as they celebrated all the work we have accomplished together over the past two years.

The University District Partnership includes the UW, U District businesses, residents, non-profits, and faith community and opinion leaders to cooperatively develop and manage this part of the city the UW Seattle campus calls home.

The U District is a vibrant, innovative and diverse district rich in history and ideas. Cultivating this type of creativity is what the U District Partnership will do by bringing more businesses to the Ave, promoting innovation and attracting start-ups, making the area clean and safe and creating housing that is attractive to not only students but to our faculty and staff and others who want to live closer to where they work.

City Council President Tim Burgess, who is 100% behind the work of the Partnership, also attended the event and introduced many city department heads who have been critical to the efforts to date. I am so proud of this community, city and the university partnership.

The key difference-maker for societies, economies, and universities in the 21^st-century, I am certain, is innovation.

Can we think in creative, productive, uncommon ways about how to solve problems and to bridge the divides—international, cultural, economic—that separate us?

At the University of Washington, we know that the ability to innovate is essential.

With this in mind, we embrace a spirit of experimentation in our UW research and teaching. We try new things, we sometimes fail on the road to success, we shoot for the moon. It is in these moments that we create new possibilities we would otherwise never imagine.

Much of our shooting for the moon relies on the investment the federal government has made over time in research at our nation’s universities.

To that end, President Obama’s fiscal year 2015 budget proposal is due next week, and Congress will then start the long process of authorizing and appropriating funds.

Today, a coalition of 14 important national business, higher education, and scientific organizations launched a campaign to urge Congress to “Close the Innovation Deficit” with strong federal investments in research and higher education.

The centerpiece of this campaign is a four-minute video that explains the direct link between basic research, economic growth, improved medical treatments, and national security; the risk that recent cuts to research pose to the United States’ role as the global innovation leader at a time when other nations are rapidly increasing their research investments; and the significant benefits that renewed investments in research would bring the country.

“Today’s action by the Washington Legislature was a vote of confidence in students and their importance to the future of our state,” University of Washington President Michael K. Young said of the Feb. 18 vote allowing high school graduates brought here illegally as children to be eligible for financial aid.

“It sends a strong message that an education should be available to absolutely everyone,” he said. “For years, our state has invested in these students’ success in our K-12 classrooms and in our communities. All students who work hard in school deserve an opportunity to go to college and have access to the financial resources to make it possible. Our Legislature has passed a bill that will have a transformative effect on our students, their families and their communities for many years to come.”

Dear Campus Colleagues,

Fifty years ago, in 1964, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his courageous and inspiring efforts in leading the civil rights movement.

The Nobel committee honored Dr. King for his commitment to nonviolence in the pursuit of equality, inclusivity, and opportunity in the United States. In particular, they noted his leadership, from the Montgomery bus boycotts in 1955 through the U.S. Congress’s landmark Civil Rights Act in 1964.

But Dr. King and the thousands who marched ahead of and along with him, and the millions who shared his vision, well knew that we still had many miles to go. Violence, discrimination, inequality, and injustice in thousands of ways remained commonplace. Today, thankfully, much has changed for the better, but in 2014 there remains still a great deal of work to do.

As a public university, we have a central role in ensuring equality, inclusivity, and opportunity. Our leadership is paramount. A pillar of the University of Washington’s pathway forward is and must always be providing access and opportunity for all who are qualified, regardless of background or circumstance. To this I am wholly and resolutely committed.  But this is not simply my commitment; this must be our collective commitment.

Dr. King’s words from his Nobel acceptance speech inspire us today:

[I]n the depths of my heart I am aware that this prize is much more than an honor to me personally. Every time I take a flight, I am always mindful of the many people who make a successful journey possible—the known pilots and the unknown ground crew. So you honor the dedicated pilots of our struggle who have sat at the controls as the freedom movement soared into orbit. You honor, once again, Chief Lutuli of South Africa, whose struggles with and for his people, are still met with the most brutal expression of man’s inhumanity to man. You honor the ground crew without whose labor and sacrifices the jet flights to freedom could never have left the earth. Most of these people will never make the headline and their names will not appear in Who’s Who. Yet when years have rolled past and when the blazing light of truth is focused on this marvelous age in which we live—men and women will know and children will be taught that we have a finer land, a better people, a more noble civilization—because these humble children of God were willing to suffer for righteousness’ sake.

As we honor Dr. King on the national holiday in his name on Monday, let us together commit anew to doing our part in creating a finer land, a better people, and a more noble civilization. This is our responsibility as members of one of the world’s great higher education communities.

Sincerely,

Michael K. Young