I am a biochemist, which means that I know more about biochemistry than the average person. In reality, I know quite a lot about a small subfield of biochemistry – yeast prions, which I have spent my entire independent career researching. Even so, every time I read a new publication or see a new result from my laboratory, I appreciate, and am humbled by, how much more there is to learn. Such is the motivation for an academic life, isn’t it?
A key aspect of that motivation for me is talking about my work with others – colleagues, collaborators, trainees – really anyone who will engage with me. I have seen the breakthroughs that happen when someone looks at an old problem in a new way. It can be as simple as asking a question that makes me think about the problem differently, or it can be as exciting as bringing a new set of skills outside of my own to reveal a path beyond my intuition. I cannot imagine being a biochemist in isolation.
But beyond the strongly held perspectives of people (including me) who have spent a lifetime thinking about something, biochemistry is generally non-controversial on its own. That changed in 2020 with the COVID-19 pandemic, when topics like RNA, variants, antigens, and R0 became dinner conversation. While the underlying science is the same, the processes of discovery, understanding, and intervention intersected with and were shaped by lived experiences with profound implications for public health outcomes.
I am a first-generation college graduate, and I was deluged with questions from family members about things that they had read. I am grateful that I could be a trusted resource for them. I also understood that they did not feel comfortable talking with other people because differences in perspective were not seen as opportunities to promote learning but rather as an insurmountable division.
This distinction in how biochemistry is practiced and perceived was striking to me, but only at first. I hold opinions on a range of topics for which I am far from an expert. As I thought about this reality in parallel with what I had witnessed during the COVID-19 pandemic, I had to acknowledge that at times it feels increasingly difficult to find spaces where my opinions outside of my area of expertise can be meaningfully explored and challenged.
That simply shouldn’t be the case because we are fortunate to be immersed in a community with comprehensive expertise. It is my hope that we can rededicate ourselves to teaching the skills of learning across differences in our own disciplines and to engaging with them ourselves across the breadth of our University. Below are some opportunities that we have been developing and supporting in collaboration throughout academic affairs.
Dialogue across differences
Each first-year UW student this year will view a welcome video from me that centers the values of curiosity, awareness and productive dialogue in their educational journey and encourages them to watch for misinformation. In addition, First Year Programs has trained peer facilitators to provide training to students on dialogue across differences.
Vice Provost and Dean Ed Taylor has developed a tri-campus course, 2024: Dialogue, Disagreement and Democracy, for students to explore how building stronger connections with each other and finding common ground and compromise can strengthen our democracy.
Vice Provost Fred Nafukho and I are working with the mediation clinic in the School of Law to develop and launch training on conflict engagement and resolution for faculty and academic administrators. Information on how to participate will be shared later this fall.
Informed voting
We have collated a number of resources for navigating the 2024 election on a new website.
Among these resources is a lecture series “Democracy in Focus,” co-sponsored by my office and the College of Arts & Sciences. This series provides an opportunity for unpacking the complexity of elections through an exploration of related topics, including:
- Polarization, Persuasion and Talking Across Difference
- Protecting Information Integrity
- Zooming Out: 2024 Elections in Historical, Social and Cultural Contexts
- Presidential Power
- Who Votes and Why Voting Matters
These lectures are offered by faculty from the College of Arts & Sciences, the Law School, the iSchool and the Evans School. Lectures will held in person on the Seattle campus (locations vary) at 4 p.m. every Tuesday leading up to the election and will also be livestreamed to all three campuses.
Interdisciplinary University Initiatives
With the support of the Executive Office of the President and Provost, our deans and administrative leaders have been working to identify, incubate and launch campus-wide interdisciplinary initiatives that leverage the unique strengths of the UW to address grand challenges in society. As the framework for these initiatives comes into focus, we will collect feedback and expand opportunities for participation across the three campuses.
The first of the initiatives to reach this stage is the Task Force on Artificial Intelligence, which recently posted its framework – called Washington AI Initiative for Society, Teaching, and Research (WAISTAR) – for integrating a vision and strategy for AI at the UW. I encourage you to read the report and participate in the town halls occurring throughout October on each of the core pillars: Teaching and Learning, Education, Infrastructure, Student Success, Administration, and Research and Research in AI. Your input will shape the future of this important work. Also, a survey will be posted on the website later this fall.
I hope that you will agree that these three initiatives are concrete examples of how our different perspectives, when integrated together, can enrich our mission in ways that are authentic to the UW. I invite you to engage in these and other opportunities to connect and collaborate throughout the academic year.