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Join the PSO Board to celebrate and connect as a community!

Hear from UW President Ana Mari Cauce, meet the newly elected PSO Board members, and celebrate our year together. Look for more information coming soon.

When: May 26, 3-4pm
Where: Zoom

Register today!

The Washington State Legislature adjourned on Sunday, April 25th and the 2021 Regular Legislative Session is now over. The Office of State Relations has posted a blog entry reviewing the Session.

The Whole U invites you, your family, and friends to join for an evening panel with Be The Match – an education, research and advocacy organization managing the world’s largest marrow registry.

This registry is essential to connecting people living with life-threatening blood diseases and cancers, to life-saving donors—like YOU! A cure to cancer exists, but matches are needed on the registry from all of us. Growing and diversifying the registry is essential to saving lives, and The University of Washington is committed to diversifying the donor list so that all people have an equal opportunity to find a cure.

This event is on Monday, April 26 at 5:00 p.m. Don’t miss this Zoom.

Register Here

Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities (NWCCU), the accrediting body for the UW, will conduct the university’s evaluation on April 14-16, 2021. This occurs every seven years and will assess the UW’s initiatives and efforts related to student success, institutional effectiveness and mission, as well as governance, resources and capacity. As part of that process, the NWCCU will hold an open forum for staff on Thursday April 15th from 9-9:50 a.m.

Staff members interested in meeting with the evaluators should register via this link. Zoom links and passcodes will be sent to registrants the morning of the forum and posted on the provost’s website.

More information on this process and to access links to the student and faculty forums can be found on UW News.

Seeking Professional staff from the Medical, Research, Administration and Academic sectors of the University system

Submit your application to the PSO Board here

Why Join the PSO Board?

• Learn more about UW and the professional staff role, share ideas, resources and connections, and make impactful contacts all across campus! 

• Support and advocate for professional staff by working with UW leadership at the President’s office, Human Resources, WholeU, faculty committees, and the membership.

• Develop leadership skills by chairing a committee, organizing outreach, and supporting our various events with a supportive group of colleagues.

• Make an impact on the more than 10,000 professional staff! Board members work together to advocate for and enrich our roles at the UW.

• Meet and network with other professional staff from across the Seattle, Bothell, and Tacoma campuses, Harborview Medical Center, and UW Medical Center  

Commitment: Elected board members, on average, spend a few hours per week on board activities (monthly meetings, committee meetings, faculty councils. See Job description for more details)

We are now accepting applications for 2021-2023 board members.  The application deadline is:  April 30, 2021.

Term starts July 1st, 2021

Submit your application to the PSO Board here

The Professional Staff Organization condemns the abhorrent violence against Asian, Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community members. The horrific shootings in Atlanta, Georgia, on Tuesday March 16, that claimed the lives of eight people, six of whom were of Asian descent and seven of whom were women, exemplify the intersectional oppression that so many minoritized people face: racism, misogyny, classism and beyond. We recognize that these murders punctuate the context of a sickening increase in anti-Asian violence, harassment and bigotry around the country as well as locally, as President Cauce and others have noted. Over the past year, Asian diasporic people have been targets of nearly 4,000 reported hate incidents in the United States, and in King County these reports have risen from 39 in 2019 to 59 in 2020. Even before the pandemic started, Asian Americans were the third most targeted race/ethnicity group, following Black Americans and Jewish Americans. Such violence is a particularly despicable aspect of the deep, tangled roots of bigotry and xenophobia in our society. The myth that the AAPI community has not been impacted by white supremacy and systemic racism dismisses and ignores people’s experiences and stories and has sometimes left AAPI community members out of the anti-racism conversation.

The PSO stands in solidarity with the communities under attack right now, and holds space for the grief in this moment. We are with you. We see you. 

We encourage all those who can to take action. This may include the following (thank you to The Revolutionary Love Project and Common Power for posting these ideas):

1. Learn the names and stories of those we lost. Six names have been released so far. Delaina Ashley Yaun, 33; Paul Andre Michels, 54; Xiaojie Tan, 49; Daoyou Feng, 44; Julie Park, 70’s; Hyun-jeong Park Grant, 50’s.
2. Check in with family and friends in the AAPI community, listen to their stories, for as long they want to talk about it.
3. Contact your representatives and advocate for policies that thwart hate crimes and violence, and that support progress toward institutional anti-racism and justice for all.
4. If you see racism, say something. Strong allyship behavior needs to be modeled over and over again.
5. Donate to stopaapihate.org. Historically, less than 1% of philanthropic resources go to AAPI communities.
6. Donate to napawf.org, the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, specifically their Atlanta chapter.
7. Get involved with groups like the Revolutionary Love Project who are helping to direct resources to victims’ families and organizers on the ground.

Other resources: 

• Reporting anti-Asian hate activity, provided by the Seattle Chapter Japanese Americans Citizens League (JACL)
• President Cauce’s statement against anti-Asian violence
• Bias Reporting Tool
• Washington State Human Rights Commission Complaint Form
• Let’s Talk (Seattle campus)
• Hall Health and the UW Counseling Center (Seattle campus)
• UWB Counseling Center (UW Bothell)
• Counseling & Psychological Services (UW Tacoma)
• UW CareLink (UW employees)
• Resources to talk to children about racism

MARCH EVENTS:      

Click to register now (find more details below)

• March 18 – PSO Social Hour 
• March 19 – Whole U Presents Power of Positivity  
• March 26 – State Relations 2021 Legislative Update   

• Professional Staff Organization (PSO) Social Hour – March 18, 2021,  4pm-5pm 

We are all stuck at home, but things are still happening! 

Professional staff is still working; people are still using scholarships, the PSO is still trying to connect with and advocate for Professional staff members
Join us for a fun social hour and a guided drink-making session on March 18, 2021, 4:00-5:00 PM
Sign up to receive an ingredient list for the cocktail/mocktail recipe:
REGISTER HERE
Talk to us &/ find out more about the PSO and meet other Professional Staff in the UW community.  We look forward to seeing you there. 

• The Power of Positivity with UW Alum Tony Adkins – March 19th, 2021,  2pm-3pm 

• State Relations 2021 Legislative Update – March 26, 2021,  1:00-1:30pm

You may also be interested in this event:   

36th District Legislators Virtual Town Hall

Monday, March 15th at 7:00 PM PDT

View via YouTube, Twitter, or Facebook.

We are all stuck at home, but things are still happening! 

Professional staff is still working; people are still using scholarships, the PSO is still trying to connect with and advocate for Professional staff members
Join us for a fun social hour and a guided drink-making session on March 18, 2021, 4:00-5:00 PM
Sign up to receive an ingredient list for the cocktail/mocktail recipe:
https://washington.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYpcuugrzwjHNWy-TfGe3epF5HL-sJhDCPu
Talk to us &/ find out more about the PSO and meet other Professional Staff in the UW community.  We look forward to seeing you there. 

Nominations now open for UW Professional Staff Board positions

Why Run for the PSO Board?

Being part of the PSO board is a tremendous way to learn more about UW and the professional staff role, share ideas, resources and connections, and make impactful contacts all across campus! The PSO works with UW leadership at the President’s office, Human Resources, WholeU, faculty committees, and the membership to support professional staff and advocate for their needs and priorities. In addition, board members come from all across the Seattle, Bothell, and Tacoma campuses, Harborview Medical Center, and UW Medical Center providing opportunities to meet other professional staff members in a variety of areas.

If you are looking for leadership opportunities that you don’t have in your daily work at the UW, there are many ways a PSO position can provide this professional growth for you. Chairing a committee, organizing outreach, and supporting our various events are just a few of the ways you can expand your skills with a supportive group of colleagues.

Not only can you develop your leadership skills but you can make an impact on the more than 10,000 professional staff. Board members work together to advocate for and enrich our roles at the UW.

We are now accepting applications for 2020-2022 board members.  The application deadline is:  April 30, 2021.

Submit your application to the PSO Board here

Nominate someone awesome to the PSO Board here

Duties and Responsibilities

UPDATED 3/2020
PSO Board Member Job Description
Current PSO Bylaws
(Select excerpts from the Job Description document linked above)
Board members are required to:
● Serve in accordance with all bylaws.
● Participate in monthly Board meeting from September through June.
● Attend the Board retreat, which happens in August and is scheduled collaboratively to align with Board members’ calendars.
● Participate in at least one Board committee.
● Participate in a minimum of 1 PSO event a year (Diversity Forum, Annual Meeting/Awards Ceremony, or outreach/engagement events).
● Represent the PSO Board at 2 or more UW Welcome Days, which are held bi-monthly throughout the academic year.
● Engage with PSO business on all relevant platforms (email, Teams, shared Google Drive, etc.), including responding to PSO member queries as appropriate.

Benefits

• Meet and network with other professional staff across campuses (Seattle, Bothell, Tacoma, Harborview, UW Medical Center).
• Hear from UW departments and administrators on topics that impact professional staff.
• Develop skills to advocate for professional staff on topics such benefits, salary, recognition, etc.

Questions? Contact us at psoboard@uw.edu.