With the deadline for the first 30-day special session looming, the State House passed out a revised budget plan last night.
The Associated Press reports:
With lawmakers entering the final days of a special session, the House voted 53-35 to approve the budget. Republicans in the chamber praised budget writers for dropping a proposed business tax extension but still expressed concern about how the measure was structured.
The News Tribune reports:
Pierce County Council votes to have Steve O'Ban fill Mike Carrell's state Senate seat. #WAleg
— Tacoma News Tribune (@thenewstribune) June 4, 2013
Now it's unanimous 7-0 for O'Ban.
— Jordan Schrader (@Jordan_Schrader) June 4, 2013
O’Ban will fill the vacancy left by the recent passing of State Senator Mike Carrell.
Learn more about O’Ban by reading our “Huskies on the Hill” Q&A he participated in on the State Relations blog earlier this year.
The Joint Center for Aerospace Research Technology Innovation (JCATI) will hold its inaugural symposium on Monday, June 24, 2013 from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m on the University of Washington’s Seattle campus.
The symposium will include an industry panel discussing the grand challenges in aerospace and the role of innovation. Moderated by Roger Myers of Aerojet, the panel will include industry leaders representing the commercial airplanes, space, UAV, and NextGen/big data sectors of the industry.
A university panel titled “The Academy’s Role in Innovation” will host deans from the University of Washington and Washington State University as well as Earll Murman, the MIT Ford Professor of Engineering Emeritus.
For more information and to register, click here.
It was announced this week that the University of Washington is one of two winners of the 2013 National Consortium for Continuous Improvement in Higher Education (NCCI) “Leveraging Excellence Award.”
The award recognizes best practices that have had broad impact within the higher education community.
In a statement from NCCI, the group details UW’s Finance and Facilities implementation of LEAN on campus:
Since January 2010, Finance & Facilities (F2) has deployed process improvement extensively, using Lean across all units in its 1,350-employee organization. Complementary goals of high employee engagement and dramatic performance gains have netted an over-400-percent return on investment, and over 12,000 employee ideas.
Lean Value-Stream Mapping, popularized as a sort of project-management launch techniques, is actually the entry-point to learning a work way-of-life at F2, where clear goals, visual management, idea systems, and daily huddles are simultaneously improving performance and team dynamics.
The award will be presented at the NCCI annual meeting in Indianapolis in July.
Read more at UW Today.
President Michael Young was in Spokane yesterday for meetings with local business and civic leaders.
Among other events, he spoke at a luncheon hosted by Greater Spokane Incorporated (GSI). In his remarks to the group, President Young highlighted UW’s growing impacts in the region, and discussed how the university’s cutting-edge research benefits the state economy.
Topics of conversation also included the growing range of UW education programs in local K-12 schools, and the UW’s enduring 40-year plus WWAMI program that provides medical education in Eastern Washington.
Later in the day, he toured Pearson Packaging Systems on Spokane’s West Plains with the company’s President & CEO Michael Senske.
Senske is a UW alum (’93), and the incoming Chairman of GSI.
Katherine Long of the Seattle Times reports on the New York technology leader selected to head UW Bothell as its next Chancellor:
Bjong Wolf Yeigh, professor and president of the State University of New York Institute of Technology (SUNYIT), will be the next UW-Bothell chancellor if approved by the Board of Regents. He will replace Kenyon Chan, who is stepping down to pursue his own scholarly work.
Yeigh has been president of SUNYIT, the only institute of technology at SUNY, since 2008. During his tenure, the campus received $15.5 million in capital grants for cybertechnology and nanotechnology, and led the effort to gain two rounds of funding for regional economic development projects totaling $119 million, according to the UW.
In a statement announcing Dr. Yeigh’s selection as the next Chancellor of UW Bothell, UW President Michael K. Young said:
“Dr. Yeigh has been a force of innovation and change throughout his career, particularly in positions of academic leadership. He has left a trail of success everywhere he has been, and we are very excited to have him join the University of Washington and lead our dynamic campus at Bothell as it continues to grow and develop.”
In terms of Dr. Yeigh’s academic background, he holds a bachelor’s degree in engineering science from Dartmouth, a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Stanford and a master’s and doctorate in civil engineering and operations research from Princeton.
Read more about Dr. Bjong Wolf Yeigh in UW Today.
On its Sunday (May 19) opinion page, the Everett Herald published an editorial making the case that higher education is key to the state’s economy. The editorial opens with this point:
The mainspring for landing the Boeing 777X in Washington is higher ed and addressing the skills gap in engineering and technology. The best social program for self-sufficiency, the best business strategy for curtailing unemployment and goosing the economy, is higher ed.
The editorial goes on to cite a range of data that points to the need to reinvest in higher education in our state:
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, Washington ranks 37th in public bachelors’ degrees produced per 1,000. Washington falls to 49th in participation in public graduate education. The state also sits, 49 out of 50, in total education funding per student. At UCLA, in a state that defines budget austerity, per-student funding is $11,850 compared to $6,751 at the UW.
For a generation in Washington, the cost (or funding per student) has remained flat. As state support nosedived, tuition ticked up to bridge the divide, pricing out many low and middle-income kids. In 2013, even after four years of double-digit tuition spikes, funding per student at places like the UW is $3,000 less (!) than it was in 2008.
We know the solution. Washington should appropriate $225 million to freeze resident undergrad tuition for the next two years, to make college a manageable option for middle class students. Student financial aid must be fully funded. And boosting capacity in engineering and computer science to align with student demand, a proposal floated by the Washington Roundtable, is the low-hanging strategy to remedy the skills crisis.
The 16th annual UW Undergraduate Research Symposium is underway on campus.
The event runs from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. today (Friday, May 17) in Mary Gates Hall.
Continue reading “Campus symposium features undergraduate research”
Today’s front-page story in The Daily breaks down the House and Senate budget proposals being considered in Olympia.
The story tackles a number of topics that lawmakers are confronting in budget negotiations this special session, from levels of state support to tuition-setting, and a proposed 20 percent international student surcharge to computer science & engineering program funding.
President Michael K. Young, Angie Weiss, director of the ASUW Office of Government Relations, Melanie Mayock, vice president of the UW Graduate and Professional Student Senate (GPSS), Xinglu Yao, an international student at the UW from China, and Margaret Shepherd director of UW State Relations are quoted.
After a two-week break following its adjournment April 28, the Washington State Legislature is set to begin Special Session today (May 13).
The News Tribune reports that the first week of the 30-day session so far appears light on the legislative front, and mainly entails budget negotiators meeting to hash out agreement on a state budget. Schedules could change quickly, however, and some committees are set to meet later in the week.
The Associated Press reports that budget writers met a few times during the two week break, but no deal has yet been reached.
In addition to working on the state budget, the Governor has called on state lawmakers to work on a range of policy bills that didn’t make it out during the Regular Session, and to also focus on putting together a statewide transportation package.
Stay tuned to the blog for more updates!