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Undergraduate Academic Affairs

Category: Features

Typically longer in length and relevancy than content in the news category. Features content is more likely to be republished over time.

Building community, one relationship at a time

Written by Danielle Marie Holland
Posted on

Aden Afework, ’22, was majoring in public health and global health when the COVID-19 pandemic began to sweep across the globe. As she witnessed firsthand how COVID exacerbated the inequities among students from her home community of South Seattle, she sought out new opportunities for engaging with community.

Photo of Aden Afework outside.
Through the Undergraduate Community-Based Internships program, Aden Afework interned at Canopy Scholars and was able to focus on her passion for equity in education. Photo: Photo by Ian Teodoro

As a first-generation college student from an immigrant family, Afework felt pulled toward addressing the disparity of Black students’ access to academic resources. A professor told her about the Undergraduate Community-Based Internships (UCBI) program and suggested that the paid internship program housed through the Community Engagement and Leadership Education (CELE) Center might be the best place for her to focus on this work. Afework applied.

The UCBI program places undergraduates interested in public service into nonprofit and public sector organizations, giving them the chance to explore, contribute and grow as they work within partner organizations. Afework immediately felt drawn to Canopy Scholars in Shoreline, WA, an organization providing equity in education for underserved students.

Photo of Lynn Newcombe
Lynn Newcombe, director of Canopy Scholars, a nonprofit organization providing equity in education whose programming is fueled by youth volunteers from local high schools and undergraduates from the UW. Photo: Photo by Ian Teodoro

Canopy Scholars, in partnership with the Shoreline School District and family advocates, offers school tutoring, STEM programs and community building for second through eighth grade students. Their programming is fueled by youth volunteers from local high schools and undergraduates from the University of Washington. With their service to students of Afework’s own Eritrean and Ethiopian community, Canopy Scholars stood out to her as the perfect place to focus her passion for equity in education.

Canopy Scholars had long been a community partner with the University of Washington as a partner-organization option for UW service learning classes. When UCBI reached out to Canopy Scholars in 2017, Director Lynn Newcombe said it was an easy “yes.”

Newcombe cites the partnership as “a fabulous experience for us because we had someone who was investing hours of their time a week in our organization and able to really come alongside the high school and college student tutors and provide them training.”

Returning home through community

Finding her way to Canopy Scholars was a returning home of sorts for Afework. Her first two years at the UW were spent in rigorous research experiences, yet disconnected from community engagement.

“I knew I needed to get that back for myself,” she reflected, looking back to her high school years of involvement in advocacy policy work giving collaborative presentations to representatives in Olympia, and her years spent volunteering at the Rainier Beach Community Center helping run events and services for South Seattle.

Newcombe interviewed Afework as an intern candidate and immediately hired her on, “I knew she was going to be a game changer for us.” Afework took her learning off campus and into the community, investing 10 hours weekly into the student programming. Her work was supported with an additional two hours of weekly internship cohort meetings led by UCBI staff, where she and her fellow interns received not only coaching and mentorship, but learned in depth about social issues as they reflected on power, identity and systems of oppression.

Afework began running the virtual middle school programming, navigating the new terrain of remote learning in that first year of COVID. She crafted and created a space that students came to with an eagerness to talk, to get homework help and to connect with a tutor. She also represented the students back to themselves — Afework herself immigrated to Seattle with her family at the age of 8. She had the shared lived experience of 86% of the families that Canopy Scholars serves.

Shifting the culture

During this time, another shift began to occur in these online spaces.  “There were these really amazing conversations that were happening,” said Newcombe. In the background of these sessions were the global protests after George Floyd’s murder. The Black Lives Matter movement was being picked up across national media and everyday conversations turned to racial injustice.

This time would become pivotal to Afework’s understanding and embodiment of leadership.

Afework organically found herself facilitating conversations with her students as they sought to contextualize what they were experiencing and living through. The facilitation model that worked for her and the students was composed of conversations with open-ended questions. Here she gave the program tutors space to grow and develop as well, “I wanted to empower tutors so I encouraged them to continue these conversations with their students once they were in breakout rooms.” Noting the deep trust that existed between the middle school students and high school tutors, her students felt invited into engagement as the discussions were a “no-judgment, safe space to share their thoughts.”

Newcombe supported Afework to develop a middle school level to these critical thinking questions after Afework had observed that this adjustment was needed.

Afework said, “Being a leader means learning that if things are not working, work with others and receive support to make adjustments that support everyone in return.”

Leading the way through relationships

With the ongoing support and program adjustments, Afework was able to engage the students in conversations that parents were asking Canopy for help with. “How do we talk about racism with our kids? How do we teach them about identity? We experienced racism ourselves,” shared Newcombe on common questions parents were bringing to them. “There was a lot of coming to grips with their own identity that was happening as these kids were moving into middle school. Aden was able to step into a critical opportunity and go deeper with kids in ways that they really needed. And kids and parents trusted her.”

Photo of Lynn Newcombe and Aden Afework.
Lynn Newcombe and Aden Afework developed relationships and built community with each other and participants in Canopy Scholars. Photo: Photo by Ian Teodoro

“UCBI solidified my interest in working with communities, ” said Afework. “Community based work is really building relationships.” Newcombe notes how Afework spoke with her students with such a deep understanding and authority in how she saw the world.

“One day in the main session, she said, ‘Where do you find community?’ and the kids and tutors go into breakout rooms and then they come back for the follow up and it was really astonishing. It was amazing to hear, ‘I find it here,’” said Newcombe.

“I felt so valued, that now my expectations for wherever I work are very high. I need to be valued in this space. UCBI and Canopy was a really great experience for me to have,” said Afework.

Afework stayed on at Canopy Scholars supporting families through the summer of 2021 during an UCBI program extension, and Newcombe hired her back for the remainder of her senior year.

“Aden Afework created a broadening of our students’ own understanding of themselves and seeing themselves as being successful,” said Newcombe. “Our students could feel incredibly proud of who they are.”

15-seconds at a time: Academic Support Programs [video]

Written by Undergraduate Academic Affairs
Posted on

 

In this video, Academic Support Programs Director Ryan Burt takes on the challenge of explaining Academic Support Programs in less than 15 seconds at a time. “15 Seconds at a Time” is a series in which different Undergraduate Academic Affairs programs explain their work in bite-sized bursts.

Academic Support Programs, located at the UW in Mary Gates Hall, provides a space for all UW undergraduate students to be included, challenged and supported in their educational journey. An academic home away from home, Academic Support Programs offers peer-to-peer programs and services include tutoring and coaching, as well as connections to other academic support programs across campus.

Academic Support Programs’ resources are available to you online and in person. Academic coaching is available through the day into the evening, CLUE tutoring on evenings and online appointments can be made at academicsupport.uw.edu. CLUE tutors cover a wide range of majors including: math, physics, political science, chemistry, public health, English, social work, statistics, economics and more. Visit Academic Support Programs to learn more about scheduling with one of their amazing student coaches and tutors.

Produced by: Ian Teodoro and Kirsten Atik
Edited by: Ian Teodoro
Thanks to: Ryan Burt

This autumn, let us begin again

Written by Ed Taylor
Posted on

It’s the beginning of another academic year. The leaves on the iconic cherry trees in the Quad are turning red, orange, gold. We often focus on these trees in the spring — and with good reason, the blossoms are spectacular and represent a kind of joyful renewal — but autumn and the start of classes brings its own beauty and renewal through this specific time and place.

The leaves change together, just as our students transform together through a common experience of learning at this point in time and at this public institution. The turning of the leaves, a new school year, new students coming to campus: It is hopeful and gives us all an opportunity to begin again.

In Undergraduate Academic Affairs, we create opportunities and programs that enable students to connect to, deepen and expand their undergraduate academic experiences. As a result, students are able to be fully present and be the lead protagonists in their own educational journeys.

As we all begin this new academic year, full of possibility and hope, I think of James Baldwin, who wrote, “The world is before you and you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in.”

Many students in the UW’s history did not leave the UW as it was when they entered. They gathered, learned, organized and changed the way this very University operates and has made us a better institution. We are better today because of the people who have come through here.

The people make the institution, and students develop capacities for leadership, community engagement and scholarship that make it so they are not just at the UW, but are able to be the UW.

Emily Dickenson wrote, “Hope is the thing with feathers / That perches in the soul, / And sings the tune without the words, / And never stops at all …”

With all the challenges our local and global communities face, when I meet students, I am filled with hope anew. The UW provides students with both common academic experiences and vast opportunities to choose and create their own academic adventures. Hope perches in our souls and sings no matter what.

This class of more than 7,200 entering students is filled with new Huskies, parents, families, mentors and supporters who are here because they’ve been hopeful.

My hope for all our students is that, by finding a sense of belonging at the UW, they develop the habits of heart, grow their intellectual capacity and discover their own drive to create the world anew.

15 Seconds at a Time: Undergraduate Research Program [video]

Written by
Posted on

In this video, Undergraduate Research Program Director Sophie Pierszalowski takes on the challenge of explaining the Undergraduate Research Program in less than 15 seconds at a time. “15 Seconds at a Time” is a series in which various Undergraduate Academic Affairs programs explain their work in bite-sized bursts.

Creating your UW academic adventure

Written by Undergraduate Academic Affairs
Posted on

Welcome to the University of Washington! This story is your own choose-your-own-adventure story, and begins right here with you. You are a first-year student in your first quarter. As you read, you will face challenges that ask you to decide which way to go. What will your pathway be? As you jump from storyline to storyline, you will learn about the resources available to you through UAA’s Academic Support Programs. Just as in life, you can’t go backward in this story, but you will get opportunities to redirect along the way. Have fun, and see you at the finish line: commencement!

Editor’s note: This story is not meant to be read straight through. Read a section, make your choice and see what part of your academic adventure unfolds next.

1

It’s your first quarter at the UW! You feel very motivated and excited by the possibilities of a big university and living on your own for the first time.

As you prepare for classes, you reflect on how you want to make a difference in people’s lives and help others. You aren’t entirely sure what this may look like, but you are leaning pretty heavily toward a major in a STEM field. You talk it out with your family and they support this idea, saying, “Not only would you be able to help others, but you will have many post-graduate opportunities in a medical field.”

You signed up for a series of introductory classes at summer Advising & Orientation, including a chemistry class. In the first week of class, you overhear a student saying, “I heard this is a weed-out class,” but you feel pretty confident in your academic ability based on your grades in high school.

Continue to #2

 

 

 

2

The quarter is underway, and after just a few weeks you find yourself overwhelmed with the workload in your chemistry class. Looking around you say, “Why does everyone else seem to be managing this better than me?” Your new friends are going to parties and get-togethers while you are stuck at your desk for hours trying to understand the textbook. You realize you never really learned how to study in high school, and have no idea if you are doing it effectively.

You decide you need to either increase your study hours and commit to study nights at Odegaard Library or talk to your TA about your challenges.

#3 Decide to do more solo studying at Odegaard

#4 Decide to check in with a TA

 

 

 

 

3

Decide to solo study at Odegaard

Having dedicated more time to studying at night in Odegaard library, you begin to get caught up on all your readings before each class. Although the evenings there come with fewer distractions, the late nights start to wear on you, leaving you feeling isolated and sleep-deprived. You make plans with new friends only to cancel, telling them, “I can’t hang out because I need to study. I’m so anxious about answering questions in class correctly.”

Your focus has improved as you move through the quarter. You review your lecture notes, the readings from the textbook, and do all the practice exercises. Since you are studying alone, though, you question if you are answering the questions correctly. The back of the textbook has some of the answers but not the ones you are most stuck on.

As midterms approach, you find yourself falling behind again. The late study nights leave you sleeping through your alarm clock and running late to classes. You are exhausted and bail on your quiz section to take a nap. At this point in the quarter you find yourself asking, “Do I need to go talk to my chemistry TA, or should I just keep doing what I’m doing and hope for the best?”

#4 Decide to go check in with a TA

#5 Head to the midterm

 

 

 

4

Decide to check in with a TA

You schedule a meeting with your TA and share how much time you are studying. The TA reassures you that it’s enough time and gives you a piece of advice, “It is important to find study strategies that work best for you to understand the material.” You know the TA cares about your success and talking with them was helpful, but when you leave you realize you aren’t exactly sure how to find the strategies that work best for you, especially when you never had this type of workload in high school. You feel a little lost and stuck, so you head to the library for a few more late nights of midterm prep.

#5 Time to head to the midterm

 

 

 

 

5

It’s time for the midterm

The first midterm of the quarter is here, and with all the extra nights you spent studying, you feel like it went pretty well! The professor mentioned it would be graded on a curve, so you think you will get at least a B. When the test scores come back you find out you did not even pass! Looking at your score you think, “I don’t even know how this could happen! I studied so much, and missed out on all the fall events. I’m nervous about asking for help, but with this score, it’s clear I am going to need it.”

You remember seeing a post for CLUE tutoring on your Instagram feed and think they might be able to help you with your chem homework. You also remember an Academic Success Coaching flyer in the HUB and think they might be able to help with study skills and time management. You feel anxious about either option but eventually decide to reach out.

#6 Go to CLUE tutoring

#7 Go to the academic success coach

 

 

 

6

Decide to go to CLUE tutoring

You have been feeling a little intimidated connecting with others, and your nervousness has kept you from going to CLUE tutoring yet. You realize you really do need the help as you say, “What’s the worst thing that could happen?” while eying the time on your phone. It’s 7 p.m., so the CLUE tutoring drop-in sessions just started. You grab your chemistry homework and head over. You sit in the chemistry tutoring section and hear other students talk about tips they have used to better understand concepts. It’s reaffirming to hear that others struggle with the same material, and you feel like you’ve warmed up to working with other students. The CLUE tutor reviews additional problems with you, helping you identify what step you were missing. You write down the steps to solve the problems, and are so happy to have that for later reference!

You feel like you have gotten help with some of the concepts you were struggling with in class, so now you need to choose if you want to keep studying these concepts for finals, or meet with an academic success coach and dive deeper into your study skills.

#10 Apply what you learned at CLUE and head to finals week

#8 Stopover with an academic success coach before finals week

 

 

 

7

Meet with the academic success coach

“What’s the worst thing that could happen?” you ask yourself as you schedule a session to meet with an academic success coach. When you arrive and settle in, they ask how the quarter is going, and at first you say, “It’s going okay.” They continue to ask you questions and mention that they had a challenging time their first quarter at the UW. You decide to tell them how you are actually doing: “I’ve worked so hard and it’s as though I don’t see any of it reflected in my grades. I am homesick and sad to have missed out on new adventures with friends. I’m just always studying and barely making it!”

The coach listens and says, “It’s completely understandable that you are feeling homesick with all this time spent studying alone. I know when I studied alone and tried to teach myself all of the material my first quarter of college, I was totally exhausted and realized I needed to try new study strategies that would work for me.” You feel relieved that someone understands you, and even more relieved when they share these active studying techniques with you. The coach suggests you start working with others to avoid isolation and collaborate through practice problems. “You can actively study with others by working together through practice problems and having discussions on the material,” they suggest.

Before you leave, they go over what your academic needs and learning styles are so they can coordinate the right resources for you. You end up walking out with a list of CHEM student organizations for group course content discussions, CLUE tutoring to work through problems with and strategies for tackling practice problems. You think, “I am so happy that I gave this a shot! You think about whether you should also get some 1:1 tutoring at CLUE or join a study group as you head to finals week.

#9 Decide to go to CLUE tutoring

#10 Head to finals week

 

 

 

 

8

Dive into study skills with an academic success coach

After going to CLUE tutoring, you are less intimidated in connecting with others. Now that you have gotten support with some of the class concepts, you want to address potential study strategies.

You head in to meet with an academic success coach and they ask how the quarter is going. You say, “It’s going okay,” but they continue to ask you questions and mention that they had a challenging time their first quarter at the UW. You decide to tell them how you are actually doing, “I’ve worked so hard and it’s as though I don’t see any of it reflected in my grades. I am homesick and sad to have missed out on new adventures with friends. I’m just always studying and barely making it!”

The coach listens and says, “It’s completely understandable that you are feeling homesick with all this time spent studying alone. I know when I studied alone and tried to teach myself all of the material my first quarter of college, I was totally exhausted and realized I needed to try new study strategies.” You feel relieved that someone understands you, and even more relieved when they share these active studying techniques with you. The coach suggests you start working with others to avoid isolation and collaborate through practice problems. “You can actively study with others by working together through practice problems and having discussions on the material,” they suggest.

Before you leave, they give you some great resources. A list of CHEM student organizations for group course content discussions and strategies for tackling practice problems. As you walk out you tell yourself, “I think I have a better handle on study strategies I want to try. I’m going to reach out to these groups today and commit to studying with new friends instead of by myself!” You are very happy you decided to schedule an appointment, and head out for boba to celebrate.

#10 Time for finals!

 

 

 

 

9

Decide to go to CLUE tutoring

You decide to head over to CLUE after your coaching session, grabbing your chem books and unanswered problems. The CLUE tutor reviews the problems with you and is able to identify what step you were missing. “I could tell right away, because that is the step I always forgot and most students struggle with,” they share. It’s reaffirming to hear that others struggle with the same material, and it feels good to be working with another student. After you complete a few problems, they have you write down the steps you took to solve it. You are grateful to take that with you for later reference. You feel like you have gotten help with some of the concepts you were struggling most with in class. Between the coach and CLUE, you feel ready now for finals.

#10 Head to finals week

 

 

 

10

It’s finals week!

As the week begins, you find yourself thinking “I’m definitely more prepared now than I was for midterms. I’ve reviewed the concepts from the CLUE tutor and I’ve been using the active studying techniques from the academic success coach. I’m ready for this week!”

When final scores arrive, despite your hard work, you discover you are ending the class with a grade lower than what you were expecting. As you reflect on the experience of this first quarter, you wonder if you should sign up to retake the course. The idea alone has you feeling burned out and unmotivated. You ask yourself, “Do I really belong in STEM? I thought I would be motivated by studying something I could use to help people in a career. What am I doing wrong?”

#11 Reinvigorate your path to STEM

#12 Continue as you have been

#13 Decide to switch majors

 

 

 

11

Reinvigorate your path to STEM

Thinking back to the conversation you had with the academic success coach, you remember them asking, “What’s your motivation?” When the year began, your goal was just to pass your classes. “What is my motivation?” you wonder. You pull up a goal-setting worksheet from the coaching website and spend the rest of the evening filling it out. Identifying specific short-term goals for each week, you put them all together toward one major long-term goal.

Keeping on track over the coming weeks helps you regain the motivation you felt before school started and you start to feel less burned out. With your free time you do self-care activities including more calls to your family. On a recent call you share, “I’ve really been questioning myself and if I belong in STEM.” Your family reminds you of how much of an impact and a difference you can make in your community! You feel inspired again and that is the fuel you need for the next quarter. Keeping your mind on the big picture, you eventually make it through the hardest times. You find yourself enjoying your studies and succeeding. You become a regular at CLUE and also continue meeting with an academic success coach. You feel invigorated and continue on through the school year — excited for class, happy to share time with new friends and look forward to what the future holds.

This is the end of this story, but yours is just getting started …

 

 

 

12

Continue as you have been

This quarter passes, then the next, and you keep grinding in your CHEM classes. You are so burned out you don’t even have the motivation to complete your work or reach out for more help. Thinking back to the conversation you had with the academic success coach, you remember them asking, “What’s your motivation?” When the year began, your goal was just to pass your classes. “What is my motivation?” you wonder. “I really felt like this was an optimal path for helping people and ensuring a great career post-college, but I think there might be another pathway for me to do that,” you tell yourself. You schedule a meeting with your academic adviser, and share your recent self-discovery. “I don’t feel connected to this side of the STEM world anymore. I’ve been thinking about a move toward psychology as a potential field to help people.” Your adviser helps you develop a plan to switch potential majors. You feel invigorated by your new self-discovery and continue on through the school year becoming a regular at CLUE and regularly meeting with an academic success coach. You are excited for class, happy to share time with new friends, and look forward to what the future holds for you.

This is the end of this story, but yours is just getting started …

 

 

 

13

Decide to switch majors

You’ve struggled all year with the question: “Is STEM really for me?” Thinking back to the conversation you had with the academic success coach, you remember them asking, “What’s your motivation?” When the year began, your goal was just to pass your classes. “What is my motivation?” you wonder. “I really felt like this was an optimal path for helping people and ensuring a great career post-college, but I think there might be another pathway for me to do that,” you tell yourself. You keep coming back to psychology as an option where you could redirect yourself and still be helpful to people in your community. You meet with your adviser for support and together you put plans in place to switch potential majors. You feel invigorated by your new self-discovery and continue on through the school year becoming a regular at CLUE and regularly meeting with an academic success coach. You are excited about class, happy to share time with new friends, and look forward to what the future holds for you.

This is the end of this story, but yours is just getting started …

This story came together through collaboration. Thank you to these generous and creative colleagues for your work and dedication to this endeavor: Alli Botelho, Danielle Marie Holland, Gracie Pakosz, Ian Teodoro, Jenelle Birnbaum, Kirsten Atik and Mina Zavary. Photo illustrations by Ian Teodoro.

A quarter century with Riverways

Written by Interview by Danielle Marie Holland
Posted on
Photo of Christine Stickler standing in front of rainbow-colored butterfly wings.
Christine Stickler, retiring director of Riverways Education Partnerships

After 25 years of service to the University of Washington and our local and statewide communities, Christine Stickler will be retiring July 2022. Stickler, founder and director of Riverways Education Partnerships, has transformed the learning and growth of countless students, connecting over 1,000 UW students with thousands of students in rural and tribal communities across Washington state. Riverways Education Partnership is a K-12 outreach program, and part of the Community Engagement and Leadership Education (CELE) Center, where programs are centered around community-engaged learning, democratic engagement, leadership education, student success and place-based initiatives.

In the past two+ decades, Stickler has created pathways connecting 10,000 UW students with tutoring and mentoring opportunities in K-12 schools and organizations to address inequities in education. She has strengthened bridges between the UW and community colleges through the Riverways Guides program connecting Native UW students with Native youth to envision pathways toward higher education through community college. With unwavering commitment and steadfast vision, she has built dynamic partnerships including Neah Bay Elementary School where storytelling and digital literacy are used to support students in imagining their futures.

As Stickler prepares to retire from Riverways Education Partnerships, she shares her thoughts on her accomplishments as director, the transformation of undergraduates through the outreach program, and the enduring impact of relationships and storytelling.

Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

It has changed me in every way you can imagine

How has the experience and work of Riverways Education Partnerships impacted and changed you?

It has changed me in every way you can imagine. I became aware of the amazing state that we live in. I spent the last 25 years traveling to remote, rural and tribal communities getting to know the community members. The reason the program is as strong as it is today, is because relationships were formed. I’ve been the incredibly fortunate recipient of the friendships that come from going back to community. That’s number one. Number two is the chance to have worked with literally thousands of undergraduate students who have been drawn to a program that said, “Do you want to experience life outside of Seattle? Do you want to experience what it means to travel to a tribal community and learn from the people that live there?”

A quick story about Pipeline

Riverways was formerly called the Pipeline Project. We got the name 25 years ago as part of an initial funding grant from Coca-Cola. After 20 years, the name had too much connotation to the school-to-prison pipeline. We worked with First Nation students and with Tami Hohn, a Native language and law professor at UW. Tammy came up with the name Riverways, which we all absolutely loved. It’s beautiful.

Then there was Riverways

I think of all the undergraduates that I’ve been able to meet, have them do the experience, who then came back to be a team leader. Many of those students are now close friends of mine — my life has been changed by the people that I’ve met. I’ve gotten to work with some incredible colleagues at the University of Washington, [including] community partners, UW alumni and colleagues that have enriched my life and shown me things I never would have dreamed of.

And the K-12 students! In 2006 I met Auston Jimmicum, member of the Makah Tribe, in our Neah Bay program when he was in elementary school. Auston came to UW as a freshman, became part of the Neah Bay: Telling our Stories Program and went back to his community. Now he’s in law school at the University of Idaho.

When I think about it, the bittersweet part about retiring is that I feel I’ve had one of the best jobs in the world. I’ve loved it. I’ve been able to show my passion and have a way for that passion to develop and be nurtured. I don’t know how many people can say that about their jobs. I feel blessed.

How has the program evolved over the years?

We’ve connected on a deeper level with American Indian Studies Program and Center for American Indian and Indigenous Studies (CAIIS). Their support has meant the world to us. With funding from CAIIS we started the Riverway Guides program. We’ve been able to hire Native UW students, previously community college students, who mentor kids in tribal communities. They encourage them to consider community college as a pathway to higher ed. That idea came to be because of our relationship with CAIIS and the AISP. We also have had an amazing partnership over the past 16 years with Polly Olson, tribal liaison at the Burke Museum. She introduced us to the Yakama Nation. These partnerships have grown over the years and have enriched the program. Not only do we have really strong partnerships now, but we have built solid funding.

I believe with all my heart that the relationships form the basis of the work.

What do you see as the current state of educational justice and where things are moving?

One of our goals was looking at issues of educational inequity anywhere we found it and trying to be part of the solution or part of the resources going towards dealing with those issues of inequity. In Seattle, it was targeting schools that had the lowest test scores and the least access to resources. Around the state, we learned by our travels to rural and tribal communities. What we are asked to address when we go into those districts is the idea of making sure there’s no barriers in the minds of the kids we’re working with, that they have a pathway that could lead them to higher ed if that’s what they choose to do, and that there are resources to support them. That if they do come to the University of Washington, resources like First Nations and the wǝɫǝbʔaltxʷ – Intellectual House will provide them a home away from their communities.

Can you speak to a highlight you’ve had in collaboration with undergrads?

Staying around for 25 years, one of the beautiful things about it is that I’ve had a number of students who did the program as elementary school students out in rural tribal schools and ended up at UW. That said, this program had such an impact on me, I want to be part of it and go back out. One of our alternative spring break programs, Literacy Arts, is where students go into the community for a week and help kids write stories and publish a book about identity and place. I’ve had undergraduates come up to me and go, I still have my book!

Right now we are in the midst of putting out the magazine for this year, themed “A Poem Is a Possibility.”
We were able to work with Washington state poet laureate, Rena Priest, who is just amazing. She trained the UW students on how to do poetry with youth in a way that they didn’t even know they were writing poems! It was just beautiful!

The incredible richness we have in this state

I believe we’re at a very exciting time. In the last three or four years, I’ve seen a seismic shift towards recognizing the importance of the incredible richness we have in this state. Recognizing the Indigenous and rural communities. We now have more outside funding and University attention. My goal was that my legacy would be that the person that came into this job would not have to struggle for funding and would be able to just focus on the work, so we’re in a better place today than we’ve ever been in 25 years.

The importance of stories

What are you most excited about in this next adventure in your life?

My passion is writing with kids and helping kids to discover the amazing voice they have. So my dream is, I want to see if in six months or so I could possibly write a grant and work with arts organizations to get a mobile publishing center. An RV that would go around to rural and tribal communities and help kids publish their writings.I am also really excited about doing some arts and writing activities with refugee immigrant communities here in Seattle. Art and writing is what I want to do. One of the things I’ve learned so powerfully over the years is that people are desperate to tell their stories, and don’t have the chance or opportunity to do it.

I just feel blessed that I have had a program that has allowed so many people to find that place, to share their voice and to share their story.

Honors Director Vicky Lawson prepares for next adventure

Written by Interview by Danielle Marie Holland
Posted on

After more than three decades of service to the University of Washington, Vicky Lawson will retire at the end of the academic year. Lawson, professor of geography and poverty researcher, has spent the past eight years directing the Honors Program, contributing to the deepening of its interdisciplinary focus and approach to intentional community building, innovative thinking and global citizenship.

Lawson is past president of the Association of American Geographers and former chair of the Department of Geography. Having worked across South and North America on informal economies, women’s work and poverty, her classes focus on the intersections of poverty, inequality and feminist care ethics. In addition to her leadership in the Honors Program, she is co-director of the Relational Poverty Network, a global research network that aims to expand thinking about the causes of poverty in both rich and poor countries. During her tenure at the UW, she has served as adjunct professor in the Department of Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies and as a faculty affiliate of the West Coast Poverty Center.

Photo of Ed Taylor, Vicky Lawson and Tina Ragen.
Vicky Lawson, center, at her retirement party with Ed Taylor, left, and Tina Ragen, right. Photo: Photo by Shannon Sherman

As Lawson prepares to pass the role of Honors Program director to Stephanie Smallwood, she shares her thoughts on her accomplishments as director, the transformation of undergraduates through the interdisciplinary program, and the enduring impact of the Honors Program.

Honors broadened my view

How has the Honors Program most impacted and changed you?

With a 35-year career in the geography department and College of Arts and Sciences, coming over to Honors changed my perspective on undergraduate education and the University as a whole. Honors broadened my view of the University, in terms of who holds the University up and how, and in terms of the breadth of interests and capacities of students from all across the University. Honors spans the entire campus [and includes] students, instructors and classes from every college. It was a new vantage point for me of the brilliance of students regardless of what corner of campus or what background they come from.

I teach a class on houselessness and one particular student from aeronautics engineering made a profound contribution to an art exhibit my students installed with Real Change News through a comparative historical photography project of Seattle. It was a wakeup call for me to realize that it’s not just geographers who know how to read a city.

In addition to appreciating the breadth and curiosity of the students, coming over to UAA was coming into a space that is driven by professional staff. I came to appreciate just how staff hold up the University and how much they contribute. Getting to work closely with incredibly talented staff was a real gift because you see the commitment and the depth of the work they do. In Honors, all the staff are leaders. It’s a super creative space.

A deep commitment to inviting in the students

How has the Honors Program changed in the past eight years?

It was already an incredibly innovative, complex, interdisciplinary space when I got here. I don’t take a lot of credit for the brilliance of this program. I just came in and tried to amplify and support what the staff were already doing. These were things that were already happening, but we have been deeply introspective about difference and intersectional equity in our program. Honors has evolved tremendously over its 60-year history, especially over the past two decades. Juliana Villegas has been a leader on this work, but everybody’s been involved in understanding who our students are and where they come from. We have been committed to bringing in first-generation students and students of color and understanding how we’re doing compared to the University as a whole. We have a lot more work to do, but we do have a deep commitment to inviting in students who saw the label “Honors” and thought, “Well, that’s not a space for me.” Instead [we] invite them to know that, actually, participating in Honors is being part of an education that honors the University. Everybody’s backgrounds, experience and knowledge brings brilliance. It’s been a major part of what we’ve been doing. Juliana has led on it, and everybody has leaned in very seriously on that work.

Interdisciplinary education, experiential learning, and being in community

Photo of Global Challenges event with panelists Anna Lauren Hoffmann, Ece Kamar, Shankar Narayan and moderator Vicky Lawson
Global Challenges, 2019, with panelists (left to right) Anna Lauren Hoffmann, Ece Kamar, Shankar Narayan and moderator Vicky Lawson.

Another area that I’m particularly personally proud of in Honors is this incredibly creative space that has always rested on pillars of interdisciplinary education, experiential learning and being in community. I wanted to invite the whole campus into this space with our students, and one of the ways that we did that was through our Global Challenges series. We built an annual event that puts people from different walks of life in conversation with each other and asks them to talk about an issue that students themselves raised. We pull the freshmen in and say, “What do you care about? What is keeping you up at night?” We’ve done this now since 2015. Each year we’ve filled a ballroom with 500 people and we’ve hosted the event online with hundreds of people. By asking the students what they want us to talk about, we put the students in charge of their education the minute they walk through the door. Honors students learn that, at UW, we listen to them, that we build the program around their interests. At Global Challenges, they get to see what it’s like to have three people who are very accomplished in their fields, in a humble conversation about a really big topic for which there is no simple answer. That’s an example of showing the larger community what Honors is all about, what our students are all about, what our pedagogy is all about.

We are building that broader, richer sense of who we are and why we do what we do and inviting everybody. We are building something that’s for everyone.

What is the impact you’ve witnessed of interdisciplinary research?

Photo of Sarah Elwood and Vicky Lawson
Sarah Elwood, left, and Vicky. Photo: Photo by Shannon Sherman

One of the things that Honors did was create a space where I could literally teach my driving passion. In my research, I had a long-standing relationship with Real Change News along with Sarah Elwood, my collaborator. Each year in Honors I’ve taught a class on poverty and houselessness. A couple of years ago, we did a deep dive with Real Change News as collaborators to bring the portrait project to campus. I gave the students the responsibility to curate the exhibit to run for three weeks and build a launch event in the Allen Library. Twenty-five students collaborated together on every aspect of bringing that exhibit to campus, they collaborated with our Real Change News colleagues who were at the core of the project. Many of the students who were involved have come back to me to talk about where that experience took them.

Students will rise to any challenge

This morning, I sat with a student applying to medical school, who was in another iteration of that same class. She talked about how doing medicine was one thing, but thinking about it through the lens of social justice, access, historical racism and how that shapes who has access to care, was transformative for her. She understood that in a deep way because she’d been part of that class. I create a class space where the students teach each other and they pick up and carry that work and take it to places that are important to them.

This last quarter I had a group of students create a zine, called Hopeful Futures, in collaboration with homeless youth in the U District. It is full of incredible art, essays, cartoons and drawings. The students did the work of assembling this art aimed at elevating the voice of homeless youth, about their ideas of what the future could look like. This was a chance for our students to collaborate with the youth and to elevate their vision, their brilliance and their ideas. I’ve come to realize working with our students that, literally, they will rise to any challenge. They will mount an art exhibit, they’ll create a zine, they will do collaborations that are deep, they will face up to the impossibly difficult questions of climate change and poverty, and houselessness.

It’s been transformative for me working with these students.

How do you see the impact of the Honors Program on the students as they graduate?

What we’re trying to do and what we’ve really committed ourselves to with Honors, is to support the students to complicate their ideas and work, and to be brave about it. So if they think they’re going to do medicine, can we work with them to think about what it means to be a doctor? What does it mean to be a doctor that cares about social justice? How do we invite students into spaces in a way that is actually enabling? That’s what Honors classes do. And the students take the work places we never thought of. I have students that worked for the Pike Place senior center, a student who’s up in Skagit County as an organic farmer, students at Harvard, students in medical school, a student working on climate change activism. They learn that they can be brilliant in any number of different ways.

We have brought together a community

What’s something that comes to the forefront that you are very proud about?

I am proud of how we’ve connected to broader communities — and Carey Christie gets credit here. We have worked hand in glove to bring together a community of alumni. We’ve built an advisory board that leans in and shows up. We have built financial and moral support for this program at a level that did not exist when we came in. We have an endowed scholarship for equity. We built an endowed leadership fund that’s still growing. It’s about people believing in us and people in the community really reaching in and supporting what we do. And we’ve got an incredible group of volunteers now. We just had the most successful Husky Giving Day which is less about the money and more about the fact that over 70 people thought Honors was special enough to make a gift. I feel really proud of how we’ve expanded our community with people who deeply care and want to support our students because of how they think and what they mean to the future.

What are you most excited about with the next adventure?

Photo of Vicky Lawson riding a brown horse
Vicky, doing one of her favorite things.

I’m excited about not being busy! I’ve always been on a mission to be an academic and teach. I’m very curious what life has to offer if I’m not doing those things. I’m curious about what my next chapter is going to be and I don’t think I’m going to really truly know that until I stop. I am quite sure it’s going to continue to have to do with activism around impoverishment and houselessness. There are a lot of things I think about and wonder what my skills might do to make an impact. I do know that I’m going to grow a garden. I’m going to travel and I’m going to raise a horse and train it.

Any last thoughts?

Photo of a black pony with white lower legs and feet in a field.
Vicky Lawson’s first post-retirement project: Training Domino, a one-year-old Missouri Fox Trotter.

I came into Honors and I realized that this is where the work is. Undergraduate education, especially at a public university, is the place that I believe you can have the most impact. Undergraduate students have infinite paths open to them. Honors has redoubled my commitment to undergraduate education as a place of praxis and place of personal and professional transformation that’s really important. The staff in Honors are just quite remarkable and they taught me every day what is possible in undergraduate education for life.

Undergraduate education is the place I believe you can have the most impact.

UW sophomore Jonathan Kwong awarded selective Udall Scholarship

Written by Danielle Marie Holland
Posted on

University of Washington sophomore Jonathan Kwong was recently named a Udall Scholar! Kwong is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in environmental science and resource management with a minor in oceanic and Pacific Islander studies.

Photo of Jonathan Kwong
Jonathan Kwong , UW sophomore, was recently named a Udall Scholar. Photo: Photo by Ian Teodoro

This year, the Udall Foundation awarded 55 scholarships to college sophomores and juniors for leadership, public service and commitment to issues related to American Indian nations or to the environment. More than 380 candidates from across the country applied for this selective scholarship, with award recipients receiving up to $7,000 each. The Udall Scholarship honors the legacies of Morris Udall and Stewart Udall, whose careers held significant impact on American Indian self-governance and stewardship of lands and resources.

“I’m really happy and overjoyed. What the Udall Scholarship means to me is I’m able to continue doing my research, and it’s such an honor. I will be able to continue meeting with professors, continue learning more and doing the work without having to worry about finances,” shared Kwong. They cite the additional benefit of this award granting them time to make friends, connections and develop new mentor relationships.

A dedicated researcher, scholar and storyteller, Kwong is focused on uplifting traditional ecological knowledge within the environmental science fields and cites their upbringing and heritage from Guam as essential to their understanding of land, nature, resources and history. Kwong’s interdisciplinary studies have given them the opportunity and resources to actively create a pathway rooted in community, as they become a scientist who is both equitable and effective.

“My Indigenous perspective is they’re not separate – academia, research, storytelling, education. They’re all connected and it’s only really the socially constructed boundaries that separate them into different subjects and disciplines,” says Kwong.

With an intersectional-justice-focused lens, Kwong is actively working to make environmental science accessible and equitable. Teaching elementary through high school students, they have created anti-racist science curricula, developed podcasts and designed board games to increase engagement, awareness and overall impact.

Kwong is no stranger to making contributions and remains personally dedicated to community-building toward the greater collective. Kwong leads the UW student organization Queer People of Color Alliance and actively participates in community work with organizations including Equity Institute, King County Airport Community Coalition and Root of Our Youth. They see a fundamental connection between all their diverse avenues of interest and research.

“I think research and academia has helped me identify terms. Research has helped me be able to look for biases, look for the details. Storytelling has been able to help me communicate the idea. Education has helped me work with students to bring change,” shared Kwong. They remain steadfast in their dedication to their own education, and to uplifting and sharing awareness within the community.

Kwong has additionally been selected for the 2022 NOAA Ernest F. Hollings Undergraduate Scholarship and has an upcoming internship at Smithsonian Environmental Research Center’s Biogeochemistry Lab. Previous awards and honors for Kwong include a 2021 Doris Duke Conservation Scholar for University of California Santa Cruz and the 2021 University of Washington Alumni Association Homecoming Scholar.

About the Udall Scholarship

The Udall Undergraduate Scholarship is open to college sophomores and juniors for leadership, public service and commitment to issues related to Native American nations or to the environment. Udall Scholars come from all majors and fields of study. Recent Udall Scholars have majored in environmental sciences and policy studies, agriculture, political science, natural resource management and American Indian studies, to name just a few areas.

About the Office of Merit Scholarships, Fellowships and Awards

The Udall Undergraduate Scholarship process is supported by the Office of Merit Scholarships, Fellowships and Awards (OMSFA), a UAA program. OMSFA works with faculty, staff and students to identify and support promising students in developing the skills and personal insights necessary to become strong candidates for this and other prestigious awards.

More about Jonathan, a Q&A

Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

I study environmental science and resource management and I minor in Oceanic and Pacific Islander study. That’s been a really cool and unique combination. My main focus I want to get out of environmental science is traditional ecological knowledge, especially in dismantling the extractive system of Western science. It’s been interesting trying to balance those two out.
Asking, how do I learn science and learn the technologies and the methods while also being critical of it.

There’s this thing called parachute science, when research scientists swoop into a community. They collect the data, they do their thing, they swoop out without giving back to the community, without really contributing. That usually happens a lot in coral reef research, and, as someone who was raised in Guam, my heritage is rooted in, “how do I not be extractive”? Especially [considering] the stories that I’ve been told and the history I’ve learned from the land, [I want to ask]: How do I be a scientist in a way that is both equitable and effective?

During my freshman year, I had just started exploring the word intersectionality and what that meant to me. It was really cool to go into that mindset. I was reading about water systems, and then seeing it in class and thinking, “What else do I want to learn more about?” I gradually found myself free floating all throughout science. I did classes in museum studies, disability justice and law, and gender law. I wanted to see how there could be maximum inclusion, maximum equity. That goes into processes, and there’s so many identities out there beyond race, so everyone can bring something to the table, but how are we getting people to speak up and how are we getting people to uplift their voices?

I’ve hosted a storytelling event called “Voices in American ethnic studies.” Counter-narratives highlight voices that are ignored, so it’s important to have discussions with the affected people present. There’s so much, “people of color are suffering.” Especially regarding the Pacific Islands, [people say,] “they’re sinking, they’re drowning. In the next 20 years, they’ll be gone.” People still live there. And people still exist. So what are those stories? [I want to uplift] the counter stories, counter narratives that can be told about these cultures, about how these [people] are not just statistics that go away in 20 years, but how [they] will continue to fight and solve a problem that was not their own making.

So anti-racism has been a really big thing that I’ve been trying to get into and especially working with the community. Ever since I created my own [anti-racist science] curricula, I was piloting it in classrooms. I was invited to teach it. And I gradually got to know educators of color. Now we have a racial healing circle with educators of color across Washington state where we’ve talked about issues with access and education. We ask what’s wrong with accessibility and equity and how are people being mistreated? How are people being isolated and attacked? And how are they also not being acknowledged when these things happen?

I’m a community organizer for King County International Airport Community Coalition. This work is focused on stopping the expansion of King County International Airport, especially since they originally were trying to expand into places like Beacon Hill and Georgetown, low income and communities of color. This is an obvious sign of gentrification. We look at how we are bringing in neighbors. I’ve also learned so much about air pollution and the history here.

I think just living within Seattle, Washington, it’s great to be able to do the science, go to the parks, go to the rivers and test. But it’s even better to work with the communities. Work with the King County International Airport Community Coalition and work with educators to not only solve issues locally, but to bring awareness through education.

I’m part of the Interdisciplinary Honors Program. So half of my classes are different disciplines smashed together and they create something really beautiful. I took a disability, gender and law class through Honors and brought that disability perspective, especially highlighting people of color with a disability, into discussions about what’s excluded when we make trails, when we build green infrastructure. When we say “oh, we should just get rid of all the roads and create a bypass” but people with a wheelchair need cars. You know, if we get rid of all elevators because they’re electric and we make stairs because they’re more eco friendly? Who’s going to be claiming that, because it’s definitely not the wheelchair user.

Learning these nuances is incredibly helpful in doing the decolonizing work within myself. Another set of classes that I took were solving issues in museum spaces and decolonizing ethnomusicology archives. What does the colonial history of archives look like? How have they helped and harmed? Discussion repatriation and land back in the context of institutions helped me learn more about how prevalent colonialism is within all fields, including my own. Studying environmental science comes with going to natural reserves, like Friday Harbor Laboratories or Pack Forest or UC Natural Reserve System. But these research places are still stolen. I want to learn more about how to re-indigenize or truly decolonize spaces as I continue my work.

We have to do the equity work within ourselves before we do the work outside. If we never internalize what equity means to us, then our actions fall flat. Community activism has been helpful in putting action to my words. I might identify a lot of issues, but now I’m finally able to act upon them. I’m able to have a community and come together with other people and look into it. Look at educational disparities, look at lack of access to technology, airport expansion — and look at why these are wrong. We can work with councilmembers, talk with legislators and ask who is being left out of the conversation. We can work to not speak for other people but to uplift people’s voices.