Welcome Edition 2020 B: Impact

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Abigail Dahl @abbydahll

2 // Impact The Daily

September 2020

‘Racism is not a Black people issue’ BSU demands justice and support for UW’s Black communities

By Deborah Kwon The Daily As we engage with the Black Lives Matter movement at a citywide and national level, we also need to start thinking about how to engage on campus, especially as fall quarter approaches and some of us choose to live on or near campus. Namely, it is important that we acknowledge and engage with the work that the UW’s Black Student Union (BSU) is doing.

This summer, BSU is hard at work pushing its seven demands to make the UW more equitable and supportive for BIPOC communities. BSU members have spent their time speaking with university administration, garnering support from allies, and educating as many people as they can.

In its demands, BSU calls for the UW to break ties with the Seattle Police Department (SPD), disarm and divest from the UW Police Department (UWPD), allocate funds to Black RSOs and the American ethnic studies department, hire more Black faculty, increase the diversity credit requirement and make African studies a major, remove statues of racist figures like George Washington, and expand mental health resources for UW students.

The demand to remove the

George Washington statue has garnered much attention as of late, as this is one of the more noticeable statues on campus and has a strong history attached to it.

“We’re told to revere and hold dear some of the people we put in statues, and we put on these pedestals, especially one as large as the George Washington statue,” BSU vice president of campus affairs Navon Morgan said. “But for Black students … we see that as evidence and proof of white supremacy, historical degradation, and enslavement. That’s how I see it, and that’s how I will always see it until it’s brought down.”

The George Washington statue is a reminder of white supremacist history and is a detriment to more than just the UW’s Black community, as this is just one of many statues and monuments on a campus residing on stolen Duwamish land. “[George Washington] stole land and killed thousands of people who were here already … so to celebrate him is kind of laughable and a ridiculous excuse to me, personally,” BSU vice president of community affairs Kiana Reynolds said.

BSU is also pushing for the funding of Black RSOs and mental health resources for UW

students.

“If somebody isn’t donating money to BSU, we won’t be able to provide food, or small things for our members, or we have to fundraise those funds,” BSU vice president of communications Ruth Mulugeta said. “Oftentimes, it feels like

we’re working for money. We’re not getting enough to do all the things that we as an RSO want to do.”

Mental health resources on campus are critical for all, but especially for Black students, making access to mental health care an issue of racial justice.

“They say [mental health resources are] there for us, but I shouldn’t have to wait possibly two, three weeks for an appointment,” Mulugeta said.

BSU is also working to increase the three-credit diversity requirement, which has been subject to scrutiny

Nicole Pasia The Daily Protesters march toward Greek Row on June 28, 2020. Organizers shared personal stories about experiencing discrimination from UW fraternities and sororities.

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September 2020 especially since most classes at the UW are five credits. The UW prides itself on diversity, yet the required diversity credit hours are strangely low.

“The natural world credit [requirement] is 20 credits, VLPA is 20 credits, I&S is 20 credits,” Reynolds said. “You could easily take away five credits from each of those and give it to diversity if it’s a credit issue, evening it out. Diversity is applicable to every major because you’re gonna deal with diversity in every field of work that you go into.”

And the diversity credit isn’t just about learning more Black history — it’s about the intersections in the experiences of people on the margins, from the LGBTQIA+ community to Indigenous history. That’s what BSU is working for in regard to the diversity requirement: a show of honest care and value for diversity from the UW administration.

In general, as summer quarter comes to an end and we begin a new, socially distanced school year, BSU asks that as students continue the fight for racial justice on campus. What they are looking for is allyship.

“It’s not sustainable for just the [BSU] board to keep up this activism by ourselves, because it’s tiring, and the work of activism has always been put on Black people to fight for Black people,” Reynolds said. “But racism is not a Black people issue, because it’s not like Black people are being racist to Black people, and it’s not like we can change a racist institution by ourselves, because we didn’t create it.”

The Daily Impact // 3 Today, tomorrow, and a decade from now, BSU is fighting for sustained, longterm investments in the UW’s Black community, rather than just short-term changes like the criticized Black Opportunity Fund.

“If there’s a mental health resource problem for Black students, there’s a problem for all students. If there’s a problem of fear of policing, that is very unique to us, but it also reflects itself in how many Black faculty are coming in,” Morgan said.

“Faculty, students, all these

things, they’re intertwined. They need to start investing into our community as much as possible.

Not just short-term things and donors, but the university itself … we need long-term investments from the university.”

Reach writer Deborah Kwon at specials@dailyuw.com.

Twitter: @debskwo

Nicole Pasia The Daily Protestors gather and listen to speakers outside the UW Police Department on June 28, 2020. UW Black Lives Matter, who organized the march, listed several demands to the UW, inluding divesting from the Seattle Police Department completely and disarming the UW Police Department.

Nicole Pasia The Daily

A protestor displays a sign reading, “No more racist cops,” as the crowd marches toward the George Washington statue in Red Square on June 28, 2020. Organizers demand that UW remove the statue of Washington, who owned over 300 enslaved people.

4 // Impact The Daily

September 2020

It takes a lifetime

Recognizing the original stewards of Union Bay

By Sophie Aanerud The Daily It begins with a statement: The University of Washington acknowledges the Coast Salish peoples of this land, the land which touches the shared waters and all tribes and bands within the Suquamish, Tulalip, and Muckleshoot nations. . . . And thus commences each student’s career at the UW. This utterance of acknowledgment (or another version of similar sentiment) inaugurates not just commencement. Many campus events, ranging from universitywide graduations to small-scale guest lectures, open with a nod toward the Indigenous roots of the land the campus sits on.

According to the Duwamish Tribe website, “Land acknowledgment is a traditional custom dating back centuries for many Native communities and nations. For nonIndigenous communities, land acknowledgment is a powerful way of showing respect and honoring the Indigenous Peoples of the land on which we work and live.”

“There’s really no entering the land without acknowledging it or being invited, and that’s what is called protocol,” American Indian Studies lecturer Cynthia Updegrave said. “It’s the closest word we have, and for us, it’s almost a diplomatic term.”

occupies since time immemorial.

The term “time immemorial,” as Updegrave defines it, is generally acknowledged by Indigenous people as the best description of how long Indigenous populations have lived in a certain region.

“If we break that word down it means ‘time out of memory,’” Updegrave said. “Time immemorial can go back very, very far. If we’re talking about the landslides on Mount Rainier, they are encoded in story; they are remembered.”

While “time immemorial” is often defined by events, such as Mount Rainier’s aforementioned Osceola Mudflow, which occurred about 5,000 years ago, archeological evidence traces the existence of humans in the region back even further.

“Archeologists have found spear points in mammoths which have since gone extinct,” environmental studies lecturer Tim Billo said. “They were what’s known as a pleistocene mammal ... which went extinct either right before or just after the last ice age, which reached its maximum year around 15 thousand years ago.”

The intentional stewardship of the land by the Coast Salish was upset when Euro-American settlers arrived and proposed a treaty in 1855 to purchase “all the land lying in the counties of Snohomish, Skagit, Whatcom,

“

Building the Montlake cut really changed the ecology of this area in the sense that the lakeshore was lowered and salmon runs disappeared.

Tim Billo off white invasions, knew it was useless to refuse to deal with the U.S. government,” Sherry Guydelkon wrote in “Point Elliott Treaty’s 150th Birthday: A Cause For Celebration.”

“White settlers were already moving onto their land, and the most they could hope for was payment for land taken and the opportunity to be left alone on the land that was left.”

In return for signing away the land to the U.S. government, tribes were promised status as sovereign nations, reservations, hunting and fishing rights, and a small sum of money.

Some signatory tribes, such as the Duwamish (one of the stewards of Union Bay), have yet to receive federal recognition and thus “aren’t eligible to receive such U.S. government services as grants for law enforcement, education programs, and healthcare

and fishing in traditional locations, as promised by the treaty, also became difficult as the physical landscape of the region was transformed by settlers in the name of “progress.”

It was the 1917 construction of the Montlake cut, a canal which connects Lake Union to Lake Washington, that Billo argued was the most impactful on the environment of the Puget Sound region.

“Building the Montlake cut really changed the ecology of this area in the sense that the [Lake Washington] lakeshore was lowered, salmon runs disappeared … all the salmon in the lake now are introduced from hatcheries and actually there aren’t that many salmon here anymore,” Billo said.

“Something like 70 or 80% of the wetlands were lost and these native villages were basically left high and dry.”

assistance,” according to a 2019 article published by City Lab. The designation and strict differentiation of tribes based on location brought about by the treaty caused unforeseen challenges relating to intertribal relations along the Puget Sound.

“It’s complicated because the government created these land boundaries that restricted us from maintaining our own personal tribal relationships through trade, through marriage, through commerce,” Polly Olsen, Tribal Liaison for the Burke Museum and a member of the Yakama Nation, said.

The maintenance of hunting

Despite the treaty and ensuing destruction of the environment, Olsen feels it is crucial to recognize that Indigenous people continue to play a role on the land.

“We use this land today to get our own education as well as you all getting your education,” Olsen said. “We steward the land for learning about the environment and conversations around resilience, leadership, and access to our cultural practices and ways of living.”

The UW has only recently begun making a conscientious effort to recognize the landscape’s Indigenous past and

Milo Nguyen @silverkoolaid

The land now deemed the UW Seattle campus has only been under the jurisdiction of the university since 1893, when the 350 acres of largely forested land was purchased and designated the new site of the then-30-year-old University of Washington. This land, a glacial-carved hill overlooking an extensive plot of wetlands adjacent to Lake Washington (which is today known as Union Bay), had only been under the jurisdiction of white American settlers for 38 years prior to the purchase.

Humans have stewarded the land that the city of Seattle now

Island, San Juan, most of King and a part of Kitsap — the very choicest and most valuable portion of the State of Washington,” according to a 2005 article in the Tulalip News.

While signage of the treaty was presented by the settlers as a choice, most of the 4,992 native signatories — including Chief Si’ahl, Chief of the Duwamish and Suquamish tribes and the city of Seattle’s namesake — were aware that they held no negotiating power.

“Puget Sound Indian tribes, weakened by new diseases and aware of the fates of tribes in the east who had tried to fight

the continued presence of its native peoples.

“Relationship is, it’s a lifetime,” Olsen said. “It’s something that you have to participate in during your whole lifetime to manage, maintain, and steward, and to build that respect. As an elder once said to me, ‘Colonization started over 500 years ago; decolonization is only 50 years old.’ So when you look at the timeframe of this work, we’re still infants in unpacking and re-establishing respectful and healing relationships with tribal communities.”

One project dedicated to better recognizing the continued tribal history of the region is the Burke Museum’s “Waterlines” project, which the university has been supporting.

The project is based around a map that superimposes Seattle as it is today over the land prior to Euro-American settlement.

Included are the original waterways, many of which no longer exist on account of construction projects such as the establishment of the Montlake Cut. “The map is a template also of understanding the world at the time of the treaty,” Updegrave added. “It’s a snapshot, and you can see what the treaties were signed for and what was sacrificed.”

Also included on the map are culturally significant sites and their explanations. Viewers of the map, for example, can learn about the village which sat where the UW campus is now, which was referred to as “Little Canoe Channel.”

The Waterlines project is ultimately part of a larger effort to rewrite the colonial narrative of Seattle.

“We would like the community, the students, and public to recognize and to accept that there were people on this land before the university was established,” Olsen said. “In Seattle, the people lived and stewarded, and we had our own commerce throughout this area as the original people of this land.”

The process of building and improving relationships between the various people and institutions which now reside on the land we all call home is, as Olsen explained, one which will take many lifetimes. The land continues to change, as do the people upon it, but respect and recognition for its original stewards will always be crucial.

It begins with a statement: The University of Washington acknowledges the Coast Salish peoples of this land, the land which touches the shared waters and all tribes and bands within the Suquamish, Tulalip, and Muckleshoot nations.

Reach writer Sophie Aanerud at specials@dailyuw.com.

Twitter: @thesraanerud

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6 // Impact The Daily

September 2020

UW’s Resilience Lab envisions campuswide well-being with aggregate strategy

Irika Sinha @irkasinha

By Eddie Milton The Daily

“

We really need a cultural change around health and well-being and what we recognized is that in order to do that, we need to engage the whole community.

Megan Kennedy

The UW Resilience Lab is a wellness resource for UW students, faculty, and staff that strives to create a culture of resilience, not just resilient individuals.

The organization was founded on the principle that faculty and staff are fundamental to a student’s resilience and mental health, according to director Megan Kennedy.

“We really need a cultural change around health and well-being,” she said. “And what we recognized is that in order to do that, we need to engage the whole community, and that includes staff and faculty.”

In partnering with the Center for Child & Family Well-Being, the Resilience Lab offers a program called Be REAL, which teaches students wellness skills through weekly group discussions and activities. Be REAL is designed around mindfulness, stress reduction, and researchedbased therapy interventions.

Be REAL is accessible to students in many forms: It is a general studies class in the UW curriculum, it has been implemented by student groups and clubs across campus, and the lab now offers drop-in Zoom Be REAL sessions due to COVID-19.

The Be REAL sessions can help give participants tools to practice mindfulness, self-compassion, and empathy while stuck in quarantine.

One session led by Marie Angeles, director of student affairs at the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance, helped participants learn selfcompassion. Through a guided practice, Angeles had people close their eyes, think of something they struggled with, and then think of a mantra or anchoring words to say while breathing.

“In mindfulness practices, what we’re asking people to do is to pause, reflect, and evaluate and then proceed,” she said. “Use our emotions as information, as data, to say what we need or don’t need right now.”

Angeles made the session a welcoming and relaxed space. She did not push for people to share, and she explained how the process may be different for everyone but is still beneficial regardless.

The Resilience Lab is a campus partner of UW’s well-being program, and its members know the importance of including student voices. Students from several academic backgrounds work, intern, and volunteer at the lab.

“I’m constantly wanting to meet with students who are excited about this topic, and to figure out ways to engage students in a meaningful way,” Kennedy said.

The lab has been creating new programs and strategies that will be implemented in the coming months. One initiative, called Well-Being for Life & Learning, is designed for faculty to promote student well-being within their classrooms “UW is comprised of thousands of microenvironments, or classrooms,” Kennedy said. “If we think about the faculty as being kind of integral to supporting student mental health and well-being, then our role as a resilience lab is coaching and supporting faculty in creating learning environments.”

The initiative already has support from faculty on all three campuses across 17 different academic departments. And already, the 40 faculty members involved have reached over four thousand students, according to Kennedy.

With new trainings, programs, and a larger campus presence coming in the fall, the lab plans to bring mindfulness to as many faculty, students, and staff as possible.

“At the end of the day, that’s what’s most important,” Angeles said. “How do you take care of yourself?”

Reach writer Eddie Milton at specials@dailyuw.com.

Twitter: @miggitymilltown

September 2020

The Daily Impact // 7

Glasses developed by UW researchers show signs of slowing nearsightedness

By Cynthia Chang Contributing writer Going from 1080p to 144p is a common occurrence for the 40% of Americans who suffer from myopia, more commonly known as nearsightedness. In the battle to combat myopia in children, UW researchers have developed glasses that claim to slow the progression of nearsightedness.

Myopia, a seemingly minor problem that develops in children, can prove to be detrimental to people who have severe cases by the time they reach 60.

“I’ve always been very interested in nearsightedness because I myself am extremely nearsighted,” UW ophthalmology professor and cofounder of SightGlass Vision, Dr. Jay Neitz, said. “And I first had to wear glasses when I was in the third grade, so I’ve always been kind of curious about that.”

The Control of Myopia Using Peripheral Diffusion Lenses: Efficacy and Safety Study (CYPRESS) was a three-year study sponsored by SightGlass Vision that started in 2018. The study involved 265 children who had prescriptions between -0.75 to -4.50 diopters, ranging from 6 to 10 years old, in 14 trial sites across the United States and Canada.

Children who participated in the trial wore one of three lenses: two test lenses and one control lens. The test lenses worked by reducing contrast as determined by the brightness of an object in the visual field.

For example, black text does not trigger a strong retinal response, but a white background does.

The lenses changed how images or words were perceived by the retina and ultimately led to a decrease in the progression of myopia.

“When there’s contrast on the retina all the time, [the contrast] must be somehow telling the eye that it must grow longer,” Neitz said.

CYPRESS was a double-blind study; neither the participants nor the doctors knew which type of glasses the children wore.

During check-ups, doctors would measure the children’s axial length (the length of the eye) as well as the spherical equivalent refraction.

“Every little kid, when they’re small, they’re farsighted, not nearsighted,” Neitz said. “It’s because their eyes are actually too short for the optics, so images come to focus on the back of the eye, and then the eye grows longer and longer, and it’s supposed to stop when it gets to the right length. And for people with myopia, the eye keeps

growing when it’s not supposed to. That extra growth in the eye puts a lot of stress on the retina.”

As reported in the study’s 12-month interim analysis, both of the test lenses were successful, slowing axial length growth of up to 50% and reducing myopia by up to 74%. This is an exceptional result, especially when compared to other ways to reduce myopia, including orthokeratology (the use of contact lenses to reshape the cornea), which slows the progression of myopia by 36– 56%, and atropine drops, which

slow the progression by 77% over the period of 24 months.

The glasses are predicted to go on sale in Europe and Canada by 2021. The United States, however, will have to wait until the CYPRESS study ends and gains approval from the Food and Drug Administration, which may take a couple more years.

“My whole goal in life is to make discoveries about how our eyes work,” Neitz said. “It’s always the hope that, ultimately, by [better] understanding the biology of vision, it might lead to

something that will help people.

So that’s kind of the dream, that ultimately, [with] all the science that we do, we would be able to take that new information we get and do something practical with it.”

Reach contributing writer Cynthia Chang at specials@dailyuw.com.

Twitter: @karmanderx

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8 // Impact The Daily

September 2020

The long history of a

By Devon McBride The Daily Standing up and speaking out are central pillars to activism, and throughout crucial moments in America’s history, students and young people have been at the front of each march. The activist heart and history of the UW could rival that of any other college. Sweeping city, state, and even national change has had roots in the UW campus throughout the 20th century.

It would be impossible to retell the stories of every instance and period of activism at the UW in a single article. But this article aims to tell the story of some of the university’s highest-profile demonstrations and leaders of movements, while recognizing that there are important stories and perspectives missing.

Henry Suzzallo, militarism, and Seattle labor strikes circa 1919 Former UW President Henry Suzzallo, whose name the UW’s most famous library carries, began his tenure in 1915 after a career in teaching at Stanford and Columbia. Four years later, union workers citywide walked off the job, and the new-in-town university president found himself at the center of negotiations.

In his capacity as chairman of the Council of Defense, the group tasked with organizing the state’s war effort, Suzzallo worked day and night to find a solution to the strike, according to an essay from the Seattle General Strike Project.

Suzzallo’s views on labor became harsher as he was forced to deal with the strikes and radical groups on campus. At home on campus, thousands of students routinely protested the military drilling that began the same year as Suzzallo’s presidency, with the support of labor groups already at odds with Suzzallo. However, during Suzzallo’s tenure and through World War I, he was successful in keeping most students on his side.

“The University of Washington underwent a great change in attitudes about labor in a few short years under Suzzallo. The small contingent of student radicals that had been active on campus had for the most part left,” the essay reads. “The same student body that in 1915 supported an anti-militarism club lined up at the door of the Seattle Police Department in 1919 to guard the city from radicals.”

Gordon Hirabayashi and the internment of Japanese Americans circa 1943 When President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, American citizens and residents of Japanese descent were forced out of their homes and interned in camps, primarily in West Coast states. If you grew up in Washington state, you may have learned that the land of the Puyallup Fairgrounds was once used for this purpose.

This action was deemed constitutional in the 1944 Supreme Court decision Korematsu v. United States.

This infamous case bears the name of Fred Korematsu, but another plaintiff in the case was Gordon Hirabayashi, who was a student at the UW at the time the executive order was issued. Hirabayashi is the named plaintiff in the Supreme Court case Hirabayashi v. United States, in which he sued the federal government on the grounds that curfews placed on Japanese Americans were unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court ruled against him.

Hirabayashi went on to have success for his cause as an individual, as opposed to leading protests and marches, perhaps more than any other single UW student. After the war, Hirabayashi returned to school and earned his bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate in sociology.

Hirabayashi was also a leader in the effort to right the wrong of internment, according to UW professor of political science Michael McCann, and was instrumental in the 1988 reparations legislation and apology issued by President Ronald Reagan. McCann is also the Gordon Hirabayashi Professor for the Advancement of Citizenship at the UW.

The firing and trials of communist professors circa 1949 In January 1949, as McCarthyism spread and scared the nation, the UW fired three tenured professors identified to have had an affiliation with communist groups. The three professors were put on trial that summer in front of the legislative committee in charge of investigating such allegations and were later dismissed from the university by the board of

regents. This set a national precedent leading to similar dismissals across the country.

These firings, as well as the university’s refusal to host speakers or conferences with alleged communist ties (it canceled a lecture series by the so-called “father of the atomic bomb,” physicist Robert Oppenheimer), led to protests by students and faculty.

The anti-McCarthy and anti-nuclear protests of the 1950s revitalized the student left before it fully awakened and transformed campus culture in the ‘60s and beyond.

The founding of the Black Student Union circa 1968 On Jan. 6, 1968, the Black Student Union of the UW was formed, having been renamed from the AfroAmerican Society founded in 1966. One founding member, Emile Pitre, then a graduate student studying chemistry, was and still is a campus leader on racial issues.

Pitre, the son of southern sharecroppers, had only attended segregated schools in all his years of schooling, from first grade through undergraduate.

He said this and Seattle’s generally more accepting climate were among the factors that led him to the UW. The BSU of 1968 was determined to make the change they saw necessary for the success of the university’s minority population. They delivered thenPresident Charles Odegaard a letter outlining five demands that would increase university access and support to Black students. But when the group felt Odegaard was “stalling,” Pitre said, they voted to have a sit-in –– which Pitre said turned into a barricaded “occupation” –– of the administration building.

Within about four hours, Pitre explained, their demands had been met. He identified two factors that helped the BSU find success that day — rather than finding themselves beaten or arrested by the 70 helmeted police that waited outside the building.

First, the BSU occupied the building while Odegaard was meeting with faculty to discuss their demands.

Second, as Pitre has learned in the time since then, Charles Odegaard may have always been more responsive to the demands than they realized and was already working on the issues.

“He didn’t share that with us at the time,” Pitre said.

The occupation of the administration building has become a famous episode in the UW’s history. It led the university to create one of the first Offices of

September 2020

The Daily Impact // 9

activism on campus Minority Affairs in the country (“and Diversity” was later added to the name of the OMA&D). Pitre has spent much of his career with the OMA&D and has had a front-row seat to the UW’s evolution on racial issues.

“From my vantage point, I think we’ve achieved quite a bit but we still have a ways to go,” Pitre said.

Anti–Vietnam War demonstrations circa 1970 At no point in American history has the activist spirit of students been greater and voiced louder than in anti–Vietnam War demonstrations. Students at the UW and across the country protested, marched, and went on strike in opposition to the draft, the expansion of the war into Cambodia, and the subsequent massacre of four students at Kent State University in Ohio who were shot by National Guard troops while protesting the invasion.

Twice, in May 1970, protests that began on the UW campus took to I-5 by foot, shutting down north- and southbound traffic. The first such protest, May 5, began with a rally on the HUB Lawn, where students voted on a list of demands for President Odegaard.

The demands included a pledge to never call National Guard troops to the UW campus and to terminate all ROTC programs, among other demands, which Odegaard did not adhere to.

After hearing their demands would not be met, several thousand students marched west from campus to I-5. The following day, students again put their action to a vote, voting for another peaceful march over militant action. They marched to Capitol Hill from the Montlake Bridge, where the crowd grew with other students before continuing downtown and eventually onto the freeway again.

These actions were supported by the then-ASUW president, Rick Silverman, and The Daily in the forms of editorials urging students not to attend class and entire issues dedicated to coverage of protests.

Silme Domingo and Filipino student activists circa 1974 Among the groups at the UW with the longest history of activism is the university’s FilipinoAmerican population. Many from the first generation

of Filipino-Americans that came to the United States after 1910 went on to enroll at the UW and used the connections they made on campus to participate in, found, and lead unions in the region, according to professor Michael McCann.

The next generation continued this work, McCann said. One UW student, Silme Domingo, was a successful student leader on campus and would go on to lead reform efforts of the cannery workers’ union.

Domingo and the union he founded fought the brutal working conditions and racist management of the industry.

Domingo and his union reform partner, Gene Viernes, were assassinated in 1981 as a part of a plot that was later revealed to have connections to the Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos. The UW has memorialized this episode of its history by creating the Silme Domingo and Gene Viernes scholarship, administered through the UW’s Center for Labor Studies.

Graduate student organizing and strikes circa 2001 and 2018 Students on campus in spring 2018 might remember barrelling toward –– but eventually avoiding –– a strike among the UW Academic Student Employees (ASEs) and a sense of anxiety and uncertainty about its effect on finals and grades.

Students who attended the UW in the spring of 2001 may remember the same.

In 2001, the union that represented teaching assistants and other employees now known as ASEs did go on strike on the final day of the quarter.

The goal of the strike then was to secure exclusive bargaining rights of ASEs for the union. The strike lasted until the start of summer quarter, but even after it ended, ASEs did not make up the work they missed during their strike.

The ASE strike-that-never-was of 2018 came to be as contract negotiations dragged on and ASEs continued to bargain for wage increases, fee waivers, and expansions for health insurance and child care subsidies. The group did not get all, or even many, of their demands from the university, but did receive a wage increase that averted the strike before the end of the quarter.

Of the campus protests that had materialized in change and affected students most directly, the ASE rallies and potential strikes of 2018 overshadow other protests at the UW in prior years. Other

Captions, from left to right: A group of students, faculty, and staff from the UW, almost 7,000 in total, rallied in response to the Kent State shootings of May 4, 1970. The protest began on campus then spontaneously marched on the I-5 freeway. University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, UW36752.

ASUW president Rick Silverman addresses a crowd of thousands of students on strike in May 1970 following the U.S. invasion of Cambodia. University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, UW1840.

More than 3,000 people protested the Vietnam War at this Moratorium March in Seattle. Though the march was largely peaceful, some member began smashing windows and harassing police. The Daily at the time described the protest as simultaneously a party, a wake, and a demonstration. University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, UW36766.

Photos courtesy of Joesph Karpen contemporary protests, though, have significant historical parallels and may represent a revived activist spirit among young people.

“There are some similarities to the massive protests that students very recently have been a part of,” history professor James Gregory said. He named the Women’s March, the many immigrant rights protests in response to actions by the Trump administration, and Black Lives Matter as examples; but these are just some of the many ways UW students continue to be involved and lead the conversation in their community and across the country.

Reach writer Devon McBride at specials@dailyuw.com.

Twitter: @DevonM98

10 // Impact The Daily

September 2020

UW wraps up 15-year greenhouse gas reduction plan

Grace Sturlaugson @G.raceel

By Emma Scher The Daily The UW is expected to hit its 2020 goal of reducing carbon emissions to 15% below 2005 levels, according to officials at the UW Sustainability office.

The university’s climate action plan was published in 2009, giving the UW approximately 11 years to meet these metrics. Although the final report won’t be released until the end of the year, data from 2018 shows emissions levels about 2% shy of their 2020 goals.

This means that over the past two years, the university needed to shed another 3,517 metric tons of annual greenhouse gas emissions to stay on track. UW Sustainability director Claudia FrereAnderson said that the office anticipates meeting these metrics without adding costs but that if it falls short, the UW will invest in carbon offsets to make up the difference.

“For a big university like us, even that will be showing some leadership because we’re holding ourselves true to meeting the reduction goals,” Frere-Anderson said.

Carbon offsets are payments invested in offsetting greenhouse gas emissions through global efforts or projects.

The majority of the UW’s carbon emissions come from burning natural gas in the campus power plant, which supplies steam for heating buildings, heating tap water, and sterilizing medical and lab equipment.

According to Marilyn Ostergren, renewable energy liaison at UW Sustainability, coordinating efforts to replace this power plant with a more sustainable power system has been a primary goal of sustainability efforts.

However, the emissions goals must balance with budget concerns.

“They put together several financial scenarios for how we could pay for this and did more engineering analysis,” she said. “So we have a vision of how it could happen, but the pricing is pretty steep.”

Taking all the proposed actions to ensure central plant efficiency would cost over $777 million but would reduce emissions by 92,100 metric tons per year and save over $4 million per year, according to the UW Climate Action Inventory (CAI).

While this plant accounts for about 54% of emissions, another 45% of emissions are from commuting, while the last 2% are associated with electricity generation.

The CAI also outlines several proposed actions to reduce transportation emissions, such as providing a universal U-PASS to employees, restructuring parking prices and upping parking enforcement to deincentivize students to drive to campus, and providing more accommodations for staff to work remotely and reduce commuting.

Ostergren also noted that the UW expects to see a significant drop in transportation-related emissions projections, with most students and faculty moving online and working remotely due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Although the UW anticipates hitting its 2020 emissions goals, Ostergren noted that “the efforts won’t be done until we’re at zero.”

Reach reporter Emma Scher at specials@dailyuw.com.

Twitter: @emma_scherr

2020 Goals: Reduce emissions to 15% below 2005 levels

UW needed to drop 3,517 metric tons of annual

greenhouse gas emissions to stay on track.

2018 levels were 2% away from the goal

Taking all proposed actions for central plant efficiency would...

Costs: $777 million Save: $4 million a year Reduce emissions by 92,100 metric tons per year

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12 // Impact The Daily

September 2020

Experts at UW push forward with research in the fight against COVID-19

By Patric Haerle The Daily Even before the first case of COVID-19 in the United States, health experts were scrambling to help prepare the country for the virus. Researchers at the University of Washington have helped lead this charge, working on some exciting coronavirus research to help protect the public from infection.

Genome sequencing at UW helps track the spread of COVID-19 A promising way to track the spread of COVID-19 is through genome sequencing of the virus itself. In this process, a scientist analyzes the entire genetic sequence in a case of coronavirus to determine where the specific infection may have come from.

Researchers at the UW have been performing some of the highest-profile genome sequencing work in the entire country. After the first nationally confirmed coronavirus case was found in Snohomish County Jan. 20, experts sprang into action.

Upon comparing the genetic sequence of that first case and a case confirmed afterward in the same county Feb. 26, UW researchers found similarities, indicating the newer case had likely descended from the original.

This was monumental. Since the second case was found so long after the first, with seemingly no direct contact

between the two individuals, researchers concluded that the virus had been spreading throughout the county unbeknownst to health officials for close to six weeks. Until this point, no cases had been found where the infection occurred inside the United States — previous domestic cases were contracted abroad.

Now, with over 4 million cases in the United States, tracking the virus is as difficult as it is important. A local group called the Greater Seattle Coronavirus Assessment Network Study, (SCAN) which includes several health experts from the UW, is working to send tests out to homes throughout the city. With just a quick swab, individuals can contribute vital information for tracking the spread of COVID-19 in King County.

UW IHME provides groundbreaking coronavirus models The Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation is an independent research center at UW Medicine that measures the globe’s most pressing health issues.

Recently, a large portion of the institute’s resources have gone toward researching coronavirus; at one point almost 100 individuals were working on COVID-19.

The IHME began modeling the virus in February for UW Medicine, helping to plan for

the expected surge in hospital activity. It then expanded its models to all of King and Snohomish Counties. Soon after, its efforts increased again to include the entire United States, along with many other countries.

Theo Voss, a professor of health metrics science and part of the IHME’s Global Burden of Disease research team, explained the unique opportunity the virus has offered the institute to serve the general public.

“We want to be as informative as we can for decision-making,” Voss said. “This was a fantastic opportunity to provide rapid up-to-date information where so many decisions had to be made, not just for affecting health, but affecting everything in society.”

The IHME capitalized on this opportunity. At one point, the institute was a major contributor to talking the White House out of a reduction in social distancing measures during a key period in April, according to Voss.

Unfortunately, the White House soon after reduced contact with the IHME and departed from many widely adopted prevention strategies.

The United States has since experienced a dramatic uptick in coronavirus cases; the IHME model now projects over 230,000 deaths nationwide

by Nov. 1. Voss highlighted the long-term danger the virus presents if not taken seriously by the entire population.

“It is still not looking good; this is a tricky disease,” Voss said.

“If you give it just a little bit of

leeway it will find its way back — it’s a true survivor, this virus.”

Paul Yager is developing fast, accurate COVID-19 tests for the home Once Paul Yager, a UW bioengineering professor, was aware of a new highly infectious disease spreading in China, it didn’t take long for him to start seriously considering the potential of adapting his existing work to COVID-19.

Since 2011, Yager has been working to develop compact and price-effective screening tests that are highly portable and able to detect illnesses such as influenza or HIV. In January, Yager began the work of adapting his existing technology, called UbiNAAT, to COVID-19, in the hopes that he could assist with any future testing crisis.

“

Fast forward seven months and nearly 53 million reported tests in the United States later, and Yager is now at the stage of finalizing a working prototype.

The Yager lab’s kit would feature a small device sent out to the homes of the public, into which untrained individuals could insert a nasal swab or saliva sample and wait less than 30 minutes for results to appear on their phone.

Yager is hoping to soon start large-scale production of the test kits. The pressure is on for easily accessible testing in time for the coming winter, which, Yager explained, will likely present new threats.

“This is a time where people are likely moving to congregate indoors, where the virus spreads more easily,” Yager said. “A period where people normally get respiratory infections such as the flu or common cold, combined with widespread COVID, is unpredictable and

The contact tracing that has to be done is a problem completely amenable to technological solutions if there is a will and the money — and there has to be both.

Paul Yager

Joy Guo @jazzine_art

September 2020

The Daily Impact // 13

Abigail Dahl @abbydahll could be disastrous.”

When asked whether getting the virus under control in the United States is feasible without a serious increase in testing accessibility, Yager responded no and explained the reality around the current testing situation the United States faces.

“If it takes five to seven days to get tested, they have five to seven days where they don’t know if they should be quarantining and they will be spreading it to more people,” Yager said. “Getting the virus under control is absolutely doable. Masks will help, but the contact tracing that has to be done is a problem completely amenable to technological solutions if there is a will and the money — and there has to be both.”

The Center for an Informed Public tackles misinformation during the pandemic In the face of widespread uncertainty (like a pandemic), society comes together in an attempt to collectively make sense of the problem. The Center for an Informed Public (CIP) is working to determine how a crisis like COVID-19 makes this process vulnerable to misinformation.

The CIP was recently awarded $200,000 in funding by the National

Science Foundation for a proposal to better understand how various factors affect the spread of online misinformation about the pandemic.

The team plans to investigate how information moves through social media and jumps to other media platforms, focusing especially on the role of influencers in shaping the information flow.

The Center for an Informed Public formed just last year and has been a bastion against misinformation ever since. In its most recent newsletter, the CIP’s director, Jevin West, gave a valuable tip. ”If a news headline and social media post instigates an emotional reaction – especially of fear, anger or surprise – be wary,” West wrote in a concluding note. “It is a common strategy used by propagandists, opportunists and machine algorithms to manipulate behavior and perception.”

Reach writer Patric Haerle at specials@dailyuw.com Twitter: @patrichaerle

THE DAILY Editor-in-Chief Mac Murray editor@dailyuw.com

Special Sections Editors Charlotte Houston Chamidae Ford specials@dailyuw.com

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September 2020

The Daily Impact // 15

The uneven playing field of competitive STEM majors Researchers discover achievement gaps in general chemistry courses

By Norah Alhindi The Daily In a recent study, UW researchers found that general chemistry classes are a barrier to underrepresented minorities who aspire to be in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors.

The research paper aimed to quantify the disparities that exist in higher education, specifically in the STEM field for undergraduate students at the UW. The paper used records from 25,768 students from 2001 to 2016 and considered four categories of underrepresented students: women, underrepresented racial minorities, students from low socioeconomic status, and firstgeneration students.

The researchers found grade gaps between students who fall into the four categories and more well-represented students.

These gaps ranged from 0.12 to 0.54 on a four-point GPA scale.

“Take two students, they both got the same score in high school and the same score on the SAT, for example — and put

them in our chemistry classes” Elli Theobald, co-author of the paper, said. “Just based on their race or ethnicity, or whether they’re first-generation students in college, or their socioeconomic status, you can predict how well they’re going to do.

And the rich white students are going to do better.”

General chemistry courses here at the UW, similar to many other colleges across the board, are required by most STEM majors, which makes passing the sequence a necessity for the continued pursuit of a STEM degree.

This problem results in a “weeding out” effect of underrepresented students: they are less likely to continue on in a STEM-related major because of the unique challenges they face to pass the general chemistry sequence classes.

This contributes to the already existing issue of the lack of diversity in STEM. In pursuit of equity and inclusion in STEM, interventions can lessen the “weeding out” of underrepresented students.

Researchers show that this can look like the employment

of active learning in college classrooms, for example.

“Even if students have the same academic preparation, underrepresented groups are still doing worse, so something bad is going on in the classrooms for their success,” Scott Freeman, senior author of the paper, said.

“We know now, because of this paper published in March, that active learning can make a huge difference in narrowing gaps.”

Freeman and Theobald emphasized in what they referred to as “the hearts aspect” that instructors need to communicate to the students that they’re cared about and believed in, which combined with active learning can help

“

even more with reducing the gaps.

Interestingly, despite this grade gap, underrepresented students show what researchers referred to as “hyperpersistence”: they are more likely to continue on in sequential general chemistry classes even if they receive the minimum passing grade to satisfy the prerequisite for the next course, and they persist at higher rates than their peers in wellrepresented groups who receive similar grades.

Such results are promising and suggest that underrepresented students are likely more motivated to push through adversity.

Achievement gaps are not because of students, they’re because of the context.

These findings call for evaluating the status quo of our general chemistry courses and redesigning them to push for more equity and inclusion. They also call for instructors to work on nurturing a class culture that encourages underrepresented students to feel like they belong in STEM and that their success is desirable and achievable.

“Achievement gaps are not because of students, they’re because of the context,” Theobald said. “It’s because of what is happening in the classroom, where students don’t feel comfortable, don’t feel like they belong, don’t feel like they can take the risk to try this thing, or don’t feel a connection with the instructor. Students need to work hard and hear from their instructor that they belong and that they can do this. They can succeed.”

Reach reporter Norah Alhindi at specials@dailyuw.com.

Twitter: @nory_0015

Elli Theobald

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