University of Washington Magazine - Summer 2023

Marilynne Robinson

The great American writer returns to the Northwest to be celebrated p. 24

Teachers of the Year

Honoring the UW’s stars of the classroom p. 28

Back from the Brink

A tribute to Leonard Cobb and Medic One’s incredible impact p. 30

COASTAL AND CELE STIAL

The UW’s Sea Grant and Space Grant programs support research near and far

Creative Flow

More than 30 years ago, Dale Chihuly, ’65, the artist and collector, bought an old warehouse on the north shore of Lake Union to use as his studio and, for a time, his home. Now with the help of his wife Leslie Jackson Chihuly, ’93, historian David B. Williams, and author and glass art expert David Warmus, the Chihuly Workshop has produced the photo-rich book, “The Boathouse: The Artist’s Studio of Dale Chihuly,” to tell the story of the building and its many uses.

Before Chihuly came along, the site and structure had lots of meaning for the UW community. It sits along shoreline that the Washington state Legislature platted and sold to finance the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exhibition, which took place in 1909 on the yet-to-be developed UW campus. In 1963, with ramshackle houseboats housing UW graduate students nearby, George Pocock, the famed racing shell designer who built boats for the Husky crews for 40 years, moved in. According to the book, Chihuly could have razed the boathouse to build his glass-blowing studio, but he wanted to keep the character-filled structure with its rich history and connection to the local nautical scene. Photo by Russell Johnson, 1983

TOGETHER WE WILL

At the University of Washington, when we pull together, we discover cures, unravel mysteries, find creative solutions and inspire others to do the same. When we strive toward a common goal, we go further, faster — together.

uw.edu/boundless

VOLUME 34

NUMBER 2

SUMMER 2023

ONLINE

magazine.uw.edu

22 Powerful Prose

Master storyteller Marilynne Robinson (above) receives the UW’s highest alumni honor in celebration of her contributions to the American canon.

By Sheila Farr

26 Teachers of the Year

Warmth, empathy, inspiration and excellence are just a few of the traits of the 2023 recipients of the UW’s Distinguished Teaching Award.

By Jon Marmor

28 The Man of Medic One

Harborview cardiologist Leonard Cobb helped create Medic One, which has saved thousands of lives and become a national model for emergency care.

By Jon Marmor

30 Coastal and Celestial

For decades, the UW’s Sea Grant and Space Grant programs have taught students and fostered discovery about the worlds of water and outer space.

By Caitlin Klask

INSTAGRAM FAMOUS

Emma Cortes Ellendt (aka Emma’s Edition) shares her know-how on business, fashion and content creation in an online-exclusive Q&A. uwmag.online/emma

OVER THE MOON

The Yakama Nation hosted students with the Washington NASA Space Grant Consortium for an out-of-this-world rocket launch. See how they fly in our latest video. uwmag.online/rockets

MARINERS MOGULS

Former Dawgs Mike Blowers (above) and Shannon Drayer bring baseball action to M’s fans over the airwaves. uwmag.online/mariners

ON THE COVER

A native Dungeness crab and a starry Pacific Northwest sky, illustrated by Katura Reynolds.

JAMIE CLIFFORD/AROHO 2011

JENNY ROSO RON WURZER

CAITLIN KLASK

A few miles can add years to your life. Your neighborhood affects the air you breathe, the water you drink, your access to healthy food — and how long you live.

Healthier communities make healthier people. The University of Washington is at the forefront of addressing the interconnected factors that influence how long and how well we live, from climate change and poverty to systemic inequities and health care. In partnership with community organizations, the UW transforms research into concrete actions that improve and save lives across the country — and around the world.

LEARN MORE

uw.edu/populationhealth

MESSAGE FROM THE DEAN OF THE COLLEGE OF THE ENVIRONMENT

Our Part for the Planet

Universities can be proving grounds for climate solutions

By Maya Tolstoy

At the UW College of the Environment, we often say that the challenge of climate change requires all hands on deck. This metaphor runs the risk of overuse, but I think it is apt, especially for those of us who have spent our research careers at sea. The simple fact is that we can tackle the world’s biggest global threat only by engaging every single person, resource and bit of expertise available to us. I can think of no better way for the UW to do so than by bringing together the full breadth of the higher education community in the shared pursuit of a sustainable future.

This spring, we were proud to partner

with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to host a national workshop on climate action in higher education. This symposium gathered nearly 80 colleges and universities from around the country—including large research universities, community colleges, historically Black colleges and universities, tribal colleges and universities, and public and private institutions—to showcase how climate change innovations on campuses can benefit surrounding communities and beyond.

The diversity of institutions at the event provided an enormous variety of perspectives on these issues. The experts and

educators discussed how we can more effectively root our research in communities and empower the voices of those on the front lines of climate change. We learned how campuses should serve as living laboratories for broader sustainability initiatives, and how our institutions can work with states, municipalities and neighborhoods to develop climate adaptation strategies.

One takeaway was how crucial it is that we develop the workforce that can implement climate solutions. Many of our most promising green infrastructure projects are limited by a lack of trained technicians rather than by funding or political shortfalls. And throughout, we explored

how to more effectively center justice and equity in all of these approaches.

The breadth of institutions that attended helped us see thousands of opportunities for collaboration across our schools and with the federal government, and that every institution has a role to play in addressing the climate crisis. Our close community ties can provide a conduit for public funding and other resources to our local communities where they can make the greatest impact. But more than anything, it was exciting, energizing and inspiring to see so many people from across the country engaged in the serious work of climate action.

Due to the extraordinary breadth and depth of our climate expertise (the majority of our 1,100 scientists, researchers and teachers work on climate change) and our deep roots in communities across the Northwest and the wider world, the UW is in a unique position to lead on climate action and adaptation. The White House gathering was an important step in building stronger ties between our academic institutions and our federal partners, and I think I speak for all in attendance when I say we left feeling hopeful for the future. With all hands on deck, no challenge is too great.—Professor Maya �olstoy is the Maggie Walker Dean of the College of the Environment.

The UW is in a unique position to lead on climate action and adaptation.

OPINION AND THOUGHT FROM THE UW FAMILY

A Gleaming Partnership

By Jon Marmor

Collaboration is one of many strengths for which the University of Washington has long been known. One of the best examples is the successful partnership the UW School of Dentistry created with Shoreline Community College to increase the number of dental hygienists.

When Shoreline’s training facilities were affected by a campus construction project a couple of years ago, the college worked with UW dental school leaders to avoid an interruption in the students’ education. Both parties recognized early on that there was a lot of interest in a partnership that could move the Shoreline program to the UW campus.

But this was far more than the UW’s offer of classroom space to accommodate the displaced Shoreline students. The UW went into this strategic partnership to enhance students’ education and train more dental hygienists. Shoreline’s students thus received a golden opportunity to experience the same teaching and learning environment enjoyed by the UW’s

dentistry students, faculty and patients. “This,” former Shoreline president Cheryl Roberts said, “will help our students become even better prepared for careers in this fast-growing industry.”

Moreover, with the program now based at the UW, the goal is to increase the number of slots for dental hygienist students.

Shoreline’s students have a history of working alongside UW dentistry students. They serve rotations at the UW dental school’s clinics, including the Dental Education in Care of Persons with Disabilities Clinic. But this new collaboration means Shoreline students will have the opportunity to gain valuable pediatric dental training at the UW’s Center for Pediatric Dentistry.

Former dental school dean Gary Chiodo put it best: “The ability to have dental hygiene students learn and practice in coordination with dental students will benefit all students and our patients.” Now that’s something to smile about.

STAFF

A publication of the UW Alumni Association and the University of Washington since 1908

PUBLISHER Paul Rucker, ’95, ’02

ASST. VICE PRESIDENT, UWAA MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS Terri Hiroshima

EDITOR Jon Marmor, ’94

MANAGING EDITOR Hannelore Sudermann, ’96

ART DIRECTOR Ken Shafer

DIGITAL EDITOR Caitlin Klask

CONTRIBUTING STAFF Karen Rippel Chilcote, Kerry MacDonald, ’04

UWAA BOARD OF TRUSTEES PUBLICATIONS

COMMITTEE CO-CHAIRS

Chair, Sabrina Taylor, ’13 Vice Chair, Roman Trujillo, ’95

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Derek Belt, Audrey Edwards, Sheila Farr, Rachel Gallaher, Hannah Hickey, Stacy Kendall

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS

Meryl Schenker, Mark Stone, Dennis Wise, Ron Wurzer

CONTRIBUTING ILLUSTRATORS

Olivier Kugler, David Plunkert, Katura Reynolds, Anthony Russo

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University of Washington Magazine is published quarterly by the UW Alumni Association and UW for graduates and friends of the UW (ISSN 1047-8604; Canadian Publication Agreement #40845662). Opinions expressed are those of the signed contributors or the editors and do not necessarily represent the UW’s official position. �his magazine does not endorse, directly or by implication, any products or services advertised except those sponsored directly by the UWAA. Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: Station A, PO Box 54, Windsor, ON N9A 6J5 CANADA.

MESSAGE FROM THE EDITOR

With smart, well-planned designs that maximize every inch of space to their walkable, in-town locations, our new cottage-style homes offer a smart investment and the ultimate lifestyle experience. Whether you’re a student, faculty member, or alumni looking to invest in the future of the UW community, or someone who wants the convenience and connectedness of a near-campus location, these new homes are designed for large possibilities on a small footprint. Pacific

Doreen Alhadeff (right) played a key role in helping Sephardic Jews apply for Spanish citizenship. Farther right, it’s been a struggle to restore public confidence in colleges and universities.

Facing History’s Truths

I was deeply inspired by the story about Spain’s decision to restore a path to citizenship for Sephardic Jews (“Knight Time,” Spring 2023), and Doreen Alhadeff’s role in the process. At a time when legislators in our country are passing laws to ban the teaching of unpleasant truths in our nation’s history, the legislators in Spain have demonstrated that it is never too late to right a wrong. The proponents of these efforts to cleanse U.S. history claim that teaching these truths might make some students uncomfortable, meanwhile ignoring the fact that students whose families were forcibly removed from their ancestral lands (Sephardic Jews, Indigenous peoples and descendants of enslaved peoples, among many others) live with the discomfort of these truths every day. If you are “comfortable,” then you aren’t growing, either as an individual or as a country.

mentioned, but true to recovery format, it covered “what it was like, what happened and what it’s like now” in an informative and helpful way.

I appreciate that the Post-Prison Education Program exists. Without the help that Haug espouses, recovery and growth would be difficult or impossible. Problem-solving and divergent thinking are skills that Haug brought to his internships. I, too, learned these skills in life and at UW.

I am happy to see recovery highlighted as a strong possibility at UW. I have hoped for a chance to share my recovery for others in health care. Thanks for this story.

Jane Holbrook, ’85, Riggins, Idaho

A Favorite Memory

A Sobering Read

John Barth, ’85,

Lt. Col., Marines

(retired), Sugar Hill, New Hampshire

Covering Recovery

I am writing to commend your story about Raymond Haug (“Liftoff,” Spring 2023) and his journey from addiction to recovery and success. The story was well-written and positive. His difficult history was

I sincerely appreciated reading “Another Side of the City” (Spring 2023). I had the great pleasure of taking Peter Bacho’s Environmental Law class at UW Tacoma. The class was decades ago, yet I still remember it as one of my favorite memories of UWT!  Nice recognition and very well deserved.

Denise Dyer, ’00

It was sobering but not surprising to read of the decline in public confidence in colleges and universities (“The Way Ahead for Higher Ed,” Spring 2023). Not surprising, because of affordability concerns and the demand for employees in high-paying professions that do not require a college education, but also because of the political forces feeding the negative assessment. The article helpfully summarized recent admissions scandals and concerns regarding college rankings that have been in the news. Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education and a former U.S. undersecretary of education, commented in the article upon the narrative feeding the unpopularity, citing the public perception that college will not pay off, that college won’t help you do better at your job, and that “you’ll be brainwashed.” He went on to say: “In a lot of ways, the problem with that narrative isn’t that it’s false. In each of those bits of the narrative, there’s a nugget of truth.” Wait, it is not false to imply that students at the UW are at risk of being brainwashed? The article, uncomfortably, left the topic

JOE ANDERSON

RON WURZER

hanging. I’d like to know where he is coming from and what our UW leaders think about the risk of being brainwashed at our state’s higher-education institutions.  I’ve always believed that the UW offers higher education of the highest caliber.

Carolyn Boatsman, ’75, Mercer Island

Necessary Changes

I am intrigued to see an article on eroding public confidence in higher education, but are universities willing to make the changes necessary to remain relevant?

So much of what was part of the required four- or five-year degree courses now seems useless and outdated.  Should parents and students increase their debt to add courses that “may make them more well-rounded”? Do they really need some of the antiquated required electives?  Do students really need to attend in person for four or five years to attain the same preparedness they did 20 years ago?  Should preparing for a career look different going forward?

I am also dismayed at how much time is wasted on pushing an agenda instead of inspiring critical thinking at the University of Washington and other universities. I am a graduate of the Foster School of Business, but I do not hold the same esteem and confidence in the school that I used to. Indeed, if I had a student looking at university, I would be questioning the value of that education.

Lori Miller

Focus on Education

I typically do not read the UW magazine; I find it extraordinarily biased. I happened to skim through the pages, and I found the article “The Way Ahead for Higher Ed.” I was a bit hopeful for an objective analysis of the issue. This was, of course, too much to ask. The article, the UW Magazine, the UW and higher education in general no longer focus on education and objectivity, but rather ideology. In the case of the article, the issue and solution centered around the need for more money. Money, or the lack thereof, cannot explain the precipitous drop in applicants … especially by boys.

I earned undergraduate and graduate degrees. I love constructive thought and ideas. The UW, like most colleges, was always a bit liberal, but that was fine because it was a place to explore new ideas that could improve society. Today, there is no debate, no objectivity, but rather a fixed mandated ideology. That ideology, as with

most mandated ideologies, is undermining the society it serves.

Gordon Bock, ’02, ’07, Federal Way

Missing the Mark

The article “The Way Ahead for Higher Ed” missed the mark. The reason why public confidence in higher education has declined has little to do with affordability. Tuition could be cut in half, and it still wouldn’t improve public confidence.

The main reason is the public is no longer convinced a college education is worth it. Since the ’90s, there has been an explosive growth in vacuous academic departments and degree programs created out of whole cloth. Sorry, but you aren’t going to find many job advertisements saying “bachelor’s in gender studies required; master’s preferred.” Layoffs are occurring in corporations nationwide, and DEI employees are among the first to go because they contribute nothing to the bottom line. Pennsylvania recently announced that over 90% of state jobs will no longer require a college degree. Parents, saddled with student loan debt of their own, are not likely to encourage their kids to go to college unless there is an obvious return on investment. Many degrees now offered provide little.

Wokeness is pervasive on colleges campuses. It used to be only students who protested invited speakers who didn’t toe the leftist line. Now college administrators (at the dean level, no less) and even faculty participate. (The recent situation that occurred at Stanford with a federal judge is a good example.) On many campuses, the First Amendment is a joke and the principles promoted by Dr. Martin Luther King are largely ignored. It doesn’t matter how much you decrease tuition; many people are not willing to see their hard-earned savings and tax dollars going to support that.

If colleges want to restore public confidence, they must go back to providing an education instead of indoctrination. The article barely mentioned that idea. Garrison W. Greenwood, ’93, Mount Vernon

Shell Mover

I believe my 94-year-old father (J. Trenholm Griffin) is the last living member of the UW crew that in 1949 moved the shells to Conibear Shellhouse from the ASUW Shell House, also known as the Canoe House, also known as the Naval Training Hangar. Tren Griffin, ’52, ’55, ’58, Kirkland

Skid Road

Nurse, professor and advocate Josephine Ensign wants us to know our homelessness history

By Hannelore Sudermann

During the Great Depression, more than 600 homeless people lived in Seattle’s largest Hooverville. �hey used materials they found along the waterfront to build shacks like the one in this 1939 photograph.

Josephine Ensign was 25 when she fell through the safety net. With a master’s degree in nursing, she had been working as a nurse practitioner and managing a church-sponsored health clinic in her hometown of Richmond, Virginia. But she ran afoul of the church leaders when it came to women’s health and serving people with HIV. She also struggled with stress, burnout, depression and an unhappy home life. All at once, she found herself out of a job, out of a family and without a home.

For about six months, she slept on couches, in her car or in a shed. The experience of not having a safe place to stay helped her see how complex, multiple factors can play a role in homelessness.

Now with a doctorate in international public health from Johns Hopkins University and three decades of nursing, teaching and advocacy work in Washington, Ensign has turned her focus to Seattle’s long history with homelessness in her book “Skid Road: On the Frontier of Health and Homelessness in Seattle.”

Ensign moved to Washington in the 1990s, drawn by Harborview Medical Center and its dedication to health care for the homeless. “I was attracted to move here as a single mom and wanting to be in a place that was more progressive,” she says. But for 20 years, she watched the city grow and the situation worsen for unhoused people. “I kept asking myself, how can this really amazing city full of progressive, smart, innovative people have such a large and growing problem with homelessness,” she says.

In her book, Ensign takes readers back to the first record of a homeless man, whom the settlers found nearly frozen in his waterside tent. Burdened with physical and mental issues, he was handed around

by the pioneers, at one point kept in shackles, and then ultimately sent home to his family in Massachusetts. Ensign also explores the English Poor Laws, a fraught system of poverty relief on which the early practices in Washington were based.

The term “skid road,” now synonymous with poverty and homelessness, likely originated in Seattle, referring to Yesler Way, where lumber was skidded downhill to Henry Yesler’s mill on the waterfront. In the early years of the community, people went there when they needed work or hit hard times.

In her book, Ensign celebrates what she loves about Seattle: its can-do attitude and willingness to innovate. She also details the troubling effects of welfare reform and the deinstitutionalization of people with mental illness in the 1980s.

Today, Seattle is the third-worst city in the country for homelessness—after New York and Los Angeles. We have innovative, evidence-based programs, but we haven't been able to scale them up quickly, Ensign says. As the community struggles for solutions, she sees complicating factors, such as sheltering people in group settings, which have “never been healthy for anybody,” and the fentanyl and opioid epidemic. A key problem is the lack of affordable housing, she says. Vehicle residency is a newer challenge. According to the city of Seattle, more than 40 percent of unsheltered homeless people live in their cars.

Ensign’s “Skid Road” offers an important view of the region’s long history with homelessness, says Coll Thrush, ’02, a historian of the Northwest and professor at the University of British Columbia. “People often explain homelessness as personal individual failings or bad luck,” he says. “But what she does in this book is really showing how this is a long, structural history.”

The first edition of Ensign’s book was published by Johns Hopkins University, but the University of Washington Press was quick to pick it up in paperback and release it this spring. “We are always on the lookout for books that tell new histories of the Northwest, with a particular focus on amplifying the stories of those with perspectives that have been otherwise marginalized,” says Nicole Mitchell, director of the UW Press. “We’re especially excited when UW faculty conduct this kind of groundbreaking research, so we jumped at the chance … to make it available more broadly to readers in the region and beyond.”

MOHAI, SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLLECTION, PI22393

Exuberant Abstraction

Famed for her lusciously colored wall paintings, artist Sarah Cain draws inspiration from abstract art, graffiti and pop culture from the 1980s. This spring and summer, she transforms the Henry’s two-story East Gallery into the monumental painting, “Day after day on this beautiful stage.” She employs the floors and walls—and couches—to create an immersive experience. Viewers often describe her work as happy-making, but Cain is also playing on themes of subverting male-dominated art culture. She intends for her work to take up space and draw attention. As a woman in the art world, “you have to push harder or talk louder,” she once told The New York Times. “Sarah Cain: Day after day on this beautiful stage” will be on view through Aug. 27.

Photo by John Vicory, courtesy of Henry Art Gallery.

This Gallery is Good as Gould

Answers to some of the planet’s most pressing questions are on view now inside Gould Gallery

By Stacy Kendall

If the University of Washington had an arts row, 15th Avenue Northeast would be it. Moving from north to south, we have the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, the Henry Art Gallery and finally the College of Built Environments’ Gould Gallery. Emerging elegantly from Gould Hall’s Brutalist gray concrete exterior, the gallery features works of societal impact.

“The Gould Gallery provides a unique opportunity to showcase the powerful influence of the built environment on the world’s most pressing social and environmental challenges. By highlighting the

critical role of the built environment in these issues, we aim to inspire others to take action and make a positive impact on the world around us,” says Renée Cheng, the college’s John and Rosalind Jacobi Family Endowed Dean. The diverse array of exhibitions includes everything from student work to renowned traveling exhibitions—something the college didn’t have a place for before the 1,300-square-foot space officially opened in 2015.

Here, design disciplines tackle the big questions. “How can sketching in landscape architecture become a prompt for design activism?” was one of the questions addressed at the recent “Sketching as a Witness” exhibition. Architecture students in the Mexico City study-abroad program were challenged to create a zoning proposal that addressed affordable housing, access to public resources and increasing density while also sustaining the region’s identity, community and history. Society’s most urgent needs are being solved through the lens of design.

The lasting impact of the University manifests in this space as well. One

exhibition was designed by world-famous architect Steven Holl, ’71, as a tribute to the College of Built Environments’ renowned Architecture in Rome Program and Rome Center, and its founder, professor Astra Zarina, ’53. Holl traveled to the Eternal City, along with another future notable Seattle architect, Ed Weinstein, ’71, as one of the program’s first students in 1970. Other famous names are written all over the three-part space, literally. Emblazoned on the sleek glazing of the gallery’s inside walls are figures that loom large in the roster of the region’s architectural luminaries: L. Jane Hastings, ’52, Norman Johnston, ’42, Jim Olson, ’63, and George Suyama, ’67. Both Olson (Olson Kundig) and Suyama (Suyama Peterson Deguchi) have curated shows in the gallery, and the gallery itself was designed by architect and professor David Miller of the distinguished Seattle firm Miller Hull. Exhibiting student art and design work is a grand tradition in higher education. But dig deeper and certain elements of this space are not like other university galleries. Sure, there are white walls and

Passersby enjoy an exhibition in Gould Gallery featuring the drawings of Bob Hull, the late founding partner of the Miller Hull architectural firm.

polished glass. But a closer look reveals that the clean-lined room was designed to be a really refined example of the traditional crit board space, where students tack up recent projects, bulletin board-style, for professors to review. Much like the rest of the interior of Gould Hall itself, the gallery gives off the feeling of a living, breathing entity. Walls are modular so that the room can be pushed and pulled into the perfect configuration to accommodate the needs of the exhibit.

At the heart of the gallery, there’s community. One particularly captivating program is the McKinley Futures Studio, where each year a small group of students are given a problem to solve using approaches that span disciplines within the built environment. Last fall, for instance, the studio worked with the Pacific Coast’s Shoalwater Bay Indian Tribe to develop nimble responses to the growing threats to its coastal ecosystem—one that happens to be the most rapidly eroding portion of the U.S. Pacific coastline. Leaping from theory to reality, students created future projections of the land and

crafted visionary responses to bolster the tribe’s current strategies. Together, these efforts are leading-edge, adaptive planning and design for areas at risk for climate change-driven floods.

Joshua Polansky, ’02, ’09, ’17, the college’s director of operations, views the space as the physical embodiment of what

the college is all about. “Our Gould Gallery programming encourages dialogue, fosters collaborations and drives progress toward a more sustainable future,” Polansky says. It’s an active space where students work with faculty to see exhibitions through from beginning to end. Polansky adds, “We show our interdisciplinarity and offer our best solutions and ideas through what we display here. This is also a place where our students can encounter perspectives from beyond UW, and we hope they’ll keep returning after graduation to see how the college continues to engage with local and global challenges.” Those future graduates might have some of the most diverse careers to come out of one building. Whether it’s creating a sustainable chair or a proposal for a livable mega-city, the problems of tomorrow might just be getting solved by a designer.

Gould Gallery is open to the public 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. It is located inside Gould Hall, 3950 University Way N.E., Seattle. Admission is free.

Viewers inside Gould Gallery enjoy a closeup view of design solutions to social problems.

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Seeps From the Deep

Warm liquid spewing from the seafloor may hold clues to earthquake hazards

By Hannah Hickey

The Cascadia Subduction Zone—the eerily quiet offshore fault that threatens to unleash a magnitude-9 earthquake in the Pacific Northwest—holds many mysteries. A recent UW-led study exploring the seafloor about 50 miles off Newport, Oregon, discovered seeps of warm, chemically distinct liquid shooting up.

The paper, published Jan. 25 in Science Advances, describes the unique underwater spring the researchers named Pythia’s Oasis. They think the spring is sourced from water 2.5 miles beneath the seafloor at the plate boundary, helping regulate stress on the offshore fault.

The team made the discovery during a weather-related delay for a research cruise aboard the RV Thomas G. Thompson. Sonar showed unexpected plumes of bubbles about three-quarters of a mile beneath the ocean’s surface. As the team explored the

area with an underwater robot, they found the bubbles were just a minor component of warm, chemically distinct fluid gushing from the seafloor. The feature was discovered by Brendan Philip, then an undergraduate student and now a White House policy adviser.

Observations from later cruises show the fluid leaving the seafloor considerably warmer than the surrounding seawater. Calculations suggest the fluid is coming straight from the Cascadia megathrust, where temperatures are an estimated 150 to 250 degrees Celsius (300 to 500 degrees Fahrenheit).

The new seeps are unrelated to geologic activity at the nearby seafloor observatory the cruise was heading toward, says Evan Solomon, associate professor of oceanography. Instead, they occur near vertical faults that crosshatch the subduction zone. These strike-slip faults, where sections of ocean crust and sediment slide past each other, exist because the ocean plate hits the continental plate at an angle, placing stress on the overlying continental plate. This is the first known site of its kind. Researchers believe similar fluid seep sites may exist nearby, but they are hard to detect from the ocean’s surface.

�he seafloor in the Cascadia Subduction Zone off Oregon is active with chemically distinct fluid seeping up from a spring beneath.

The Jake Awakes

Refreshed, the Jacob Lawrence Gallery reopens its doors

In the foreground stands “Will you braid my hair? I AM �RYING MY BES� �O BOND …” by student Alexandria Bernal.

On a sunny morning this spring, the newly renovated Jacob Lawrence Gallery was abuzz. Undergraduate art seniors—the first to exhibit in the new space—were swinging through between classes to check on their pieces on the walls, on the floor, and in some spaces, on the ceiling. In the back of the first room of the three-room gallery, a dozen more students sat in colorful chairs planning for the installations for their graduation exhibition the following week.

Named for the great American artist Jacob Lawrence, who joined the UW faculty in 1971 and mentored and influenced new artists even after he retired in 1985, the gallery has represented his interests in social justice and education. He is best known for his social and historical paintings and prints about social movements and major events in the United States, like The Migration Series depicting Black people in history.

In 1994, the art school’s instructional gallery was dedicated to Lawrence, recognizing his influence and vision. Tucked into the north corner of the Art Building at the north end of the Quad, the original gallery offered opportunities for programming and student exhibition, but the space was outdated and difficult to find. The time had come for a refresh and a slight relocation. Now a new entry through the Solomon Katz courtyard at the top of the stairs connecting the Quad to Stevens Way links the gallery to one of the campus’ main arteries.

The project is part of a larger, $15 million update to the Art Building designed and built by the GLY + Mithun team. The building opened in 1949 and hadn’t seen a significant refresh in about 70 years. Work began in June 2022 and was completed this spring.

A WELCOME ADDITION

The campus community was already dreaming of the second building when the first structure of – Intellectual House opened in 2015. The longhouse-style facility was built to serve Native American and Alaska Native students as well as provide a resource and learning space for the public. But because of budget constraints, the second building of the project was postponed. Now, the UW has launched the second phase, a student-centric space that includes an art lab, meeting rooms, a lounge and educational gardens. The project goal is $15 million, and the Washington state Legislature recently announced it would direct $9 million to the project. “This dedicated space on campus fosters a sense of belonging for American Indian students and the community at large,” says Rickey Hall, Vice President for Minority Affairs & Diversity. “This is key if we are going to attract and retain talented Indigenous students, faculty, and staff to the UW.”

This winter and spring, nine graduate students from UW Bothell worked with the city of Lynnwood to further its efforts to become a more welcoming and cohesive community. The students, who are pursuing master’s degrees in policy studies, reviewed community surveys and held an informational meeting with a diverse group of residents and business owners before making recommendations. They suggested the city increase access to affordable housing as well as English language and technology training. They also encouraged the city to work with leaders from the African immigrant community. The project was a component of a class taught by Professor Jin-Kyu Jung. The group presented its findings to Lynnwood’s Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Commission in March.

In 1954, Ray Jensen captured the scene at the UW's hippest café.

�oday, students have set up Reimagine Parnassus, a GoFundMe account, so they can continue serving coffee in the space.

The Gen Z’s and Me

By Audrey Edwards

I loved being the final keynote speaker wrapping up Black History Month at the University of Washington, where I graduated over 50 years ago. There were only about 100 Black students on a campus of 30,000 students back then. Now, there are about 1,300 and that includes a Black Graduate Students Association, consisting of brainy Black techies getting advanced degrees in science and technology.

I was thrilled that these children of the digital age wanted to hear why this Boomer left the states when a new political order took over, and then wrote a book about it. How wonderful to return to campus and see that the arc of Black history, despite ongoing struggles, still bends toward justice, led by the activist youth within every generation.

Has the Sun Set on Parnassus?

The beloved café was shuttered in January. Students from around campus are working for its return

By Hannelore Sudermann

In 1951, UW students opened a café in the basement of the Art Building. At first they sold art supplies and drip coffee, and directed the revenues toward scholarships. The spot, which they named Parnassus, quickly became a fashionable hangout, a gallery and event space. It was famed for having the best coffee on campus.

Parnassus was always packed, its tables crowded with people sketching, studying or debating Descartes. In the late 1970s, when Jamie Walker, now director of the School of Art + Art History + Design, was an undergraduate, he was a regular. “It was student-run. It was popular because of its ambiance. And it was probably one of the first places in Seattle that served good dark roast coffee,” he says.

When Walker came back to the UW to teach in 1989, he was glad to find the café still running. “It had been cleaned up a bit,” he says. “It was super popular and seemed to always be very, very busy.”

But students returning to campus after winter break this year found the doors closed indefinitely. “There was no warning,” says Winnie Wine, a senior majoring in

design. If they had known, “maybe there would have been a call for action,” she says.

Wanting to do something, Wine researched the venue’s story. “Hearing about its history made me want to save it even more.” She also learned about rising food prices, wages and the business of running a café. A meeting with UW Housing and Food Services, which has managed Parnassus in recent years, revealed that “Basically, no cafés on campus are making a profit,” says Wine. “And often they’re subsidized by the school that they’re in.”

A subsidy is more difficult for the School of Art + Art History + Design, which has a tight budget, says Walker. “We investigated every possible way to keep it open,” which included a one-year bailout, he says. But the school’s leaders couldn’t find a long-term solution for the café.

Now students hope to find a future for Parnassus. The goal is to reopen the space in some form, maybe as a gallery, a lounge with a coffee vending machine or an event space. “Maybe it’s all those things,” Wine says. “We’re really just trying to get the doors open again.”

�he Black Graduate Student Association celebrated Black History Month with a speaker series featuring influential alumni like Audrey Edwards, center. I also loved that Kyle, one of the leaders of BGSA, had an Afro pick sticking out of his huge Afro during the day’s event. That’s exactly how the Black men of my Boomer generation sported their ’fros on campus. I suspect Kyle knew this and was just giving a Black history salute to a preceding generation. And to that I happily say, Right On!

—Author and essayist Audrey Edwards, ’69, returned to campus in February.

�hroughout her writing career, the history alum has been interested in the African American experience in contemporary American culture. Her years in journalism took her to Essence magazine, where she worked as executive editor. She also wrote and held editorial leadership roles at Family Circle, More and Black Enterprise.

ASUW’S COLUMNS MAGAZINE

Legendary Leslie

Leslie Gabriel brings a storied career and decades of continunity to her new role as the Top Dawg of women’s volleyball

Gabriel

Leslie Gabriel has been part of 618 victories and five NCAA Final Fours with the Huskies’ women’s volleyball program over 26 years—as a player, assistant coach and associate head coach. Now, as the team’s new head coach, she is poised to lead one of the nation’s most successful programs. Interview by Jon Marmor

I told the team that becoming great is a choice. So, each day, we are learning how to make those great choices.

What is your vision to win another national championship?

Band

Jen

What’s it like to be in charge?

If you would have told me 28 years ago that I would have spent 26 of the next 28 years of my life on the sidelines of Husky volleyball, I would not have believed you. It’s been a dream of mine to be the head coach here, and I’m beyond excited to lead the women in this program.

What is special about UW volleyball?

We have one of the most passionate and loyal fan bases that supports us in one of the best places to watch volleyball in the country. And the Pac-12 Conference is one of the premier volleyball conferences in the country.

What is your outlook going into the season?

We will continue to strive to win national and Pac-12 championships. And we will graduate every player with a degree from the University of Washington. I want our players to be the best students, the best volleyball players and the best people. But it takes a daily commitment. Are we giving everything that we have in all that we do? Are we doing the little things we need to do before, during and after practice? Do we play with an attitude to win each point? That’s all I am going to ask these women to do.

It takes a lot of hard work to win a national championship. I’m all about improvement. Can we get 1% better each day? I’m going to study this game, and we are going to have standards.

You’re losing a tremendous senior class. How do you replace those players?

The senior class laid a great a foundation, but I am really excited for the future and the women that we have on our team right now. I am excited to see how these women take on new roles. As a coach, I want to give them the tools to help.

Has it sunk in yet?

I don’t know that it has. I remember the day when [Director of Athletics] Jen Cohen called me and offered me the job. I went “Woohoo, yes!” But then my brain went, “Checklist, checklist, checklist, this is what you have to do.” I feel like I have been on the run, but I am really excited to be here.

Tell us about your personality.

I’m all about hard work and giving everything that you can. That’s something I am going to demand of our players. Can we give it all we have, and can we compete? Let’s go out and win. I’m going to coach with that intensity and demand that from them: that we just go hard.

(above left) was one of the nation’s best blockers as a Husky from 1995-98. Above right, the Husky Marching

fetes Gabriel and athletic director

Cohen at the news conference introducing Gabriel as the women ’s volleyball coach.

Another Well-Deserved Honor for Danielle Lawrie

Check any list of the most dominating pitchers in college softball history, and you will find Danielle Lawrie’s name near the very top. That’s why she is part of the first all-female list of former student-athletes, coaches and administrators being inducted into the Pac-12 Hall of Honor in 2023.

Pac-12

Hall of Honor welcomes one of college softball’s best pitchers

By Jon Marmor

Her list of accomplishments could fill an encyclopedia. The first Canadian recruit to play for the UW—not to mention the first player recruited by coach Heather Tarr, ’96—Lawrie started opening eyes at the age of 14 when Tarr spotted her playing in Canada. With her unique pitching style and blazing fastballs, Lawrie, ’10, was a three-time first-team All-American who led the Huskies to their first national championship in 2009. And what a year 2009 was. Lawrie was the Pac-10 Pitcher of the Year, National Player of the Year and Most Outstanding Player in the Women’s College World Series when she led a Husky team that went 51-12, finished second in the Pac-10 and then beat Florida for the championship in the College World Series.

That year, Lawrie recorded 521 strikeouts with only 76 walks in 352.2 innings. She still holds conference records for strikeouts (1,860) and wins (136), played in the National Pro Fastpitch league and was a two-time Olympian (2008, 2020) for Team Canada, earning the victory in the Bronze Medal game in Tokyo.

Lawrie, a 2018 inductee into the Husky Hall of Fame, was only the fifth Husky player ever to have her jersey number retired. She had numerous schools recruiting her out of her hometown of Langley, British Columbia, but fortunately for the Huskies, “I wanted to be close to home. I wanted my family to be able to watch me,” she said recently. “And once I took a visit [to the UW] there was no question: This is where I wanted to be.”

And the girl who started playing softball at age 10 sure made the most of her opportunity at the UW, employing her favorite quote as her driving force: “You 100% get what you put into things.”

Small in Stature, Big in Our Memories

the Olympic Peninsula dynamo: Mo’ Joe. Husky fans everywhere were devastated to learn that Jarzynka, only 45 years old, died March 5 while fishing on the Sol Duc River on the Olympic Peninsula.

Gig

Harbor walk-on

Joe Jarzynka dazzled the Husky faithful with his fearless play

By Jon Marmor

At first glance, Joe Jarzynka did not look like a Husky football legend. The 5-foot-7 walk-on from Gig Harbor High School joined the Huskies in 1995 and played like a special-teams wild man as a kickoff and punt returner, refusing to call for fair catches. He volunteered to handle the team’s placekicking duties when two Husky kickers left the squad. And he earned the opportunity to play as a wide receiver, his long blond hair flowing out of the back of his helmet as he raced down the field. He was so popular that he had his own fan club, with the motto “Joe, Joe, he’s our guy, give him the ball and he will fly.” The Daily even came up with a nickname for

As a junior in 1998, Jarzynka—who walked on at UW instead of accepting his only recruiting offer to play at Eastern Washington University—had his best season. He was named to the All-Pac-10 first team as an all-purpose player, recognizing his ability to return kicks and to make them. When two kickers left the Huskies, Jarzynka, a high school soccer star, stepped in to make six of eight field goals, including a 44-yard kick that helped the Huskies beat WSU, 16-9, in the Apple Cup and secure a berth in a bowl game. He was named the team’s most valuable player.

Jarzynka’s best performance came that season in Husky Stadium against Cal, when he returned a punt 91 years for a touchdown. He was so excited that after he made it into the end zone, he ran to the fence behind it and vigorously gave it a shake in his attempt to be noticed by ESPN.

Former UW assistant coach Dick Baird said it best: Jarzynka “just refused not to play.” His Husky spirit will live on.

Lawrie pitched the Huskies to their first NCAA softball championship in 2009 and was the National Player of the Year.

Her Northwest connections played a big part in Marilynne Robinson’s path to becoming one of the most important authors of our time

By Sheila Farr

ASLD

The Alumna Summa Laude Dignata is the highest honor bestowed on a UW graduate. Presented annually by the UW and the UW Alumni Association, it recognizes a legacy of achievement and service built over a lifetime.

2023

ALUMNA SUMMA LAUDE DIGNATA MARILYNNE ROBINSON, ’68, ’77

Early in the novel “Gilead,” the narrator, the Rev. John Ames, confides: “For me writing has always felt like praying ... You feel you are with someone. I feel I am with you now. …”

That’s one of the great gifts of Ames’ creator, Marilynne Robinson, too: the ability to make her readers feel that she is not only with us, but part of us.

Since Robinson earned her Ph.D. at the UW in 1977, she has become one of the world’s premier fiction writers. A Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Library of Congress Award for Fiction are among her many honors. Yet fiction is just one facet of Robinson’s work. She teaches, writes nonfiction books and essays, and is an esteemed contributor to public discourse on ideas and events. In 2016, Time magazine named her one of its 100 Most Influential People.

This year, the UW will present Robinson with the Alumna Summa Laude Dignata Award, the highest honor bestowed upon a graduate for exceptional lifetime achievement. Past recipients include former Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell, ’78; architect Steven Holl, ’71; former Washington Gov. Daniel Evans, ’48, ’49; and children’s book author Beverly Cleary, ’39.

Speaking by phone from her home in Saratoga Springs, New York, Robinson says she is eager to revisit her alma mater. “I loved living in Seattle. … A great deal went on for me at UW. I had my first child there and so on.”

That casual “and so on,” includes writing the initial stages of her first novel, “Housekeeping,” while she completed her Ph.D. And now, in the English Department where Robinson was once a student, her books are a staple of the curriculum. “When you are looking at significant American literary artists right now, she has to be way up your list,” says Professor Charles LaPorte. “She is in a very rare company of people who are making a difference—but not just making a difference as artists. She is a philosopher, too: someone who appeals to people who think.”

Robinson’s fame increased exponentially in 2016 when President Obama, on a visit to Iowa, made an extraordinary request: He wanted to record a conversation with Robinson.

(Has a sitting president ever interviewed a novelist before?) It turns out Obama had read “Gilead” on the campaign trail and was smitten. He posted it on Facebook as one of his favorite books, along with the Bible and The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Obama and Robinson first met in 2013 when he presented her with the National Humanities Medal in conjunction with the National Endowment for the Humanities. He told her, “Your writing has fundamentally changed me.”

Their later conversation, recorded and transcribed in two issues of The New York Review of Books, serves as a testament to the profound impact Robinson’s writing has on readers

around the globe, as well as to the wide-ranging intellect of our former president.

Besides, it was fun. “That was one of the pleasantest experiences of my life,” Robinson says. “It was pleasant and very exciting at the same time, which is not always a combination you can rely on happening, you know.” Because she had already met the president, Robinson didn’t feel intimidated. “I’d had a certain amount of contact with him before that. I had had dinner at the White House, and I had exchanged letters with him. And I knew he really is a very gracious man, which is obvious in everything he does, and I just knew I could trust him to make me feel it was a totally good experience. And he did.”

Their discussion touched on the strains in American democracy and the difficulties of living up to the doctrines of Christianity. They talked about the musical “Hamilton,” about empathy and optimism, and the role literature can play in a world that runs on tweets and seems to have lost its attention span. Robinson told Obama about how the narrative voice of her character, the Rev. John Ames, “just showed up” one day as she was sitting with pen and paper in a hotel room in Massachusetts—and what a surprise it was to be suddenly writing from a male point of view. At one point, Robinson suggested that the word “competition” should be struck from the American vocabulary and Obama quipped: “Now, you’re talking to a guy who likes to play basketball and has been known to be a little competitive. But go ahead.”

NORTHWEST Connections

Robinson was born Marilynne Summers in Sandpoint, Idaho, in 1943. She grew up in Coeur d’Alene, where her father worked in the timber industry and her mother stayed home to raise Robinson and her brother, David. The Presbyterian Church and poetry were in the fabric of Robinson’s life. As a child, her brother (now a professor emeritus of art history) predicted that he would become a painter and she would be a poet. In high school, Robinson seemed headed in that direction. She wrote Edgar Allan Poeinspired verse and translated a section of “The Aeneid” from Latin. Eventually, she gave up writing poetry for scholarship.

As an undergraduate at Pembroke (now Brown), Robinson took three years of creative writing classes before coming to UW to pursue her master’s in 1966. She took courses in American literature as well as delving into Chaucer, Victorian literature and Shakespeare to broaden her literary background. She continued her Shakespeare studies when she was accepted into the Ph.D. program in 1973.

Robinson’s dissertation, “A New Look at Henry VI, Part II: Sources, Structure and Meaning,” involved extensive research in primary documents and long hours combing through microfiche at Suzzallo Library. She focused her analysis on an underappreciated play and showed it to be “more accomplished, subtler, more coherent than has been suspected …” Her dissertation committee also noted that even though Robinson used standard methods of literary criticism, “what is unusual here is not only the play to which she applies them, but the sensitivity with which she has used them to arrive at an excellently written and most perceptive dissertation.” Her adviser, Professor Bill Matchett (1923-2021), a few years before his death still vividly recalled his former student. He needed just one word to describe her: “Brilliant.”

While attending UW, Robinson married Fred Robinson and had her first son. (They would have another son and later divorce.) At the same time she was starting a family and immersed in the high-pressure research and writing of her dissertation, Robinson had the capacity to begin another writing project, experimenting with metaphor, drafting the initial stages of what would later grow into a novel.

Robinson started her first novel, “Housekeeping,” while she was working on her Ph.D. in the 1970s. It was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in fiction in 1982.

Time magazine honored her as one of its 100 most influential people in 2016 in recognition of her superb writing in both fiction and nonfiction.

“I guess she was a little bored,” jokes poet, author and teaching professor Frances McCue, who uses Robinson’s work in her classes. She finds the idea of Robinson writing her dissertation and working on a novel at the same time hilarious, a feat your garden-variety Ph.D. candidate would likely consider superhuman.

Robinson laughs at the notion. “I’m one of those students who took her time in graduate school. But I am always writing fiction and nonfiction at the same time—a habit I formed in Seattle—and I find they stimulate each other, they keep each other in focus, so they don’t really compete.”

After completing her degree, Robinson began shaping her initial notes into a novel, without really looking beyond that. “I had no thought of publishing it. I thought it was unpublishable,” she recalls. Why? “Too poetic.” Nevertheless, she shared her manuscript with a friend, who sent it to his agent, and the next thing Robinson knew she had a book contract. “Housekeeping” was published in 1980.

In language of heart-stopping sensuality, the story braids the lives of three generations of women in one family. It opens with the description of a legendary disaster in a fictional Idaho town.

1987, was adapted into a movie. “Housekeeping” has since been named by the Guardian Unlimited as one of the 100 greatest novels of all time.

A quintessentially Northwest story, “Housekeeping” is set in a town hugged by mountains and bounded by a deep ancient lake, much like the landscape of Sandpoint, where Robinson was born. And that setting—the remote town, the deep, cold lake whose waters permeate the atmosphere—is as fundamental to the story as any of its characters. The place seems to hold the people who live there in thrall, as trapped as those passengers on the train.

The Northwest connection is significant to LaPorte, the UW professor, for several reasons. When teaching incoming English majors, he likes to give them a little department history. “I knock myself out to tell my students when we are doing Theodore Roethke or Elizabeth Bishop that they taught here. Or Richard Hugo or James Wright or Carolyn Kizer: They all came out of this program. They came here to work with us.”

And now there is Robinson, too.

Surprisingly, after her initial success with “Housekeeping,” Robinson put away fiction writing for more than two decades and turned her attention to research, scholarly writing and teaching. In 1989 she published her first nonfiction book, “Mother Country: Britain, the Welfare State, and Nuclear Pollution” and in 1991 was offered a teaching post at the Iowa Writers Workshop, the famed MFA program at the University of Iowa. She retired in 2016.

It wasn’t until 2004 that Robinson re-emerged as a novelist with the publication of “Gilead.” The aged narrator Ames, who has lived his entire life in the small town of Gilead, Iowa, is writing down his life story for his young son. Kirkus Reviews called “Gilead” “a novel as big as a nation, as quiet as thought, and moving as prayer. Matchless and towering.” The Pulitzer Prize and the huge rush of acclaim that followed seemed to place Robinson at the pinnacle of an amazing career. But she was just warming up.

The story of “Gilead” and Ames grew into a series with the publication of “Home” (2008), “Lila” (2014) and “Jack” (2020). In each of those novels, Robinson retells the events of “Gilead” from the perspective of a different character— and the awards continued to pile up: a second National Book Critics Award and The Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction.

As a night train crosses a bridge, it suddenly “nosed over toward the lake and then the rest of the train slid after it into the water like a weasel sliding off a rock.” That train sprawled at the bottom of the lake and the passengers entombed in it haunt the town and its inhabitants. Like a Greek tragedy, the disaster ripples through generations.

“Here’s a first novel that sounds as if the author has been treasuring it up all her life, waiting for it to form itself,” Anatole Broyard wrote in The New York Times.

“It’s as if, in writing it, she broke through the ordinary human condition with all its dissatisfactions and achieved a kind of transfiguration. You can feel in the book a gathering voluptuous release of confidence, a delighted surprise at the unexpected capacities of language, a close, careful fondness for people that we thought only saints felt.”

After that awestruck early review, “Housekeeping” received the PEN/Hemingway Award for best first novel and then, in

It’s easy to see what drew President Obama to “Gilead.” Ames is a man who thinks continually about his place in life as a son, grandson, father, husband, friend and, perhaps most urgently, about his service as a minister and role model to his community. As Ames looks back at the accumulation of sermons he wrote over the years, he reminisces, “I wrote almost all of it in the deepest hope and conviction. Sifting my thoughts and choosing my words. Trying to say what was true. …” One can easily imagine Obama writing those same sentences about his many speeches and his books. And it seems that Robinson is speaking from her own heart, too, as she writes in the thoughtful voice of the character who sprang unbidden from her subconscious.

Now Robinson has a new nonfiction book, “Reading Genesis,” slated for release in 2024. And she looks forward to revisiting Seattle in June. “At this point in my life, I do tend to think of things as culminating events—and who knows? I think it will feel very good and right to be at the UW again. It was very important to me and beautiful.”

Teachers OF THE YEAR

From inspiration to impact, this year’s Distinguished Teaching Award recipients mentor and nurture students from all disciplines

BY JON MARMOR

Elinore “Elli” Theobald

PHOTOS BY UW PHOTOGRAPHY

Anjulie Ganti

Marieka Klawitter

Regina Lee

Yusuf Pisan

Sam Sharar

Jennie Do, Jennifer Chang, Karan Dawson, Leigh Ann Mike, Claudia Choi

Ben Gardner, Eva Navarijo, Natalia Dyba, Ron Krabill, (Sarah Ramirez not pictured)

Ellen Bayer

Distinguished Teaching Award

Anjulie Ganti

Associate Teaching Professor, UW Seattle

DEPARTMENT: Health Systems and Population Health, School of Public Health

“My teaching career started at 9 years old, assisting my Bharatanatyan teacher. She demonstrated that teaching is an embodied practice requiring patience, confidence, performance, continuous study, iterative reflection, experimentation, refinement, relationship and love. School was hard for me, due to a complicated relationship with math, so I found clever ways to learn by making up tricks that I’d share with classmates who were also struggling.”

Marieka Klawitter

Professor, UW Seattle

DEPARTMENT: Evans School of Public Policy & Governance

“ Students have different starting points, life views and goals, and my mission is to serve them each as well as possible. I have worked with ASL translators, created a window screen grid to make graphs for a blind student, and worked with students with learning disabilities to find how they learn best. Prepandemic, I started offering Saturday Zoom office hours for struggling statistics students. I strive to make my classes and our curriculum work for students of color, LGBTQA students, international students, students with disabilities and others who have been underrepresented in making public policy. I especially love helping first-generation students learn how to thrive in the academic system.”

Regina Lee

Associate Teaching Professor, UW Seattle

DEPARTMENT: Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies, College of Arts & Sciences

“ As I begin my eighth quarter at the UW, I can say that without a doubt Dr. Lee has been one of the best professors I have ever had. [She] is a professor who urges students not only to do well in academics, but to be the best person they can be.”—Undergraduate student Grayson McKinnerney

Elinore “Elli” Theobald

Assistant Teaching Professor, UW Seattle

DEPARTMENT: Biology, College of Arts & Sciences

“My philosophy is that to maximize learning and disrupt educational inequities, students need deliberate practice through evidence-based pedagogy in a student-centered, inclusive environment. I call this the Heads and Hearts Hypothesis: Heads are activated by active learning, and hearts are supported with inclusive teaching.”

Yusuf Pisan

Associate Teaching Professor, UW Bothell

DEPARTMENT: School of Computing & Software System

Ellen Bayer

Associate Professor, UW Tacoma

DEPARTMENT: Culture, Arts and Communication, School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences

“ I spend a significant amount of time engaging with students outside of the classroom who reach out to me for support and guidance. I have worked with a number of unhoused students to help them access resources on campus and in the city, in addition to working on a plan to help them succeed in my course as they navigate these challenges. I have had many students ... who are experiencing mental health issues, PTSD, food insecurity, serious illness and family concerns. I have had students who are refugees come to me for support. In all of these instances, I am here to listen to the student, to let them know I see and hear them, and to express empathy and compassion.”

Distinguished Teaching Award for Teams

UW BOTHELL GLOBAL SCHOLARS PROGRAM

Ben Gardner, Associate Professor, Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences

Ron Krabill, Professor, Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences

Natalia Dyba, Director of Global Initiatives, Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences

Eva Navarijo, Director of Academic Services, Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences

Sarah Ramirez, Student/Alumni, Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences

“ As an Asian American woman and a first-generation student, there weren’t many spaces where I felt like I could purposefully talk about my identity. Being asked difficult questions about power and inequality with my cohort of less than 20 other peers, I was deeply impacted by all the diverse perspectives and vulnerability that everyone was willing to lean into.”—UW Bothell undergraduate student Jennie Ha

PHARMACIST PROVIDER SERIES / SCHOOL OF PHARMACY

Jennifer Chang, Clinical Associate Professor

Claudia Choi, Assistant Teaching Professor

Jennie Do, Clinical Assistant Professor

Karan Dawson, Clinical Associate Professor

Leigh Ann Mike, Clinical Associate Professor

“ The effort, commitment and genuine care that the teaching team puts into their classes is clear and truly makes a difference for the first-year pharmacy students’ experience. This team is a great example of why collaboration matters, and how working together can give you the best outcome.”—Doctoral candidate

Nicole Duncan

Distinguished Contributions to Lifelong Learning Award

Sam Sharar

Professor Emeritus

Dr. Pisan has led novel ways of teaching at UW Bothell, such as Tech for Good, which carries several projects developed by and meant for students. It offers an excellent opportunity for students to work on research while providing solutions to problems that undergraduate students face when preparing for technical interviews for internships. He is a humble yet intelligent professor that recognizes students for their hard work. He is open and willing to listen to students’ voices.”—Elizabeth Castillo

“

DEPARTMENT: Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine

“ My greatest teaching satisfaction has come from supporting—and learning from—non-traditional adult learners in two disparate settings outside of the traditional UW environment. These groups of adult learners reinforced … that “real” learning comes from those around you each day in the classroom of life.”

BACK FROM THE BRINK

Dr. Leonard Cobb’s innovative ideas, collaboration and focus on improvement created two of the most important lifesaving initiatives of our time

BY JON MARMOR

t’s a typical weekday in downtown Seattle when a siren screams to life, piercing the air and bouncing off the high-rises. Cars scoot out of the way so the red Medic One ambulance can hustle to the scene of the emergency. There, on the sidewalk, a man has crumpled to the ground in pain and short of breath. He’s been felled by a cardiac event of some sort.

The reality is this individual’s health catastrophe could not have happened in a better place, for Seattle is among the top-performing programs in the world for saving the lives of cardiac arrest victims and critically ill patients outside of the hospital.

Much of the credit goes to Leonard Cobb, who in the 1960s was chief of cardiology at Harborview Medical Center and a professor of medicine at the UW School of Medicine. Cobb was impressed by the work being done in Belfast, Northern Ireland, that increased the chances of survival of patients suffering cardiac events outside of a hospital. That program employed what was called a mobile coronary care unit, staffed by a resident from a Belfast hospital, and it would travel to the homes of patients who appeared to suffer from a myocardial infarction, a condition also known as a heart attack. “That,” Cobb said in a 2020 interview, “was the first attempt where organized medical care was provided outside the hospital on a regular basis.”

That epiphany inspired Cobb to collaborate with Seattle Fire Chief Gordon Vickery to create of one of the biggest lifesaving initiatives the U.S. has ever seen: Seattle’s renowned Medic One paramedic program. Cobb, the ultimate lifesaver, died Feb. 14 at the age of 96. But his legacy—a model for emergency care everywhere—continues to touch lives from coast to coast.

“Dr. Cobb envisioned a team of clinicians providing expert care—comparable to or better than what happens in the hospital,” says Dr. Tom Rea, medical director of King County Medic One and a UW professor of general internal medicine. “He was a pioneer by being one of the first persons to create this new field of medicine—pre-hospital emergency care. He developed a response system by partnering with public service (fire department) and helped create a new type of provider”: the paramedic. That led to the development of the UW’s Paramedic Training Program.

Cobb’s innovation and impact has been nothing short of astonishing. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 800,000 people suffer a heart attack every year. And that’s not taking into account that there are many types of heart emergencies. In addition to heart attacks, which are caused by serious blockages in a patient’s heart vessels that require emergency treatment, even more time-sensitive is cardiac arrest: when a person’s heart completely stops beating and the patient loses consciousness and becomes lifeless.

Beyond Cobb’s innovative idea to train paramedics in CPR and other lifesaving skills was perhaps an even more important accomplishment: teaching community members how to do CPR. “When someone suddenly collapses, people nearby need to call 911 and start hands-only CPR,” says Dr. Michael Sayre,

medical director of Seattle Medic One and a UW professor of emergency medicine. “Dr. Cobb helped create a program in Seattle to train anyone to do CPR. That program helped influence major national organizations that CPR could be done by anyone, not just nurses, doctors, firefighters, or paramedics.” In 1971, Cobb, Vickery and Seattle Rotary No. 4 launched Seattle Medic Two to train community members in CPR. “This was perhaps our most important contribution,” Cobb said. To date, the Seattle Fire Department’s Medic Two program has trained more than 1 million people in CPR.

“Dr. Cobb understood that there are emergency conditions like heart attack, stroke, major trauma that are time-sensitive and that earlier treatment can be the difference between life and death,” Rea adds. “Before Medic One, patients were often on their own to navigate to the hospital. Consequently, some patients died before they arrived at the hospital or arrived in moribund condition, having lost opportunities for critical, time-sensitive treatment.”

Cobb’s success was also due to his focus on evaluating and measuring results so they could be improved upon. “His insight and wisdom were highlighted by how much value he put on measurement in order to understand process and ultimately improve care and outcomes. He was truly a pioneer of quality improvement and health services research,” says Rea, who knew Cobb for more than 25 years and worked with him during his residency three decades ago. “He had an engaging smile and a good nature. He always had the ability to challenge and encourage you simultaneously. … He made you want to try harder. He was genuinely interested in your perspective. As a consequence, he was influential and got things done.”

After the grant for the program was cut, Cobb and Vickery, the Seattle fire chief, began a grassroots fundraising campaign that raised almost $200,000. That campaign led to the formation of the Medic One Foundation, which continues to support the direct costs of training Medic One paramedics in Seattle, King County and surrounding communities.

Cobb wasn’t through yet. In 1984, he successfully advocated for emergency medical technicians to use automatic external defibrillators (AEDs). And in 2008, he helped create the Resuscitation Academy, a regional organization dedicated to helping communities develop and implement emergency medical plans to improve CPR. He served as president of the Medic One Foundation for 30 years and was on its board up until his death.

“I am so grateful to have known Dr. Cobb,” says Heather Kelley, a Medic One Foundation board member who collapsed from sudden cardiac arrest in 2014. Her two daughters called 911 and began CPR. Paramedics had to shock Heather’s heart three times before getting a heartbeat. “My near-death experience deepened my sense of gratitude to Dr. Cobb and the Medic One system. Because of them, I’m able to continue being a mom to my beautiful and brave daughters.”

The idea to teach firefighters to deliver lifesaving care by ambulance became a model for pre-hospital care nationwide. RON WURZER

WHERE MEETS CELESTIAL

While some universities boast of their land grants, the UW is where

�igure 1

Consider the oyster. Native to the Pacific Coast of North America, the Olympia oyster (pictured) is one of five species commonly farmed in Washington, along with the Pacific, Kumamoto, Shigoku and European flat oysters.

COASTAL CELESTIAL

By Caitlin Klask Illustrations by Katura Reynolds

Two teams based at the U niversity of Washington face some of science’s most daunting challenges. Sea levels are rising, the ocean’s chemistry is changing, invasive species threaten native wildlife, and shellfish

harvesters

face risk to their livelihoods as heat waves and harmful algal blooms prevail. For the staff of the Washington Sea Grant program, responding to these problems is just a sample of the work they do.

Meanwhile, the team from the Washington Space Grant plans another year of rocket launches, satellite builds and high-altitude balloon research to engage students from all over the Evergreen State as the future workforce in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields— where a new generation of workers is badly needed.

where you’ll find cutting-edge research and education on sea and space

In addition to their work aimed at changing the world, the teams from the Washington sea and space grant programs fill their days applying for funding, distributing scholarship and fellowship funds and reporting back to NASA and NOAA about their accomplishments. They mentor aspiring astronauts. They help coordinate tribal summits. They write books about oysters. They tweet about an eclipse. But their work, decades in the making, isn’t often front-page news.

�igure 2

The beloved rocketry program within the Washington Space Grant provides hands-on experience to students interested in supersonic flight, from small, do-it-yourself projects (like the one pictured) to Level 1 and Level 2 certification launches. in which large, high-powered rockets soar to apogees of thousands of feet.

perspective of Indigenous communities and women in aquaculture, including local experts like Ed Carriere (Suquamish Tribe), Charlene Krise (Squaxin Island Tribe) and the late Kurt Grinnell (Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe). “All shellfish stories, oysters included, begin with the tribes,” says Wagner. “The second edition of the book acknowledges these first stewards and their innovations in growing seafood.”

Back in 1966, before the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) officially existed, the federal Sea Grant program was created to accompany the federal Land Grant program that was established a century earlier. In 1866, the need for working-class people to study agricultural engineering was stronger than ever, as workers shifted from fields to factories during the Industrial Revolution. In 1963, Athelstan Spilhaus (an eccentric geophysicist, meteorologist, futurist and inventor who created a device that measured temperatures at the depths of the ocean) figured it was about time to apply that same logic to the sea.

By 1968, the national Sea Grant secured federal funding. In 1970, it was incorporated into the newly official NOAA. And by 1971, the first four Sea Grant colleges were designated: Texas A&M, the University of Rhode Island, Oregon State University and the University of Washington.

Today, 34 programs—from the Pacific to the Great Lakes to the Atlantic region—contribute to Sea Grant’s research, education outreach and training programs.

“Washington Sea Grant at the UW is a leader in coastal research and education,” says Brooke Carney, NOAA federal program officer for Washington Sea Grant. “The University’s unique access to a variety of marine-related resources and strong relationships with area tribes allow Washington Sea Grant to work collaboratively on diverse projects that generate coastal knowledge and support local communities and Tribes.”

A shining example of that collaboration is Washington Sea Grant’s latest publication, “Heaven on the Half Shell: The Story of the Oyster in the Pacific Northwest.” Authors (and Washington Sea Grant former and current staff members) David George Gordon, Samantha Larson and MaryAnn Barron Wagner, ’81, revamped the book, originally published in 2001, to include new shellfish harvesting stories, particularly from the

Washington Sea Grant maintains partnerships with tribes that reaches back to the early 1970s. The team convenes the Indigenous Aquaculture Collaborative Network, which comprises Pacificregion Sea Grant offices, Northwest Tribes and First Nations, Native Hawaiian and Indigenous communities throughout the Pacific Rim. Melissa Poe, ’04, ’09, social scientist on staff at Washington Sea Grant, helps foster community-to-community knowledge exchanges to support early career Indigenous professionals and uplift the healing and restoration work led by Native communities. Recently, the group helped to rebuild an 800-yearold fish pond on Oahu in Hawai’i. They’ve also supported stone-built fishing innovations in Palau and worked in 4,000-yearold clam gardens in British Columbia—all part of a diverse complex of mariculture systems created by Indigenous people over millennia.

“Our goal at Washington Sea Grant is to make space for these dialogues,” Wagner says. “Community partners are able to reflect and form connections that nurture continued activities.”

The rich history of traditional knowledge and Indigenous aquaculture practices may reveal a path forward for the Northwest, a region battling sea-level rise, harmful algal blooms, the invasive European green crab, and even the threat of offshore drilling in southwest Washington. Looking to the past might hold a key to a sustainable future.

NASA had its hands full in 1969, including landing men on the moon. As the war in Vietnam strained the federal government’s budget, NASA saw drastic cuts in funding; meanwhile, the Apollo program had accomplished its mission, and the public was losing interest. Looking to the future of space exploration and research, NASA decided to invest $115 million in 1,400 projects at 230 universities, including $1.5 million to create the Aerospace and Engineering Research Building (AERB) at the UW.

Little did they know, Congress would go on to establish the National Space Grant College and Fellowship program in 1988. The UW would be designated as the home of the Washington Space Grant consortium, and NASA would take control of the program in 1989. By 2021, things came full circle as the Washington Space Grant relocated from the UW Department of Earth & Space Sciences into the UW’s Aeronautics & Astronautics program in the NASA-funded AERB, “which is kind of, if I daresay, poetic,”

says Chris Wallish, communications manager.

“It wasn’t my plan to be the director of the Washington Space Grant. … the sequence of events that led to me being the director was somewhat unexpected,” says Kristi Morgansen, the principal investigator of the program and chair of the Aeronautics & Astronautics department. Former principal investigator Robert Winglee, who spent nearly 30 years at the UW researching space plasma physics, magnetospheric physics, advanced propulsion and engineering, died after a heart attack at the age of 62.

But Winglee and Morgansen shared a passion that fits perfectly into the NASA Space Grant ethos: “taking actions and providing opportunities for students in STEM to try to increase the demographics to reflect the state. And that’s something I feel very strongly about,” Morgansen says.

“NASA has daring goals, some of which are longer term. The future of NASA, aviation and space exploration will be in the hands of today’s STEM students,” says NASA’s Space Grant Project Manager Tomas Torres-Gonzalez. “The University of Washington and the Washington Space Grant Consortium are leading and supporting activities which provide a diverse population of students hands-on learning opportunities.”

From kindergarteners to doctoral researchers, students are Washington Space Grant’s top priority. “We’re really unlike a lot of other grant programs where we’re not actively engaged in research,” says Wallish. “Our whole reason for being is to support STEM students, which is usually how I start off explaining what we do, because we do a vast array of things.”

This year, the Washington Space Grant team is doubling its cohort size for the Summer Undergraduate Research Program, affectionately referred to as “SURP.” Undergrads from across Washington spend their summer in the lab doing research, which isn’t ubiquitous at the UW, let alone at smaller community colleges. “We usually have about 30 to 40 students, and this year it looks like we have enough funding to [accommodate] about 80 students,” Wallish says. “It is going to be huge. A little terrifying, but exciting.”

Exciting because we need more STEM grads from all backgrounds. “Teams with a broad range of perspectives are better at problem-solving,” Morgansen says. “They come up with more innovation than teams that are all coming from the same background.”

Last summer, Morgansen dug into some data. “There are 3.3 million high school students graduating each year. And to be honest, I think maybe 10% are going into STEM. Not just fouryear college degrees, but at all. And we need 40% to 50%.” While that statistic couldn’t be verified, the numbers don’t look great: Only 20% of all high school graduates are prepared for college-level coursework in STEM majors. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, only 27% of STEM-educated graduates end up in a STEM job, even though the demand for such jobs is continuously growing. (Yes, that includes recent layoffs in the tech sector.)

“Not only do we need to just get more people going” into STEM fields, Morgansen says, “but if you look at the country’s demographics, that means they will necessarily have to be people of color, different racial and ethnic backgrounds. There is no other option.” Women comprise only 27% of the STEM workforce, despite making up more than 50% of college-educated workers. And according to the Educational Advisory Board, more than a third of Black (40%) and Latino (37%) students switch out of STEM majors before completing a degree.

Washington Space Grant staff offer students a small college atmosphere within the UW’s large campus, and 92% of students who participate in their programs continue to pursue STEM after graduation. After their transition to Aeronautics & Astronautics, Morgansen took an interdisciplinary approach to sharing the small team’s large workload. Part of that is paying particular attention to students who do not get the scholarships or internships

they applied for; how can they improve next time? “If you look at their background,” Morgansen says, “it’s not really any different from the ones who are getting these scholarships.

“They don't have the mentoring. … they don’t have the support structure. In order to fix this, it’s got to be a rather fundamental change in how we’re doing things. I’m spending a lot of time in every space that I have access to, shouting this out.”

For her part, Morgansen is one of 13 (out of 52 total) directors of Space Grant consortia who is a woman. “Reaching back two decades, we have been led by someone either of a marginalized gender or a person of color,” Wallish says. The team works toward parity, having equal numbers of men and women in their program. This year, they came close with 40% women.

Both Morgansen and Wallish have ideas on how to engage the public, whether by recreating “Schoolhouse Rock” for the TikTok era or augmenting NASA’s citizen science programs, which allow people to participate virtually in scientific discoveries with just a cellphone or a laptop. Perhaps getting a taste of space will entice a future astronaut.

That’s a far tougher sell for Washington Sea Grant, given that commercial fishers, who are among their key stakeholders, participate in one of the deadliest jobs on the West Coast. According to the Bureau for Labor Statistics, commercial fishers face fatal injuries at a rate of 132.1 for every 100,000 workers in 2020. Compare those odds to an average of 3.4 fatalities in 2020 for every 100,000 workers across all jobs.

That’s where Washington Sea Grant’s Safety at Sea program comes in: Since the 1990s, they’ve trained Washington fishermen on safety equipment and skills for assessing and treating victims of crises like hypothermia, drowning and fractures. Thanks to this program, 15 lives (and an estimated $2 million in gear) have been saved.

Pacific Northwest history has also been carefully preserved by Washington Sea Grant researchers and writers. “Heaven on the Half Shell” faithfully renders the story of Washington’s favorite bivalve, the oyster.

�igure 3

In 2019, the satellite HuskySat-1 was launched for a 30-day mission. Rather than purchasing a satellite to tweak, UW students started from scratch, spending an estimated 25,000 hours on the project. They even built a custom sulfur-fueled thruster.

“Oysters have this charisma that’s been going on since the gold rush in California,” says Gordon, the former Sea Grant staffer who also wrote the first version of “Heaven on the Half Shell.” “They're symbols of wealth and success. And well, there’s kind of a sexiness to oysters that you’re not going to get from other shellfish. Manila clams, for example. Or geoducks.” They’re so appealing, in fact, that Washington is the top oyster-producing state in the country, with an industry valued at $70 million. The industry was hit hard by the Pacific Northwest’s 2021 heat wave, an event that is likely to repeat. Preserving this history could be more important than ever.

From the history of the oyster to saving lives at sea, Washington Sea Grant’s team of 34 experts from all walks of marine science are ready with solutions, whether it is seaweed farming (the work of Meg Chadsey, ’98) or collaborating with Indigenous communities around shared marine resources (engagements of Poe). As the European green crab threatens Washington’s shorelines, the Sea Grant team is on the front lines removing invasive species and protecting habitats for native clams, oysters and Dungeness crab. And in the 1970s, their marine spatial planning projects helped solve a major coastal conflict.

“There’s a limited amount of space near the coast that could be used for towing vessels or for crabbers,” explains Russell Callender, former director of Washington Sea Grant, who announced his retirement on April 7. “Instead of having them in conflict, we brokered an agreement that over the years allowed the crabbing community and the towboat operators to work safely and avoid conflicts.

“I think it’s amazing that it’s lasted for 50 years and it’s still ongoing. It shows the value of Washington Sea Grant being embedded in the community for a long period of time.”

The impact of these programs goes beyond the classroom. You can see it in the increasingly diversified STEM workforce, in a satellite still orbiting the Earth, in restoring Indigenous sea gardens throughout the Pacific Rim. You can even find it in the Lummi Nation’s devil’s club seeds on the International Space Station. If sea and space are at the outer reaches, Washington is ready to navigate whatever they offer.

What Do the Sea and Space Grants Do?

Since the Washington Sea Grant and Washington Space Grant teams don’t often have a classroom presence, their work might go unseen by some. Check out their core programs.

Washington SEA GRANT ]

34 staff members along the coast

Research The Washington Sea Grant’s partnership with NOAA allows them to sponsor research focused on coastal and marine communities, fish and fisheries, shellfish and aquaculture and ecosystem health.

Example: P. Sean McDonald, an associate teaching professor in environmental studies, is working with a team of Washington Sea Grant and UW investigators to monitor the DNA of the invasive European green crab in order to track the species.

Outreach Teams from Washington Sea Grant help communities and workers with everything from proper boat sewage disposal to technical advice on how to prepare for sea level rise along our shorelines.

Example: Using visualizations created by the Washington Sea Grant team, Metro Parks Tacoma altered the design of Owen Beach Park to avoid erosion from rising sea levels.

Education From fellowships to summer camps to field trips, WSG helps people learn how the ocean affects them—and how they affect the ocean.

Example: The Washington Sea Grant helped develop the Wild Seafood Exchange, a forum for fishermen, seafood buyers and restaurant operators to help fishermen boost profitability and discuss industry needs after the pandemic downturn.

Communication Whether you’d like to get into the nitty gritty of ocean acidification or just enjoy recipes for oysters, find magazines, podcasts and more for marine-loving Washingtonians.

Example: The second edition of “Heaven on the Half Shell” is packed with history, photos, recipes, firsthand accounts from generations of oyster farmers and the cultural significance of this special mollusca.

Washington SPACE GRANT ]

�wo full-time staff members, plus three faculty directors

Scholarships, internships and fellowships Both graduate and undergrad students can get professional development experience in addition to financial assistance.

Example: Space Grant Scholars earn $2,000 to $5,000 while gaining hands-on experience doing research in the lab.

CubeSat Technology Development Students get hands-on experience by developing small satellites for space missions.

Example: In 2019, a group of students launched HuskySat-1, a small satellite that has since orbited the Earth. Against all odds, HuskySat-1 transmits data back to the lab years later.

Rocketry The Washington Space Grant team supports the UW’s robust Aeronautics & Astronautics department in a rocketry program for students interested in supersonic flight.

The team hadn’t practiced much over the spring and summer because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and they were thrilled to finally be back on the court together—to begin turning potential into reality. In Powell’s freshman season, the Huskies had made it to the Sweet Sixteen round of the NCAA tournament. Her sophomore year, they advanced to the Elite Eight. Powell, at the time a junior and one of the best setters in the country, had high hopes for the season ahead.

Example: We watched a rocket launch in the community of White Swan. Check out the video at uwmag.online/rockets

High-Altitude Balloons Students can send objects up to 115,000 feet high using low-cost helium balloons.

Example: During the 2017 solar eclipse, 100 teenagers from tribes across the Pacific Northwest released balloons—each containing a “payload” of culturally significant items like feathers and wooden instruments—all the way to space and back. The balloons tracked changes in temperature and gravity during the eclipse.

igure 4

Between 2018 and 2021, Washington Sea Grant trained 694 fishermen in marine safety, resulting in 15 lives saved. The U.S. Coast Guard-certified program covers hypothermia, shock, near-drowning, fractures and more.

REAL DAWGS WEAR PURPLE

DEB CALETTI, ’85 AWARD-WINNING FICTION AUTHOR

Deb Caletti fell in love with books and writing as a child. At the UW, the proud Husky studied journalism and worked for the campus radio station, then turned to creative writing after earning her degree. In 2002 she published “The Queen of Everything,” a coming-of-age story about a high school student in Washington state. She has since written more than 20 books for teenage and adult readers. She’s a National Book Award finalist, Michael L. Printz Honor Book medalist and Washington State Book Award winner. With several Huskies in her family, Caletti stays true to her purple-and-gold roots — and many of her books are set among the houseboats of Lake Union, near the UW campus in Seattle.

The Smooth Sip of Success

Pals Manny Chao and Roger Bialous made Georgetown Brewing a Seattle favorite

By Derek Belt

When Manuel “Manny” Chao, ’94, walks into a bar in Seattle’s historic Georgetown neighborhood, he is instantly recognized by the staff and many of the patrons. “Hey Manny!” they all say as he waves hello and happily sits down at the corner of the bar, where I join him a few moments later.

“The corner is my favorite spot,” he says, settling in. “It’s where you get the best service, it’s where the action is, and because you can actually have a conversation with somebody.”

For Chao, the son of Chinese and Taiwanese immigrants whose parents made their way in America as restaurant owners, conversations are currency. He’s in the relationship business, after all, having started his career selling craft beer to local hotspots as the first employee of Redmond’s Mac and Jack’s Brewery. Now, he is thriving as co-founder of Georgetown Brewing Co.—the largest independent brewery in Washington and maker of Pacific Northwest favorites Manny’s Pale Ale, Roger’s Pilsner, Bodhizafa IPA and Johnny Utah Pale Ale.

“When I was a kid, I liked hanging out at the restaurant, so for me there was always an appeal to being a small-business owner,” says Chao, who fell in love with craft beer in college and hosted tastings for his Zeta Psi fraternity brothers. At the UW’s Foster School of Business, Chao famously persuaded many classmates to do group projects on breweries. Incorporated in 2002 after Chao left Mac and Jack’s, Georgetown was the largest draft-only brewery in the country until 2017, after which it began canning some of its most popular brews. Now distributed in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Japan, Georgetown was named “Seattle’s Favorite Brewery” by The Seattle Times in 2019.

Manny’s Pale Ale alone is sold in more than 900 bars and restaurants in the Seattle area. When the bartender asks me what I want, I can’t resist drinking his namesake beer with the man himself: “I’ll have a Manny’s.” It’s darn tasty

beer, as the company’s tagline goes.

Chao’s longtime business partner and co-founder at Georgetown Brewing is Roger Bialous—of Roger’s Pilsner fame.

Bialous earned a Master of Health Administration from UW in 2000 and worked in health-care insurance before teaming up with Chao to play a pivotal role in Seattle’s craft beer revolution.

“We’ve been in business together for 20 years, and I still consider him one of my best friends,” says Chao, recalling how the two met through mutual friends and started playing Ultimate Frisbee together.

“Very early on, we had this rule where if we ever started arguing about something, we’d stop and go get a beer.”

When Bialous joins us, I ask what he has ordered so I can see what real beer guys are having these days. He raises his glass and shrugs: “I got a Roger’s.” Chao laughs joyously and adds with a wide grin: “We drink everything.” Their buddy cop routine is legendary.

“I always try to treat myself as a consumer and drink our beers to compare them against other beers,” says Chao, who handles production, marketing, retail and sales for Georgetown, while Bialous manages financing, accounting and human resources. “You have to be able to sell to yourself. Like, what are you drinking? What are your friends drinking? As a brewer, you constantly have to do that—it never stops.”

As for having a beer named after you?

“That part’s crazy for us—to think we’ve made iconic brands,” says Chao, to which Bialous adds: “It’s a lot less weird than it was when we first had beers named after us. At the time, we weren’t creative enough to come up with something better.”

Creativity hasn’t been an issue for Georgetown of late. Bodhizafa, still Chao’s favorite beer and the gold medal winner in the American Style IPA category at the 2016 Great American Beer Festival. It is the company’s fastest-growing beer along with Johnny Utah Pale Ale, another award winner. Both are named after characters in “Point Break,” the 1991 action flick starring Patrick Swayze as Bodhizafa, a long-haired, bank-robbing surfer, and Keanu Reeves as Johnny Utah, the cleancut undercover FBI agent who infiltrates Bodhi’s gang.

“There’s a lot of dogs named Bodhi now. There’s a lot of sons named Bodhi. It’s pretty funny,” says Chao. “We wrote this

Continued on p. 52

MERYL SCHENKER

�he son of Chinese and �aiwanese immigrants, Manny Chao helped create Georgetown Brewing, Washington's largest independent brewery.

2023 association aWards

�he UW Alumni Association honors a professor who developed a huge following in his 57 years on the faculty and a volunteer group that raised nearly half a million dollars for student scholarships at an annual event in the California desert

›John C. Berg Distinguished

Teaching Legacy Award

John C. Berg can’t recall wanting to be a teacher, which is kind of unusual for someone who was named the recipient of the UW’s 2023 Distinguished Teaching Legacy Award.

Oh, he loved his undergraduate studies at Carnegie Tech in Pittsburgh and went to grad school at UC Berkeley because he wanted to continue learning. He thought he would join some company’s research organization in chemical engineering. UW was his only university interview, and having loved hiking in the Pacific Northwest, he jumped at the chance when he was offered a job on the faculty in chemical engineering. That was 57 years ago.

During those six decades, he has earned a reputation as one of the University’s most beloved professors. A common refrain among his students: “John is the best teacher I ever had.” He is a role model for dedication, unpretentiousness and sincerity. His teaching, mentorship and support of students is unmatched.

Students from as far back as the 1960s still marvel at his meticulous, thoughtfully prepared and well-organized lectures, homework and tests. “As his teaching assistant, I observed firsthand the time and energy he put into preparing his lectures and labs,” says Jud Virden, ’83, ’91. “His office door was always open to students who needed additional help or just needed to talk.”

Adds Mary Armstrong, ’79: “John’s enthusiasm for chemical engineering courses was catching. He could explain complex principles in an understandable way and tie them to real-life applications.”

“Dr. Berg had a profound impact on our family, having taught myself, my son Richard and his children, Katie and Evan,” says

Donald Clasen, ’70. “All four of us have had or are having great chemical engineering careers that have taken us to many places in the U.S. and throughout the world. Of all the terrific teachers at the University, Dr. Berg was one of the very best.”

Former student Scott Emory perhaps summed it up best: “I didn’t realize till years after graduating that what John did was to teach us how to think logically and live compassionately. To say John, more than anyone else, has had a lifelong impact on me, both professionally and personally, would not be an exaggeration. I am privileged to say that my relationship with John did not end there—he has been one of my most treasured friends ever since.”

Looking back, Berg says, “I found classroom teaching to be extremely rewarding. It was at the same time very daunting, as I realized what an important impact I was having on these great young people. One of the biggest positive surprises was how teaching gave me an opportunity to keep on learning. I learned that no two students are alike, each has his or her own perspective, and I had (and have) something to learn from all of them.”

Created in 2017, the Distinguished Teaching Legacy Award honors a UW teacher, living or not, who has influenced and inspired students long after they graduated.

› Desert Scholarship Patrons Committee

UWAA Distinguished Service Award

Dawg Days in the Desert is a popular, long-running UW Alumni Association tradition that celebrates everything Husky in the Palm Springs area every March. For the past 18 years, one of the most impactful programs of this glorious purple-and-gold celebration has been the Desert Scholarship Luncheon.

The Desert Scholarship Patrons Committee—led by current committee chairwoman Kay deMars and founding committee chairwoman Kay Larson—has dedicated much of its time to advocating for and philanthropically supporting scholarships for UW students. The planning committee is composed of 19 stalwart female ambassadors, many of whom are in their eighth decade and have been long-standing UWAA volunteers and supporters since the 1950s.

The committee has worked throughout the year to prepare for and deliver this treasured Dawg Days in the Desert springtime event, which features a silent auction and access to compelling University content and speakers.

After nearly two decades of delivering the Desert Scholarship Luncheon and raising almost $500,000 for their endowment, these incredible leaders have decided to sunset this tradition and pass the baton to the next generation of volunteer leaders and programming aspirations.

At right are the members of the Desert Scholarship Patrons Committee, who created an incredible legacy of dedication for fundraising to support UW students:

�his honor from the UW Alumni Association recognizes extraordinary volunteer leadership within the UWAA and those who embody the UW’s values and public service mission.

Front row, left to right:

Patty Kulberg

Kay deMars

Kay Larson

Back row, left to right:

Cheryl Johnsen

Jan Johnsen

Isa Nelson

Beth McKinnon

Joyce Biggs

Carole Johnson

Gail Richards

Deb Crump

Pat Moriarity

Sandy Dyer

Not pictured:

Christy Austin

Dorothy Byers*

Linda Carson

Chris Clawson

Sheila Cushen*

Joyce Theron Gibb

Lori Albert Gonzales

Kathy Hodge

Margaret Kelso

Carol Linblad*

Marilyn Metz

Roberta Moore*

Sarah Phillips

*deceased

DAVA RECIPIENTS

Established in 2012, the Distinguished Alumni Veteran Award honors living UW alumni veterans who have made a positive impact. Here are the previous recipients of the UW’s DAVA award.

2022

Michael Kilmer, ’01, ’04 U.S. COAST GUARD

2021

Dave Stone, ’68 U.S. ARMY

2020

Bill Center, ’78 U.S. NAVY

2019

The Hon. Ronald E. Cox, ’73 U.S. ARMY

2018

Priscilla “Patty” Taylor, ’93, ’96 U.S. ARMY

2017

Raymond Emory, ’52 U.S. NAVY

2016

Gen. Peter Chiarelli, ’80 U.S. ARMY

2015

Col. Margarethe Cammermeyer, ’76, ’91 U.S. ARMY

2014

Richard H. Layton, ’54, ’58 U.S. NAVY

2013

Charles W. H. Matthaei, ’43 U.S. NAVY

2012

Herb Bridge, ’47 U.S. NAVY

Honor a UW alum veteran

Tell us their story. Go to Washington.edu/alumni/ about-uwaa/awards/distinguished-alumniveteran-award and click “How to Nominate.”

CHRISTINE ARNOLD PHOTOGRAPHY

Deathbed Reveal

Pulitzer winner Egan tells of the rise and fall of the KKK in the North

By Hannelore Sudermann

Egan’s latest book, “A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan’s Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them,” was released in April. It centers on the rise and undoing of D.C. Stephenson, a grand dragon of the KKK, and the rape and murder of an adventurous young woman named Madge Oberholtzer, who, as she was dying, described the kidnapping and rape that would lead to Stephenson’s arrest and trial. “It’s a fabulous story. A monster takes over the state,” says Egan. “It turns out he’s a psychopath.”

testimony exposed his depravity and led to his trial and conviction. While the story played out on the front pages of the nation’s newspapers, it has largely faded into history. The artifacts of the massive movement—the hoods, robes and membership cards—had been tucked away into attics and basements or destroyed.

Timothy Egan didn’t set out to write about one of the darkest episodes in American history. The former New York Times Northwest correspondent—a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter—is one of the country’s leading voices of the West. And he wasn’t planning on finding his next gripping tale in America’s heartland. But his exploration of the history of the Ku Klux Klan in Oregon, which had a Klanbacked governor a century ago, led him there. As Egan, ’80, started digging into Klan history, he found his way to Indiana of the 1920s. “Holy cow,” he says. “Here is a state where one in three white males swore allegiance to white supremacy.” The pervasive influence reached to Ku Klux Kiddies and women’s brigades, and “at the root of it all was a con man, a classic American con man,” Egan says.

Stephenson, who had tried to rise to power through local politics and discovered he could wield more influence through the KKK, united as many as 250,000 Indianans around issues of morality and racial superiority. Working with Protestants, policemen and politicians— all the way up to the Indiana governor—he grew his influence—and KKK membership—in Indiana and beyond, setting his sights on becoming the president of the United States. Oberholtzer’s deathbed

Egan’s journey to finding and telling compelling stories started at home in Spokane when he was growing up. One of seven children in an Irish household steeped in storytelling tradition, “you tried to hold attention at the table for a few minutes,” he says.

His mother’s love of history and literature primed him for his college explorations. “The real break for me was the UW,” Egan says. He credits his love of rich stories to Professor Willis Konick, who taught wildly popular comparative literature classes with a particular focus on Russian literature. Books, like Fyodor Dostoevsky’s “The Idiot,” were originally published serially in newspapers and

Right, In 1922, more than 2,000 people attended a Klan initiation in Marion, Indiana.

RUTH FREMSON

In addition to covering the West for �he New York �imes, �imothy Egan has penned 10 books including the recent historical thriller “A Fever in the Heartland.”

magazines, offering Egan a framework for crafting detailed, feelings-driven prose, and doing it at newspaper length.

He also wrote for The Daily, where he was surrounded by talented classmates. Three other Pulitzer Prize winners came out of Egan’s group: writer Peter Rinearson, writer Evelyn Iritani and editorial cartoonist David Horsey. “We learned so much from each other,” Egan says. “We got to do anything and everything. We encouraged each other and competed with each other.”

In 1989, he was hired by The New York Times to report stories from the Northwest. The job caused Egan, a third-generation Northwesterner, to look at the region through different eyes since he was now describing the West for the rest of the country. “My editors really didn’t know anything about the Northwest or Alaska. It was a tabula rasa, and I could paint on that anything I wanted,” he says. “That was a huge responsibility.”

He wrote about river dams, cattle grazing, Alaska oil spills, Indian sovereignty, spotted owls, Montana trout, wolves, salmon, school shootings and politics. In 2001, he was among a team of reporters to win the Pulitzer Prize for a series in The New York Times: “How Race is Lived in America.” His contribution featured Gov. Gary Locke and Ron Sims, King County executive.

Around the time he started reporting for a national audience, Egan published his first book, “The Good Rain,” an exploration of the terrain of the Northwest, of its history, politics and landscape. He followed that with the true crime mystery “Breaking Blue,” which took him back to

his hometown of Spokane to tell the tale of a 1930s murder and police conspiracy that lay hidden until 1989. “‘Breaking Blue’ was just a really good story,” Egan says. “And it was a chance to recreate the 1930s.”

He visited the ’30s again in “The Worst Hard Time,” an accounting of the survivors of the Dust Bowl. “I interviewed so many people who had so many of these great stories, but I had to leave a lot of it on the cutting-room floor,” he says. The book won the Washington State Book Award in History and the 2006 National Book Award for Nonfiction.

Egan particularly enjoys delving into history and traveling back in time to bring readers along on a journey. The latest book let him do just that: “During the pandemic, I traveled to a place 100 years ago,” he says. He visited Indiana in person to explore the communities in the book. “I go to places to know what the air is like, what the weather is like, what the food is like,” he says. “I go to see the flora and the fauna, the things that give flesh to the story.”

“A Fever in the Heartland” is Egan’s ninth book, and in the weeks around its release, reviewers were drawing parallels between that episode and recent events. In his blurb for the book jacket, author Erik Larson called it “Compelling and chillingly resonant with our own time.”

For his part, Egan didn’t go into the project seeking parallels. He wanted to rattle the notion that the Klan was solely in the Deep South. “It was never more ascendant and powerful than when it took hold in the North,” he says. “I think we’re stronger as a nation for knowing this history and seeing how we overcame it.”

Ten Thousand Things

By Shin Yu Pai, ’90 KUOW,

May 2023

Building on the success of the first season of her “The Blue Suit” podcast, Pai has renamed the project and finds compelling stories that build around everyday items and explore the Asian American experience. Guests include Alice Wong of the Disability Visibility Project and Eason Yang, ’22, a champion of young adult cancer survivors. The new season debuted on May 1 and releases new episodes every Monday. It can be found on Apple Podcasts, NPR One and Spotify.

Stomp and Shout:

R&B and the Origins of Northwest Rock and Roll By Peter Blecha

University of Washington Press, February 2023

Blecha, a former DJ at UW’s student-run radio station KCMU in the 1980s, spent nearly nine years as an archivist and curator at Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture. In “Stomp and Shout,” he looks at the region’s music from the 1940s to the 1960s, a golden age for R&B and jazz. Opening the book with the arrival of 17-year-old Ray Charles, he draws upon hundreds of interviews over 40 years. He ultimately lands his reader at the feet of a young Jimi Hendrix.

Ramen for Everyone

By Patricia Tanumihard-

ja, ’95, and Shiho Pate Atheneum Books for Young Readers, March 2023

Charm is a major ingredient in this children’s book about family, tradition and invention. Author Tanumihardja, who was born in Jakarta and raised in Singapore, has a voracious appetite for books and food. In the wake of several adult cookbooks featuring Asian cuisine, she now pairs her culinary approach with Pate’s vibrant illustrations to tell the story of a boy named Hiro, who loves the ramen his father makes, and is eager to make some himself.

Down to Earth

Blending her own story with tales of climate crisis negotiations, Brianna Craft shows us the world

By Hannelore Sudermann

learned about the crisis before. She couldn’t understand why the problems of climate change weren’t a focus in her high school or part of the American culture she had so far experienced. She wanted to know more.

After graduation, Craft spent a year in AmeriCorps focusing on protecting and restoring the environment. “That helped me figure out that my future was not in doing science,” she says. Instead, she wanted to work with people and policy.

She enrolled at Brown University to pursue a master’s degree in environmental studies. That program led to an opportunity to attend the U.N. climate negotiations as a member of the Republic of The Gambia delegation. That, in turn, prepared her for her current role as a senior researcher at the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development. Her focus at the independent think tank is on the Least Developed Countries Group, ensuring that the lowest contributors to greenhouse gasses and those most affected by climate change have a voice in international climate negotiations.

For five years, Craft attended and supported climate conferences around the world, culminating in the signing of the Paris Agreement in 2015. And she was devastated when, in 2019, President Trump announced the U.S. would exit from the climate accords. “This was the first truly universal, legally binding climate agreement,” she says, noting the U.S. had been a leader in the effort. “It took years and years of work.” (The U.S. rejoined the agreement in 2021.)

After most people complete their undergraduate degree, they either take a break or jump into a job. Few, like Brianna Craft, set out to save the world.

It started when she was a freshman sitting in an environmental studies class in 2006, Craft was struck with dismay when Professor Richard Gammon described the harm climate change was having on people. She captures the moment in her new book, “Everything That Rises, A Climate Change Memoir.”

“It was all just so painfully simple,” she writes. The lesson highlighted the United States’ role producing more greenhouse gasses than any other nation. Then it turned to the impacts on human health like thermal stress, cardiorespiratory disorders, vector-borne diseases and contaminated drinking water. Craft hadn’t

Three years later, Craft left the country on a Bonderman Fellowship, which gives students the funding and opportunity to create their own itinerary and explore the world. It was a big deal for the Kelso High School valedictorian. “I had learned about climate change in my college classroom, and I wanted to see what it meant for real people,” she says.

She started in Mexico City and worked her way through Central and South America to Patagonia. Then she boarded a plane and crossed the Pacific. Everyone she encountered knew about climate change. Farmers in India were working with drought-resistant crops. Teens in the South Pacific were climate leaders in their communities. Because of new weather-related farming challenges, more people everywhere were moving into cities.

“I was struck by how everybody knew about climate change and had already altered their lives so much,” she says. Coming home to find that the reality of climate change was still a subject of debate was frustrating, to say the least, she says.

“I needed to tell this story to my fellow Americans,” Craft says. “I wanted them to care about the work I did in the climate negotiations, and why we pushed so hard to form this agreement.” That led her to write “Everything That Rises,” which was released by Lawrence Hill Books this spring.

“I really like memoirs in general,” she says. “I’ve always loved reading people’s stories, and I’ve read a lot of books on climate change.” The latter can be dry, she says. Craft took inspiration from novelist Barbara Kingsolver, who writes about climate change as well as women’s experience, and books like “The Right to Be Cold,” by Sheila Watt-Cloutier, an Indigenous woman who advocates for the climate, Indigenous culture and human rights.

Craft brings the perspective of an African American woman from a rural Northwest community. She weaves together several storylines—including her difficult childhood with an abusive parent, her self-discovery in college and her work to help forge climate agreements and ensure that even the smallest emerging countries have a voice. By making it a memoir, she says, she leverages her family story “to draw comparisons between the way we treat each other at home and the way we treat the Earth.”

COURTESY BRIANNA CRAFT

Ready? Let’s go!

Explore our world with UW Alumni Tours

UW Alumni Tours has offered the most enriching and engaging adventures to our UW alumni and friends since 1975. We are known for providing high-quality experiences that celebrate the cultures and communities in our world.

Do you know what makes our tours even more special? You do! Traveling with your Husky pack truly does begin with our shared connection, and combined with the bonds that form while traveling, it’s an experience like no other. Join us!

We are proud to offer our 2024 tours to all corners of the globe:

Antarctica Discovery Jan. 11-22

The Galapagos Islands Feb. 13-20

Patagonia Frontiers: Argentina and Chile by Land and Sea Feb. 16-March 2

A Journey through Vietnam Feb. 24-March 9

Finland: Arctic Magnificence March 15-23

Kenya Safari The Big 5 June 19-29

Coastal Gems of the Emerald Isles Sept. 1-13

Insider’s Japan Sept. 4-16

Paris featuring the African American Experience Sept. 14-22

Romance of the Douro River Sept. 20-Oct. 1

Bookings are happening now. View our full lineup online and let’s go!

UWALUM.COM/EXPLORE

“We really enjoyed having all the planning and logistics taken care of and a local guide to give us insight into the culture, politics, history and area features. We were able to show up and just enjoy ourselves.”

— Michelle Blue, ’87, ’89 Legendary Turkey, 2022

ANTARCTICA

GALAPAGOS VIETNAM

Wish we hadn’t waited so long to try these tours!

— Regina North, UW Friend

PULLING TOGETHER

How the UW crew made history in ’36 and set a legacy in motion

By Jamie Swenson

August 14, 1936. In the German community of Grünau, 75,000 spectators packed the shores of the Langer See, weathering the wind and rain to watch the final rowing event of the Berlin Olympics. Overlooking them all from a prominent balcony were Adolf Hitler and his entourage, who had arrived earlier that afternoon to cheers and salutes from the mostly German crowd.

In the United States and Europe, there had been calls to boycott the Olympics in protest of the oppression of German Jews, though those efforts hadn’t prevailed. Now the U.S. and its future allies aimed to bring symbolic opposition through their Olympic might. It was an especially tall order in the row ing events.

Germany had already won gold in five out of six rowing finals that day. Anticipation grew as six nations’ boats lined up for the most prestigious race of all: the eights, with a coxswain and eight oarsmen in each shell.

Representing the U.S. was a group of University of Washington student-athletes, young men from working-class backgrounds and small towns in Washington state, facing the biggest moment of their lives.

What “the boys in the boat” achieved in that race is legendary. So are the odds they over came, the historical moment and the values they

embodied and inspired—values shared by Huskies to this day. The starter shouted, “Partez!” and dropped his flag. The race had begun.

Every fall in Seattle, young men would gather at the Associated Students of UW (ASUW) Shell House, perched on the

University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, UW38094

Pull together for the past, present and future of UW Rowing. When you give to the UW, you can help support the restoration of the ASUW Shell House as a community space—and bolster today’s Washington crews as they create legacies of their own. giving.uw.edu/june-2023

foot structure, its massive sliding doors opening onto the Cut. Stacked within were racing shells, the longest of them—the eights—measuring 60 feet.

Inside, rowers-to-be would have been met by the smells of varnish and western red cedar. If they stayed late after practice, they might have heard legendary shell builder and rowing sage George Pocock sanding away in his upstairs workshop, where he made his living building shells not just for the UW but for virtually every rowing team in the U.S.

The Shell House was a place alive with possibility, where Pocock designed and crafted cutting-edge rowing shells, and where head coach Al Ulbrickson and freshman coach Tom Bolles molded young men of raw athletic ability into crews that won championships.

That same sense of possibility is palpable at the Shell House even today—which is why the UW community is pulling together to restore the structure. Once completed, it will be an inspirational gathering place on the water’s edge that connects campus and community, a place to reflect on our shared past as we continue moving forward.

In the leadup to the 1936 season, UW coach Ulbrickson knew his team had more than enough talent to win a national championship and maybe even Olympic gold. But it was up to him to find the right combination of men who rowed even better together—a sum greater than its parts.

The young men who most impressed Ulbrickson had grown up quickly in Depression-wracked timber towns, mining camps and dairy farms. They earned money for school by working in pulp mills, on the docks, on fishing boats and even on the Grand Coulee Dam. Higher education was their path to a different life. And at the UW, it didn’t matter where they came from. What mattered was what they were becoming.

After much lineup experimentation, Ulbrickson finally found his perfect combination: Bobby Moch at coxswain, Donald Hume at stroke, then Joe Rantz, George Hunt, Jim McMillin, Johnny White, Gordon Adam and Charles Day, with Roger Morris in the bow seat. This was a hardscrabble bunch, mentally and physically tough from years of manual labor and dogged perseverance.

Ulbrickson declared them the Washington varsity eight. They would never lose a race together.

In the 1936 regular season, the varsity eight made their case as one of Washington’s all-time great crews, but what came next made them legends. After soundly beating the University of California in the Pacific Coast Regatta, Washington traveled to Poughkeepsie for the Intercollegiate Rowing Association National Championship Regatta, where they came from behind to claim the title, defeating Cal and several elite East Coast schools. Then it was on to Princeton for the Olympic trials, where they once again came from behind to win against the top crews in the country.

Representing the U.S. was a group of University of Washington student-athletes, young men from working-class backgrounds and small towns in Washington state, facing the biggest moment of their lives.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Collection, Museum of History & Industry, Seattle;

Al Ulbrickson was the UW Rowing head coach for more than 30 years. His teams won six national championships, two Olympic gold medals and an Olympic bronze.

The UW varsity eight was headed to Berlin. But first, someone had to pay for it.

The American Olympic Committee (AOC) stunned the UW with the news that the team had to pay their own way—with less than a week to come up with the $5,000 (roughly $100,000 in today’s dollars) to cover their trip. Otherwise the AOC would send Penn, which had finished second in the trials and had ample funding.

The Seattle Times and Seattle PostIntelligencer helped spread that news, and the Times gave a lead gift of $500, spurring the community to action. Volunteers made phone calls and solicited donations on the streets of Seattle. Loyal fans stepped up with donations ranging from 5 cents to several hundred dollars.

Within two days, the Husky community, which had already helped pay for the team’s travel to Poughkeepsie and Princeton, once again came through, ensuring the Washington eight would represent the U.S. and compete for the gold. It was a community spirit that abides today.

In the Olympic final on the Langer See on that blustery evening, the men from Washington found themselves in last place. It wasn’t just that they got off to a slow start. Though they’d won

their qualifying heat two days earlier— setting world and Olympic records in the process—they had been placed in the worst lane, exposed to a driving crosswind for much of the course, while Germany and Italy had been awarded the two most protected lanes.

The UW boat spent the first half of the 2,000-meter race battling wind and choppy water and trying not to fall too far behind for a comeback. By 1,200 meters, they’d moved into third position.

Then, as the Langer See narrowed and their lane was finally protected from the wind, they began to claw their way back. Amid cries of “Deutschland!” from tens of thousands of German onlookers, the Americans kicked up their stroke rate, overtaking the sprinting Germans and Italians in the final 200 meters, dropping back to even—and then, in a dramatic finish, surging forward again and winning the race by about 10 feet. Washington had won the gold.

The story, of course, does not end here; it cannot be separated from its historical context. The 1936 Olympic Games were Hitler’s chance to burnish Germany’s image, portraying a unified and supposedly peaceful nation.

But when the Olympics ended, Nazi Germany’s hateful campaign of persecution and terrorization of Jewish, Romani and LGBTQ+ people, and many others, quickly escalated to ethnic cleansing and genocide. Within three years, World War II had begun.

After winning Olympic gold and then a second consecutive national championship in 1937, many of the UW rowers graduated and went on to support the war effort, working on warplanes at Boeing and filling roles such as naval doctor, Seabee and merchant marine.

After the war, they’d sometimes reunite and squeeze back into the Husky Clipper—that Pocock-built shell they’d propelled to gold years before— and row together on Lake Washington once again.

Today, a decade after the publication of Daniel James Brown’s bestseller “The Boys in the Boat,” with a George Clooney film adaptation on the horizon (release and premiere dates are not yet set), the epic story of the Husky eight lives on at the UW.

“Before the book, we at the UW knew it was a great story, but now the whole world knows about it,” says UW Men’s Rowing head coach Michael Callahan, who himself rowed for Washington

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Collection, Museum of History & Industry, Seattle; All Rights

University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, UW3557a

from 1992 to 1996. “Trust, teamwork and perseverance—Ulbrickson, Bolles and Pocock taught those values then, and we teach them today.”

The Husky Clipper currently hangs from the rafters of Conibear Shellhouse, where the UW men’s and women’s crews now train—a short walk north from the ASUW Shell House. But “The Boys in the Boat” isn’t the only story of inspiration housed in Conibear. “Young people appreciate that greatness has happened here,” says Callahan. “But they’re also here to create their own legacy.”

That they have. Just inside the south entrance is a room lined with glass cases of trophies, medals and plaques honoring the many achievements of the UW men’s and women’s rowing programs. Behind each award was a unique group of Huskies who trained hard, pulled as one and became part of a whole that was greater than the sum of its parts. And who, with the UW community’s support behind them, added another chapter to the storied history of rowing at the University of Washington.

What “the boys in the boat” achieved in that race is legendary. So are the odds they overcame, the historical moment and the values they embodied and inspired— values shared by Huskies to this day.

On a dark winter morning in 2016, Teresa Dennerlein, ’21, dropped off her spouse at Joint Base Lewis-McChord before driving north to the UW Tacoma campus. She was excited and nervous about starting college—her first time in “a real classroom.”

Dennerlein grew up in what she describes as an ultrareligious, conservative community, disconnected from the outside world and informally homeschooled by her parents. Her education often took the form of her parents handing her a book to read. Gaps in her knowledge bubbled up at unexpected moments at the UW, like after an ancient history class when she had to look up the location of the Mediterranean Sea.

Compassion and support from her professors made her feel less alone—and changed how she saw her own abilities in and out of the classroom. “My professors saw me as a whole human, not just as someone who was smart or academically capable,” says Dennerlein, her voice cracking with emotion as she recalls how meaningful it was to hear a favorite professor say, “I could never be disappointed in you.”

Dennerlein is now about to start her second year at the UW School of Law, which she says feels like “bonus points” after finishing her UW degree: “I made it further than I was supposed to, given my upbringing.” Her journey from that first day of class to law school was enabled by encouragement from her professors and support from mentorship programs and scholarships. Together, these support systems gave her a sense of belonging—and the confidence that she could make a difference in other people’s lives.

Dennerlein is used to feeling like an outsider. She describes a childhood and adolescence cut off from society in a “cultlike” community in Virginia. That formative experience remained with her even when she found a way out, traveling the country as a violinist with a band and eventually moving to the Pacific Northwest, where her military spouse was stationed.

“Part of my identity was shaped by feeling excluded, so I don’t want anyone else to feel that way,” says Dennerlein, at the same time acknowledging her privilege in society as a white woman. “I want to go to bat for people who are excluded or discriminated against—or who don’t have access to the law.”

At the UW, the politics, philosophy and economics major appealed to her desire to better understand the rules of the society her parents had taught her to mistrust. Public service and advocacy seemed like a natural next step—a way to help others who’ve been excluded. But Dennerlein didn’t have any examples to draw from in her life, no attorneys in her family to call or personal networks to mine.

The Dressel Scholars and Legal Pathways programs at UW Tacoma filled that gap. Both programs aim to break down barriers for students who are the first in their families to attend college or who come from communities historically excluded from higher education. As a Dressel Scholar, Dennerlein connected with five Tacoma-area attorneys who mentored her and provided practical insights into the legal profession. “Mentorship makes a big difference,” she says,

Teresa Dennerlein’s journey from an isolated childhood to law school was made possible by mentorship, scholarship and compassion

Bring law school within reach. When you strengthen scholarship and mentorship programs, you don’t just provide crucial financial assistance to students like Teresa Dennerlein—you help them find their way. giving.uw.edu/june-2023

“when you didn’t grow up with attorneys and you don’t know what the field looks like.”

The Legal Pathways program helped Dennerlein solidify her interest in law versus a related field like public policy. Funded by the Washington State Legislature to increase access to legal education and careers, the program offers a mix of speakers, workshops and mentorship. It also helped Dennerlein navigate the often-unwritten rules of the law school application process and fully understand the financial implications of going to law school.

Dennerlein believes that by diversifying the legal field, the program will change the face of law—and make it more meaningful. “People with privileged backgrounds look at the law differently,” she explains. “Until we have more judges who grew up poor and understand that a $5 fine can change someone’s life, judges will perpetuate rules that don’t actually get at fairness.”

Tales of Triumph

By Patrick Crumb Chair, UW Foundation Board

It’s been a decade since Daniel James Brown’s “The Boys in the Boat” hit bookshelves, introducing audiences worldwide to a University of Washington epic: the story of the 1936 Husky varsity rowing team, which won gold in the Berlin Olympics.

With guidance from the Legal Pathways director and her other mentors, Dennerlein applied and was accepted to several law schools, including at Georgetown University and Seattle University. She chose UW Law when she found out she’d received the prestigious Gates Public Service Law Scholarship, a full-ride award given to just five first-year students each year.

Thanks to the scholarship, Dennerlein has been able to focus solely on her studies and not worry about finances. She notes how critical this support is: “A lot of students really want to do public-interest work but can’t, for example, take unpaid internships because they aren’t getting a stipend.”

This summer, Dennerlein will head to Pittsburgh to work for the United Steelworkers union as a Peggy Browning Fellow. It’s her opportunity to experience the kind of work she wants to do in the future as a labor lawyer: advocating for workers and addressing power imbalances between workers and their employers.

“I want to use my law degree to help as many people as I can,” Dennerlein says. “I’m empowered to do that because of the scholarships I’ve received. Generosity has changed my life.”

The book was a No. 1 New York Times bestseller and will soon be a George Clooney–directed major motion picture (MGM hasn’t yet set the release or premiere dates). It’s no wonder this story has captivated audiences: You don’t have to be a rower or a Husky to get swept up in an underdog tale that celebrates the values of working hard, trusting your teammates and pulling together toward a common goal. But these young men weren’t going for gold on their own—the Husky community was behind them all the way. Tens of thousands of fans thronged the shores of Lake Washington to cheer them on during their sweep of Cal in the Pacific Coast Regatta, and donors throughout the Seattle area helped send the student-athletes to compete on the East Coast and overseas. (Read more about the famed ’36 varsity boat on p. 44.)

The values that buoyed the 1936 varsity team were not new to the UW then, and they define us to this day.

Take Teresa Dennerlein, at left. As a nontraditional student at UW Tacoma, she faced many barriers in pursuing her goal of being an attorney and community leader. But with the help of scholarships, mentors and the opportunities provided by UW Tacoma’s Legal Pathways initiative, Dennerlein graduated last year and started at the UW School of Law last fall. Her story shows what’s possible when talented students’ hard work is bolstered by your generosity and support.

“The Boys in the Boat” may be one of the most well-known UW tales of triumph, but it certainly isn’t the only one. From authors to attorneys to astronauts, countless Huskies have made their mark on the world, thanks to a combination of intellect, curiosity, teamwork and a UW community that supported them every step of the way. And with the help of people like you, countless more are writing their own success stories today.

DENNIS WISE

“I want to use my law degree to help as many people as I can. I’m empowered to do that because of the scholarships I’ve received. Generosity has changed my life.”

Fraud Finder

Supervisory

Special Agent Josh Crabtree’s

team fights against passport fraud and more

By Rachel Gallaher

A U.S. passport is one of the most powerful— and most sought-after—identification documents in the world. The dark blue, gold-embossed booklet gives citizens the freedom to travel and gain assistance from the U.S. government when they go abroad. In the wrong hands, however, a U.S. passport can be equally valuable—but for all the wrong reasons. Josh Crabtree, ’08, spends a lot of time thinking about this. As a supervisory special agent with the Diplomatic Security Service, Crabtree runs a Seattle-based office of special agents and investigative specialists conducting passport and visa fraud investigations.

“Think of things like identity theft, human trafficking and other criminal ventures,” says Crabtree, who has been a member of the U.S. Foreign Service for 15 years. “First and foremost, we are the law enforcement arm of the U.S. Department of State, and we have the largest global presence of any law enforcement agency—our reach and breadth are unmatched.”

Founded in 1916, the Diplomatic Security Service has 2,500 special agents, security engineering officers, security technical specialists and diplomatic couriers working and traveling worldwide. Their main objectives are to serve as the law enforcement liaison and security adviser to U.S. ambassadors overseas, where they also manage complex security programs that protect diplomats, facilities and information. They also provide protective security details for the Secretary of State, the U.S. United Nations ambassador and foreign dignitaries who travel to the U.S. Domestically assigned agents mostly conduct criminal investigations that safeguard the U.S. travel system against everything from identity theft to nefarious efforts of foreign governments and large-scale criminal enterprises. While it sounds like the stuff of blockbuster movies, these days Crabtree’s work consists mostly of supporting his staff of 13.

Just because he’s more desk-bound lately, it doesn’t mean his job is any less interesting—or fulfilling. The office also augments protective services where needed. Last year, Crabtree deployed agents to Chile, Qatar, Kenya, Belgium and Thailand.

When he was single, Crabtree enjoyed international and last-minute assignments. Now married with two children, he’s happy to stick to the Seattle office. “I had a difficult assignment at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul,” he recalls, “and that took me away from my family. As the director of the embassy’s tactical operations center, I was responsible for managing government response and briefing major decision-makers on critical events that were happening at that moment. We saved a lot of people

and facilitated the capture of a lot of terrorists and other hostiles.”

Raised in Mukilteo, Crabtree joined the Army after high school. Four years later, he enrolled at Edmonds Community College, then transferred to the UW, where he graduated with a B.A. in both political science and law, societies and justice. A 2006 internship landed him at the DSS Seattle office.

Over the next 15 years, Crabtree had assignments domestically (Los Angeles, Charleston, South Carolina and Washington, D.C.) and internationally (Iraq, Poland, Eritrea, Moldova and Afghanistan). When a post opened in Seattle, he jumped at the chance to return home.

“I don’t know if most of the general public even knows we exist,” he says. “We are a very small agency—not like a three-letter agency you may see in Hollywood, but we’re out there. If you’re overseas and you get jammed up and need to come to a U.S. embassy for assistance, there’s a chance that you could encounter some of my extraordinary colleagues. We’re out there to help.”

RON WURZER

Josh Crabtree oversees an office that is part of the law enforcement arm of the U.S. State Dept., which has the largest global presence of any U.S. law enforcement agency.

This

is our hometown, where we’re from and where we live. And we believe everyone deserves a place to call home. That’s why we’re committed to supporting local efforts to shelter families. Our ongoing collaboration with Mary’s Place — a Seattle-based emergency shelter provider— helps bring women, children and families inside. We care about our community. Because this is our hometown.

To learn more, visit: marysplaceseattle.org

business plan when we started—and this is the stuff you learn going to Foster Business School—but it’s all theoretical. You really don’t know how much you’re going to sell. So we started our brewery with Manny’s and Roger’s as our two main beers, and now it’s Bodhi and Johnny Utah and we’re the Point Break brewery. That was not in the business plan.”

At the company’s 45,000-square-foot brewery and tasting room in Georgetown, state-of-the-art equipment washes and fills one keg per minute and fills upward of 240 cans per minute. Still, Chao says, it’s the human touch that remains the most important ingredient of all.

“Yakima Valley has become the largest hop-growing region in the world,” he says. “It’s important to us to develop a relationship with the growers, and we’re out there for almost an entire month walking the fields, getting to know the farmers, bringing them beer. It’s really cool for them to see the end product.”

Taking better care of things is a big part of Chao’s mindset, whether it’s brewing beer for charity—Bob’s Brown Ale has raised more than $1 million for Ronald McDonald House, while The Home Shows Seattle Pale Ale was a limited edition run

for a two-night Pearl Jam concert in 2018 that raised money to help fight homelessness in Seattle—or supporting his staff.

“It comes down to every little thing you do. How you pick your hops, how you train your brewers, having good filtration systems,” he says. “At the beginning, it was just Roger and me trying to build a company. Now we try to reinvest and give people who work for us opportunities. We have great employee retention because we’ve got a good culture.”

Chao has come a long way from the first sip of Redhook’s Blackhook Porter, which “changed my life” and set him on a path to craft beer stardom. Now, Georgetown’s own beers have become cultural touchstones in the Pacific Northwest.

“We’re blown away by all this,” says Chao, gesturing to his good friend Bialous. “A few years ago, I was at the UW driving range, and there was a group of students there hitting golf balls. When they were done, I heard one of them say, ‘Let’s go get some Utahs.’ I just smiled. We just want to grow the company in a smart way and stay true to ourselves. That’s always been our goal.”

Judging from the chorus of hearty goodbyes Chao receives as he’s leaving the bar, that pint glass is definitely half-full. Cheers!

MERYL SCHENKER

Brewery co-founders

Manny Chao and Roger Bialous are former Ultimate Frisbee teammates who played a pivotal role in pouring Seattle’s craft beer revolution.

A Fierce Protector of Children

Carol Lace Jenkins dedicated her career to helping parents and guardians

Six feet tall with blonde hair and a broad smile, Carol Lace Jenkins lit up every room she stepped into. A beloved wife, mother and fierce advocate for the protection of children, Jenkins died on Jan. 28, just 19 days after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She was 77.

Born in Piqua, Ohio, Jenkins attended Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa, and worked in Cincinnati, where she met her first husband, John Mason, at a political fundraiser. The couple married in 1971, then moved to Seattle. Once there, Jenkins enrolled at the University of Washington, graduating in 1976 with a master’s degree in early childhood development.

Jenkins spent her career promoting the protection of children. For 25 years, she worked at Seattle Children’s, heading the hospital’s Children’s Protection Program. There, Jenkins helped develop the Washington Medical-Legal Partnership,

an organization to help underserved communities understand their legal rights regarding safe housing, adequate schooling and medical needs, and connecting them with lawyers, doctors and social workers to ensure they have the tools to be successful parents and guardians.

“Carol saw the best in people and brought out the best in people,” says Christine Baker, a coordinator in the Protection and Advocacy Outreach program at Children’s. She worked with Jenkins for more than a decade.

Before her tenure at Seattle Children’s, Jenkins served as the executive director of the Washington Association of Child Abuse Councils, where her work led to the passage of a law prohibiting corporal punishment in Washington schools.

Jenkins also headed efforts to raise awareness about shaken-baby syndrome, leading the annual Pinwheels for Prevention campaign that takes place each April.

MALIK NKRUMAH DAVIS, ’94, dedicated his life to social activism. The Seattle native earned a political science degree from the UW, served as director of constituent relations at the UW Alumni Association and was a fundraiser for the UW’s College of Arts & Sciences. At the time of his death, he was a legislative aide for Seattle City Councilmember Alex Pedersen. Davis died Feb. 21 at the age of 52.

VIVIAN WILLIAMS, ’62, was known best for co-founding the Seattle Folklore Society and the region’s beloved Northwest Folklife Festival. Born to parents who fled Nazi Germany, Williams started her musical journey in the fourth grade, playing classical violin. In 1962, she earned a master’s degree in anthropology from the UW and became a noted historian of the Northwest music scene. Williams died Jan. 6 at the age of 84.

CHARLES ASK ’58, Des Moines, age 90, Feb. 11

MICHAEL JUDE MATTESON ’58, ’60, Tacoma, age 86, Feb. 5

DARRELL W. MYERS ’58, Seattle, age 91, Jan. 7

In Memory

ALUMNI

RONALD O. DAVIS

Rancho Palos Verdes, California, age 98, Feb. 6

1940

MASAKO TANAKA ’42, ’08, Seattle, age 100, Dec. 12

AILEEN MILLER MCGINNIS ’46, Seattle, age 98, Feb. 17

RAYMOND GEORGE HENSEL ’48, Dupont, age 99, Feb. 8

JOHN D. PECKENPAUGH ’48, Auburn, age 93, Jan. 9

HERBERT A. SWANSON ’48, Olympia, age 99, March 20

PATRICIA JANE DOTSON

’49, Medina, age 96, Feb. 14

DONALD WENDEL MALMBERG ’49, Surprise, Arizona, age 97, March 12

1950

ANDREW RALPH AEBI ’50, Bellevue, age 97, Jan. 15

PAULINE MAKIE SHIOSAKI ’50, Vashon, age 94, Dec. 15

JOHN PAULDING THERRIEN ’50, Kirkland, age 95, Feb. 14

MARK “SHIM” ELYN ’51, Seattle, age 90, Jan. 13

KAY TOMITA HASHIMOTO ’52, Seattle, age 94, Feb. 10

BARBARA SACKSTEDER ’52, Seattle, age 94, March 2023

SAM CUNDIFF SAUNDERS ’52, Kirkland, age 91, Jan. 22

CHARLES H. SCHIFF ’52, Kirkland, age 95, Dec. 24

BLANCHE ANN WESTBURG ’52, Mercer Island, age 92, March 1

JAMES REBER CALLAGHAN ’53, Seattle, age 91, March 12

RICHARD FAGAN ’53, Vashon, age 91, Jan. 19

ROBERT BRUCE OVENS ’53, ’56, Kirkland, age 91, Feb. 10

RICHARD TODD WHEELER ’53, Anacortes, age 92, March 15

RICHARD S. LOUDON ’54, Seattle, age 92, May 17, 2022

SHANNON E. STAFFORD ’54, ’56, Bellevue, age 90, Jan. 30

GEORGE ERNEST CASPERSON ’55, Edmonds, age 91, Dec. 10, 2020

JOHN PETER HENNES ’55, Seattle, age 89, Jan. 19

FREDERICK FALLER NORD ’55, Auburn, age 88, Feb. 3, 2021

ROBERT L. HORCHOVER ’56, ’60, Tacoma, age 88, Dec. 19

AUDREY JEAN PALMER ’56, Pacifica, California, age 87, Jan. 7

ROBERT LEWIS ’57, Mercer Island, age 91, March 12

RONALD EUGENE MILLER ’57, Seattle, age 89, Jan. 26

PHILIP C. “SKIP” NORTON ’57, Seattle, age 93, Sept. 12

DONALD HAROLD SIMPSON ’57, Seattle, age 86, Dec. 1

KIRK STUART ADAMS ’58, Woodinville, age 89, Dec. 25

E. ANDREW OLSON III ’58, Dublin, Ohio, age 87, Jan. 12

CAROL LEE RANDALL ’58, ’66, Seattle, age 86, Jan. 24

CLARK FREDRICK GOODMAN ’59, Portland, Oregon, age 86, Feb. 11

RICHARD JAN PERRY ’59, Seattle, age 85, March 30

1960

GLENN ALAN HARTQUIST ’60, Seattle, age 89, Jan. 5

RAYMOND ALBERT MEUSE ’60, Seattle, age 93, Jan. 1

SANFORD “SONNY” ROSE ’60, Seattle, age 84, Jan. 22

BERNADINE A. SMITH ’60, ’76, Seattle, age 85, Jan. 22

DARLENE MARIE DEENY ’61, Kirkland, age 84, March 8

GEORGE ROBERT GERBER ’61, Indian Wells, California, age 86, Jan. 10

FRANK L. “LARRY” CASSIDY JR. ’62, Vancouver, Washington, age 83, Jan. 19

MARILYN DIANE DILLARD ’62, Auburn, age 81, June 21, 2022

KATHERENE MITALAS ’63, Des Moines, age 81, Feb. 20

LINDA A. BARTELS ZUAR ’63, age 78, Feb. 25

CAROL M. HAWKINS ’64, Renton, age 81, Sept. 19

HELEN KESTER ’64, Bellevue, age 81, Feb. 23

TRAVIS OGDEN THOMPSON ’64, Wailea, Hawaii, age 87, Feb. 11

PHILIP YARNELL KILLIEN ’65, ’68, Seattle, age 79, Jan. 27

DANA G. ANDREWS ’66, Seattle, age 78, Jan. 15

JACQUELYN LOUISE CAMPBELL ‘66, Issaquah, age 78, March 13

JULIA BRENNER MORRIS ’66, Spokane, age 89, Jan. 21

RONALD G. PICKETT ’66, San Diego, age 79, May 31, 2022

FLORA MAY BRADLEY ’67, Seattle, age 95, Jan. 2

JOHN DUKES MERCER ’67, Redmond, age 77, Jan. 1

DAVID DEAN OSTERBERG ’67, ’69, ’74, Stanwood, age 77, February 2023

RICHARD EUGENE EVERS ’69, Portland, Oregon, age 75, Aug. 30

LAWRENCE “ED” PARKS JR. ’69, Seattle, age 74, Oct. 29, 2020

1970

SANDFORD “SANDY” EGUCHI ’70, Portland, Oregon, age 74, Jan. 2

JANET ANN FABLING ’70, Bonney Lake, age 77, Feb. 25

DAN C. GREEN ’70, Bremerton, age 74, Jan. 14

DENNIS NOTEBOOM ’70, Livingston, Montana, age 77, Feb. 2

STEPHANIE SCHMIDT ’70, Seattle, age 74, Feb. 4

KRISTY JEAN HENDRICKSON ’71, ’82, Lake Forest Park, age 73, Jan. 12

ROBERT SANDUSKY ’71, Newport News, Virginia, age 83, Jan. 11

JACK DONNELLY ’72, Whidbey Island, age 78, Jan. 10

GREGORY LYNN FIKE ’72, Rogers, Arkansas, age 74, Feb. 1

RONALD DOUGLAS RIEDASCH ’72, Seattle, age 80, Jan. 5

ALVIN MORTON SION ’72, San Francisco, age 94, Jan. 9

HARRY A. “GUS” WALL ’72, Seattle, age 82, Jan. 3

CHRISTINE JOY YADA ’72, Federal Way, age 73, March 10

RICHARD L. HAWLEY ’73, Oro Valley, Arizona, age 73, Jan. 13

COLLIN TONG ’73, Seattle, age 76, Dec. 24

LINDA GIBSON ’74, Seattle, age 83, Feb. 8

PAUL FREDERICK NELSON ’74, Lynnwood, age 72, Feb. 19

TERESA L. “TRACY” DALTON ’75, New Orleans, age 73, Jan. 16

KENNETH CONRAD ELVERUM ’75, ’77, Helena, Montana, age 76, Nov. 17

THOMAS MORTON ’75, Bainbridge Island, age 78, Sept. 24

G. THOMAS REAVELL ’75, Bellevue, age 79, Nov. 30

JOHN L. WIRE ’75, Portland, Oregon, age 77, Dec. 8

CHARLES “RICK” GILBERT ’76, ’77, Kirkland, age 84, March 17

MICHAEL ALBERT OLSON ’79, Seattle, age 66, Feb. 9

1980

MARILYN CHILDS ’80, ’84, ’85, Woodinville, age 75, March 13

LINDA RAE HAUGEN ’80, Issaquah, age 81, Feb. 9

HENRY “MARK” WILLIAMS ’80, Clinton, age 70, Jan. 18

WILLIAM “BILL” GILBERT ’81, Olympia

CATHERINE A. MACDONALD ’81, Kirkland, age 93, Feb. 20

WILLIAM MCKINLEY REIFEL ’81, Bellevue, age 64, Dec. 31

STANLEY W. TOOPS ’83, ’90, Federal Way, age 64, Jan. 31

KATHY M. MACDUFF ’84, Seattle, age 70, Feb. 24

BARBARA BOARDMAN ’85, Media, Pennsylvania, age 65, March 26

ANDREA BRENNEKE ’88, Seattle, age 57, March 3

DENNIS SCOTT KEETON ’91, Greensboro, North Carolina, age 69, Feb. 26

FRANK PARENTE

’94, Portland, Oregon, age 51, March 3

MARIA D’AMATO ’97, Martinez, California, age 62, Nov. 12

2000

TYLER ROBERTS ’03, Chelan, age 41, March 3

2010

EDWIN LEROY ORTIZ ’10, Lynnwood, age 35, Dec. 6

FACULTY & FRIENDS

HAZARD ADAMS, ’59, ’64, was a UW professor of comparative literature from 1974 to 1990 and again from 1994 to 1995. A former first lieutenant in the Marine Corps, he also was a Fulbright research scholar in Ireland. He died Feb. 24 at age 97.

CAROLYN ALLEN, ’65, was a professor emeritus of English who received the 1980 UW Distinguished Teaching Award. In her 46 years on the faculty, she served as co-editor of the feminist academic journal Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society. She also was the English Department’s director of graduate studies. She died Jan. 9 at the age of 79.

JEFF ALTMAN spent 25 years as a primary care physician at Hall Health Primary Care Center. He also served as an adjunct faculty member in the UW School of Medicine. After his 2000 retirement, he was an avid hiker, backpacker and skier. He died Feb. 6.

DAVID WILLIAM AMORY SR., ’61, ’71, served in the Army from 1945 to 1947, participating in the postwar occupation of Japan. He joined the faculty of the UW Department of Anesthesiology in 1974 and received numerous teaching awards. He died Feb. 19 at the age of 95.

MARTIN W. BAKER, ’69, ’71, was the first executive director of the Washington Environmental Council from 1973 to 1976. He later served 20 years as deputy director of Seattle Public Utilities. He died Oct. 29 at the age of 75.

EARL R. CARLSON, ’48, who had a long career as a professor of social psychology at Michigan State University and California State University, Long Beach, established the Earl R. Carlson Professorship and the Eleanor Carlson Endowed Fellowship in the UW Department of Psychology. He died Dec. 25 at the age of 95.

DONN CHARNLEY, ’51, ’59, spent 32 years as a professor of geology at Shoreline Community College. He also served 10 years in the Washington State House of Representatives and four years as a state senator. He died Feb. 5 at the age of 94.

JOHN CHIN was an electrical engineer in the UW Geophysics Department, where he designed scientific instruments for the Space Sciences Program. He died Feb. 16 at the age of 90.

J. RANDALL CURTIS, ’91, ’92, ’94, was a professor of medicine in the UW Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine and holder of the A. Bruce Montgomery— American Lung Association Endowed Chair in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine. He earned an international reputation for his work on palliative care and end-of-life care. He died Dec. 6 at the age of 62.

DANIEL GOULD DOW became the chair of the UW Department of Electrical Engineering in 1958. He also held leadership roles in the UW Applied Physics Lab and the Washington Energy Council. He died Jan. 2 at the age of 92.

ELORA MARGARET ERICKSON, ’44, was active in the UWAA’s Purple & Gold Society and the efforts to create a World War II Memorial at the UW. She died Jan. 21 at age 100.

PHILIP FLECKMAN was a beloved UW faculty member, mentor and pillar of the Seattle dermatology community. An icon and backbone of UW dermatology for 40 years, he had a warm, gentlemanly

The UW and UW Alumni Association mourn the loss of a leader whose work helped make UW Tacoma a reality.

JOAN CHATALAS WESTOVER, ’58, past UW Alumni Trustee, was deeply involved in the leadership of the UW Alumni Association’s Tacoma alumni group and participated in the profound work to support the creation of UW Tacoma. Her son Brandt, ’83, was president of the UW Young Alumni Club and her grandson Jack is a current Husky football player. She died March 1 at the age of 86.

approach to teaching generations of young dermatologists. He died March 19 at the age of 76.

KRISTIE JOAN FORREST, ’73, a majorette with the 1971 Husky Marching Band, received the 2012 Frank Orrico Award, which is given to Tyee Club members who have demonstrated outstanding support of UW athletics. She died in January 2023 at the age of 71.

CHARLES HUBBARD FREY served in the National Guard and joined the UW English department faculty in 1970 to teach Shakespeare. He died Feb. 15 at the age of 87.

DANIEL GRANEY was a legendary professor of medicine who taught anatomy at the UW School of Medicine for nearly 50 years. He was voted Most Outstanding Professor so often that the University retired him from competing anymore. Recipient of the UW’s 1994 Distinguished Teaching Award, he was also the director of the UW’s Willed Body Program and played a major role in the School of Medicine’s WWAMI program, teaching anatomy to students in Wyoming. He died Jan. 10 at the age of 86.

JOSEPH J. HANNAH, ’07, was an academic adviser with the UW’s Integrated Social Sciences Program and an affiliate assistant professor in the UW geography department. He died April 30, 2022 at the age of 61.

LOUISE MONTAG HIRASAWA worked in higher education administration at the UW. She died March 24 at the age of 78.

BARBARA K. JOHNSON, ’69, spent 21 years working in the UW Experimental Education Unit of the Center for Human Development and Disability. She died May 20, 2022.

KAREN ELAINE KASONIC, ’01, was the program director for the engineering communication program in the UW College of Engineering. She died Jan. 14 at the age of 48.

DOUGLAS KELBAUGH served as dean of the College of Built Environments from 1985 to 1998. He championed sustainable urban design and transit-oriented development.He died Feb. 18 at the age of 78.

JANE Q. KOENIG, ’59, ’61, ’63, was a pioneer in the study of the physiological effects of air pollution inhalation, especially in humans. She joined the faculty of the UW Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences in 1974 and retired in 2010. She served as an adviser to the EPA’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee and was a member of the Faculty Senate. She died recently.

KARL SIMON KRUGHOFF was a UW astronomer who worked on the project now known as the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, which is under construction in Chile. He died Jan. 13 at the age of 46.

RAYMOND KRYSTYNIAK worked at the UW Medical Center-Montlake and retired in 2001. He died Oct. 11 at the age of 75.

GRETA LARSEN was active with UW faculty wives and supported the UW theater and drama programs. She died Dec. 29 at the age of 97.

DANIEL LEE LUCTHEL, ’69, spent 38 years as a faculty member in environmental toxicology. He died Nov. 1 at age 80.

GARY ALLEN MAYKUT, ’63, served as a research professor in the UW Department of Atmospheric Sciences. He died March 10 at age 83.

PAUL MCGOUG, ’55, ’57, had stints with the Merchant Marines and the Army before coming to UW. He worked at Boeing and the Resources Conservation Co. He died Feb. 17 at the age of 95.

RICHARD ORTIZ worked in the patient nutrition department at UW Medical Center-Montlake. He died Feb. 6 at the age of 72.

GERTRUDE PACIFIC was a curator of design at the Burke Museum. She died Jan. 19 at the age of 80.

NICHOLAS PASCHE worked at the UW for 12 years on the Resource Team. He died Feb. 11.

PAUL B. ROBERTSON served as dean of the UW School of Dentistry from 1992 to 2001, a time when the school’s international reputation flourished. He died Dec. 24 at the age of 82.

JOHN THOMAS SACK was a Navy captain who served in Vietnam. He was a longtime clinical faculty member as a renowned hand surgeon. He died Feb. 3 at age 82.

RUBENS SIGELMANN, ’61, ’63, spent 32 years on the UW faculty as a professor and researcher in the Department of Electrical Engineering. He died Jan. 6 at the age of 94.

FRED UTTER, ’64, was widely recognized as the founding father of fishery genetics. An affiliate professor at the UW, he led the genetics group at National Marine Fisheries Service. He died March 5 at the age of 91.

TERESA VALOIS worked at the UW for 42 years and developed the UW’s Driver Rehabilitation Program. She died March 3 at the age of 71.

THINGS THAT DEFINE THE UW

Paint Ain’t Free

Gasoline ’17, All for one ’21, Legs feed the Dawg. Learn who’s behind those purple, white and gold slogans on the Montlake Cut

By Caitlin Klask

In the dead of night, athletes creep below the Montlake Bridge to scrape moss and ivy off the seawall. With bright purple paint, they make their mark on Seattle’s Montlake Cut, the ship canal connecting Lake Washington to Lake Union and the Puget Sound. It’s about tradition, bonding, team building and (most importantly) extremely catchy slogans.

“Mine was ‘Full Tilt Boogie 1996,’ ” says UW men’s crew coach Michael Callahan, ’96, referring to the words he and his fellow class of ’96 teammates painted on the concrete walls. “When the alums come back, one of the first things I’ll ask them is, ‘What was your class slogan?’”

Team historian Eric Cohen, ’82, isn’t

certain when the ritual began, but it has probably lasted more than half of the 124year history of the UW rowing team. Here’s how it goes down: On Class Day weekend, the team separates into classes and heads down below the Montlake Bridge. “They’ll do it in two days,” Cohen says. “You have to clean it first because it’s covered in moss and dirt and stuff, and the paint won’t stick.” They wait until nighttime when no boats are headed through the canal, making waters choppy. Then they grab a dinghy and some paint, come up with a killer slogan. And hope it doesn’t rain.

“You have to have the right timing,” says Cohen. “Back in my day, it was an adrenaline rush because if the police came by, you’d get told to go home.” His class slogan: “Awesome Crew of ’82.”

Callahan had a slightly different experience in the mid-’90s. “One time, we were [painting a slogan] and the police went by, and they were like, ‘Hey, straighten up those letters!’ ”

Both agree the experience means more than a covert adventure. “People are coming [to row at the UW] from all over the world, so we’re trying to get them to buy in together

and understand the camaraderie,” says Callahan. “You’re going through this experience not just as an individual but as a group and as a team. Sharing your teamwork and sweat all together.”

“It is that collective hard work that leads to the camaraderie … the dark cold mornings day after day pushing yourself to be better along with the rower in front of you and the rower behind you,” says Cohen. Hiram Conibear established those values of hard work and camaraderie (as well as a snappier stroke method) when he arrived at the UW in 1907. Hard work and camaraderie are still as essential to UW rowing as the Conibear stroke over 100 years later.

As for whether painting braggadocious (yet shrewd!) slogans on city property is illicit, Callahan sees the bright side. The team has a partnership with the Army Corps of Engineers (whose purview includes the cut) in which the rowers clean up the landscaping and trash. They’re thoughtful about their presence in the cut, which depleted the salmon population as it drained Lake Washington by nearly 9 feet in 1917. “It’s our home course,” says Callahan, “and we want to take care of it.”

Words of inspiration adorning the seawalls of the Montlake Cut greet rowers at a recent competition.

FOR A BRIGHTER YOU

Certificates,