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

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

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Fax 206-685-0611 4333 Brooklyn Ave. N.E. UW Tower 01, Box 359559 Seattle, WA 98195-9559 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.

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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.

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 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

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

A Sobering Read

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 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 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.

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

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.”

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.