Telling the Story of Diversity at the University of Washington | Spring 2017
MAGNIFICENT MENTORS
Teachers and scholars cross boundaries, break barriers
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SPRING 2017
FOUNDED 2004
Published by the UW Alumni Association
P U B L I S H E D B Y T H E U W A LU M N I A S S O C I AT I O N I N PA R T N E R S H I P W I T H T H E U W O F F I C E O F M I N O R I T Y A F FA I R S & D I V E R S I T Y
viewpoint
:: Telling the Story of Diversity at the University of Washington
in partnership with the UW Office of
POINT OF VIEW
Minority Affairs & Diversity
‘It only takes one person’
4311 11th Ave. NE, Suite 220 Box 354989 Seattle, WA 98195-4989 Fax: 206-685-0611 Email: vwpoint@uw.edu Viewpoint on the Web: UWalum.com/viewpoint
viewpoint STA F F Paul Rucker P U B LI S H E R
Andrea Otanez G U EST E DI T OR
Hannelore Sudermann M A N A GI NG E D I T O R
Carol Nakagawa ART DIRECTOR
viewpoint ADVISORY COMMITTEE Paul Rucker, ’95, ’02 Associate Vice President Alumni and Constituent Relations, Chair
Rickey Hall Vice President for Minority Affairs & Diversity Chief Diversity Officer
Eleanor J. Lee, ’00, ’05 Communications Specialist UW Graduate School
Tamara Leonard Associate Director Center for Global Studies Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies
Erin Rowley Director for Communications Office of Minority Affairs & Diversity
Rhonda Smith, ’02 Associate Director for Major Gifts Office of Minority Affairs & Diversity
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ENTORS HAVE ALWAYS played an important role in my life. My high school principal, Dr. Walter Cunningham, saw potential in all students, but he saw something special in me. He believed I could be a leader, encouraged me to “keep my eyes on the prize”—an education—and put me on the path to college. I am so grateful for his help. My education has opened up the world to me. When I was a graduate student assistant with the Office of Campus Programs and Student Activities at the University of Iowa, Associate Direc- Rickey Hall meets with senior Tahier Seid, chair of the OMA&D tor Mary Peterson took me under her wing. We Student Advisory Board. had many conversations about institutional politics and how to navigate them, which gave me a foundation of underIn This Issue standing for a career in higher education. 3 Guest Editor When I was a member of Dr. Nancy “Rusty” Barceló’s senior leadership 4 Cover Story team at the University of Minnesota Office for Equity and Diversity, she en§ Joe Lott § Ralina Joseph gaged me in situations and discussions that I didn’t realize at the time were § Ivette Bayo Urban preparing me for roles like the one I am currently honored to occupy. Mine is a role she held at the UW from 2001 to 2006. 11 Meet the Harrells These folks, in their own ways, taught me the significance of mentorship. 12 Bookends They showed me that I had talent and skills, but it was up to me to develop § Tiffany Dufu and hone them. When I mentor students and young professionals today, 13 Viewpoint Interview my goal is to do the same. § Magdalena Fonseca Mentors and mentorship programs like the Samuel E. Kelly Ethnic Cultural Center’s Mentor Power for Success or the UW Brotherhood Initiative play 14 In the News such a crucial role in the success of our students. Whether you're a faculty 15 Memoriam & Calendar member, staff member, alumnus or peer, all it takes is one person to make a difference in a student’s life. 16 Odegaard Award E RI N RO W LEY
Phone: 206-543-0540
Rickey Hall Vice President for Minority Affairs & Diversity Chief Diversity Officer
On the Cover Joe Lott, associate professor of education, stands with students in the Brotherhood Initiative. —Photo by Betty Udesen
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Guest Editor Andrea Otanez Instead, my mentoring relationships have developed over time, or seemingly by accident. One was ignited by an affirming comment written in the margins of an academic paper when a teaching assistant in Philosophy 101 wrote to me in bright blue felt-tip marker: “You have a fertile mind.” The blue words on that white paper remain vivid because most first-generation college students don’t realize we have the capability to choose, ask for or claim a mentor. Many of us can’t believe anyone would pick us out of the crowd. But we can. And they do. Pivotal moments in my academic and professional life emerged when someone shined their light: The 10thgrade English teacher who read my essay about Faulkner’s “The Bear” aloud. The graying newspaper editor who gave me my first job at a metro daily when I was 20. The cranky Chicano-history professor who sparred with me over deconstructionist theory. The dean who entrusted me with an academic program. The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who claims me as a colleague, friend and one of the best hires she’s ever made. In all cases, it was up to me to nurture the nascent connection into a lasting relationship. In all cases, the relationships—some dissipated by death or distance—bolster me still. So it is at the University of Washington, where bonds of multidirectional mentoring are being forged in the classrooms and offices of all three campuses. From a spirit of commitment, connection and inspiration, we bring you stories of mentorship in this edition of Viewpoint. Through the Brotherhood Initiative, Associate Professor of Education Joe Lott is creating community for young men of color new to university life. i-School graduate student Ivette Bayo Urban is learning about technology from Latina working-class women she originally set out to teach. Ralina Joseph, associate professor of communication, is leading students and alumni through innovative conversations about race and helping transform the UW into a powerhouse of scholarship on difference and equity. Friends and alumni—like Tiffany Dufu and Magdalena Fonseca—share their experience with students, advocate for them, and provide them with resources to thrive. Faculty of color, especially those studying race and
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No one has ever said to me: “Come here and sit down. I want to be your mentor.”
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difference, are forming lifelong relationM ENTO R I NG I S ships with undergraduate and graduate stuA G I F T OF EM PATHY dents, but also with junior and peer faculty A ND E D UC ATI ON I N who finally found colleagues they can reB O TH DI R ECTI ONS , late to, personally and academically. We do A S YO U W I LL SE E I N the work on behalf of one another because THE S TOR I ES W I THI N. someone did it on behalf of us. When I arrived on campus in 2013 as a non-tenure track, full-time lecturer, mentor relationships seemed hard to come by. Then I remembered the secret to finding a mentor—reaching out to someone you admire. With a knock on someone’s door, my actions, just like the actions of my students, say: “Teach me.” I have moved through the role of mentee and mentor many times in my 30 years as reporter, editor and college professor. I’m as thankful for the students, young faculty and reporters I mentor as the people I turn to for guidance. Mentoring is a gift of empathy and education in both directions, as you will see in the stories that follow. Please accept this edition of Viewpoint as a salute to all of you who have opened that door and offered your visitor a seat at the table.
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Andrea Otanez is a lecturer and journalism-program coordinator in the Communication Department. A former assistant metro editor at The Seattle Times, she has also taught Chicano Studies and media literacy, oversees the UW Olympia legislative reporting internship, and is an associate director of the Center for Communication, Difference, and Equity. Earlier in her career, Otanez worked as an acquisitions editor for the University of New Mexico Press.
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Helping first-year students of color thrive on campus
BROTHERS,MENTORS,FRIENDS BY JUL I E G A RNE R
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P HOTOS BY BET TY UDE SE N
Agustin Castro, a first-year UW student who was born in Mexico and grew up in Everett, says an African proverb explains why he likes the University’s Brotherhood Initiative: “If you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to far, go together.” The new UW program aims to help underrepresented male students adjust to college life and help graduate more students of color.
WE Starting last fall, a group of about 30 first-year students began meeting regularly with Joe Lott, an associate professor of education who leads the initiative. The group meets on Wednesdays for a two-hour lecture on different topics, from how to get involved in research and choose a major to managing stress and transitioning to life at a large university in a big city. They also socialize over pizza and bowling.
UW student D'andre Garcia Stubbs shares the story of his family's journey with classmates and teacher/mentor Joe Lott (foreground).
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MENTOR Ü JOE LOTT The gap in graduation rates holds true for young men of color nationwide. Though the rates for men of color at the UW are better than at some peer institutions, they have remained stagnant and lag behind the rates for women of color. The graduation rate for black men who enrolled at the UW between 2006 and 2007 was 67 percent, compared with 77 percent for black women. American Indian and Hawaiian and Pacific Islander male students in the same time period lagged behind their female counterparts by seven percentage points. Latinos had a graduation rate of 76 percent, slightly lower than Latinas’ 78 percent. The Initiative, designed by Lott and a team of doctoral and postdoctoral students, addresses the sense of isolation many college students from underrepresented communities experience. It seeks to improve the students’ social and academic success while yielding information about the factors that seem to promote the success of young men of color in college. Lott’s expertise includes equity studies and education and policy reform. He and his team first interviewed faculty and students of color at the UW about their experiences, researched practices at other schools, and reviewed studies before launching the Brotherhood Initiative. “Because of the group, there is a sense of comAssociate Professor Joe Lott, founder of the Brotherhood Initiative, leads his class. Two weeks later, munity. We are all in the same book, if not on he presented this year’s OMA&D’s Samuel E. Kelly Distinguished Faculty Lecture, “Invisible Men: Black the same page,” says D'andre Garcia Stubbs, and Brown Males in the Academy.” a freshman from Yakima. “Without the Brotherhood, Th e i de a i s n o T fo r The m T o en d ure The uW b u T T o se e Th e uW as I might have stayed in my a p l ac e f o r T hem, a nd To s T re n g The n Thei r husk y id enTi Ty. shell. I’m kind of an introvert. I will never be the first person to go out and make the first friendship, “The idea is not for them to endure the UW research findings of this first year and but once I know the person, I’m open.” Stubbs but to see the UW as a place for them, and make suggestions as to how to adapt says the group gives him a sense of communito strengthen their Husky identity,” he says. the program. ty that makes the UW smaller, which is imporNot only does he want them to succeed acLott, who grew up in Louisiana and Virgintant to him. ademically, but also serve as ambassadors ia, attended Talladega College in Alabama— Castro and Stubbs both live in McMahon Hall, and mentors to others from their home a historically black college—and Louisiana but being in the Brotherhood has turned an communities. State University, where he focused his docacquaintanceship into a friendship. “I feel I Castro wants to be a civil engineer. Stubbs toral studies on black students and civic know D'andre in a different sense, and the hasn’t decided on a major yet, but sees himparticipation. Brotherhood is what has created that atmoself in some kind of teaching role. He is When he started at the UW in 2007, Lott sphere,” says Castro. “At the UW you have to grateful that the Brotherhood will also prowas struck by how few black people he have your game face on; you’re always comvide him with mentoring as he makes his acsaw on campus and in the community. As peting. But the Brotherhood makes it feel like ademic decisions. a black man, a teacher and a father of two a shared race.” “The Brotherhood has opened my eyes. I young boys, he started thinking about how The Initiative is a partnership among the Colam not alone in the struggle. If you get to he could help young men of color be more lege of Education, Undergraduate Academic the UW, that’s an achievement, but there’s successful in school and in life. The BrotherAffairs, Office of Minority Affairs & Diversity, the always an option to be more at the UW,” hood Initiative is one effort, and will soon Graduate School and the Division of Student says Stubbs. “The UW always gives you the be followed with a program to support stuLife. A committee of academic advisers, student option to struggle for something better for dents through the ensuing years of comaffairs workers and faculty will examine the yourself.” pleting their degrees and finding jobs.
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Finding mentors and allies in a Ralina Joseph, associate professor of communication, mentors students, colleagues and alumni in their explorations of issues of race and justice.
WORLD of DIFFERENCE BY HAN N E LORE SU DER MAN N
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P HOTOS BY BE TTY UD ES E N
One night last December, 50 students and alumni gathered in a Kane Hall meeting room to wrap up a 10-week experiment—a workshop where both groups came together to learn and explore the notion of interrupting privilege. One of the senior participants, a white male, started to explain that he had some understanding of the issues because he grew up in a multicultural neighborhood. That sent a jolt through the students, one of whom fired back that living in a diverse neighborhood isn’t enough to understand privilege and disadvantage. The room started to buzz.
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T he ( ALUMN I) sI g Ne d Up fo r T hI s ex p e rIe Nc e, AN d The y ’ v e p re pA red Th eMseLves To f ee L UNc oM fo rTA b Le.
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MENTOR Ü RALINA JOSEPH And then Ralina Joseph, an associate professor in the Department of Communication, spoke. All eyes turned to her. “I think what he is saying,” she started, slightly rewording the alum’s comment to focus on how he valued his early experiences with different cultures. And then she rephrased the student’s response. “I critiqued it with love,” she says later. “I wanted the student to step back and take a breath and realize that it’s not about setting someone on fire with your words. I wanted the alum to see how troubling his comments would be to someone with a different worldview.” Back in Kane Hall, she congratulated the group. “We’re making progress and discovering new things. In a culture of color blindness, we act as if we don’t see race,” she said. “But it’s OK to admit that we do see it. We should not silence the discussion of race.” With Joseph’s help, the UW Alumni Association is hosting a “Race and Equity Leadership: Interrupting Privilege” seminar each quarter this year to offer alumni and students the chance to explore race and equity together. The program includes homework, guided discussions with Joseph, and workshops and lectures from nationally recognized experts on issues of race, equity and social justice. “The alumni deserve a lot of credit,” says Joseph. “They signed up for this experience and they’ve prepared themselves to feel uncomfortable.” The work of
Calling out instructions to students in her seminar on interrupting privilege, Joseph starts an exercise designed to open up a discussion about race relations.
interrupting privilege is meant to challenge thinking and push people out of their comfort zones, she says. “The alumni are really trying to step into it.” For the students, who may already be conversant in issues of diversity and inequity, the course offers a chance to discuss privilege with people of different ages and backgrounds—good practice for after graduation, when they’re involved in their jobs and new communities. “We all need to be in this conversation together,” says Joseph. “You can’t dismantle racism without the work of white people. Just like you can’t dismantle sexism without the
work of men, or homophobia without straight people.” Watching Joseph interact with students has helped Marcus Johnson, one of her graduate students, in his efforts to be a better teacher and facilitator. “I see how I can enjoy teaching and provide a platform for my students to tangle and grapple with things that may be on their minds,” Johnson says. “You see the storm of things going on around race, and you think, wow, she can create a space for thought and challenge, a place to build from.” Joseph arrived at the UW in 2005, the first tenure-track faculty hired to teach race and me-
dia in the Department of Communication. There wasn’t a lot of racial diversity among her colleagues. That provided a new challenge since new faculty typically seek out mentors like themselves among senior faculty. This type of mentor is especially valuable when working toward tenure and learning the politics of a department, says Joseph. But when you’re the first at something—like being the first person from a certain background doing research on your own community—you may not find that mentor. Rather than focusing on the problem, Joseph collaborated on a solution. With new tenure-Ü
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Ü RALINA JOSEPH track hires Janine Jones in educational psychology and Habiba Ibrahim in English, she formed WIRED (Women Investigating Race, Ethnicity and Difference). “We found people across campus who were looking at things like race and gender. And we were researching and teaching about ‘us,’ not about ‘them’—and that made us unique,” she says. “So we got together to form this peer-mentoring and support-and-research group.” That solution pushed her out of the shelter of her department and into campus as a whole. “I have always thought that campus was big and wide and open to me,” she says. “Now my friends and colleagues are all across campus, and we are reaching out and doing community work and helping each other.” Joseph is in the right time and place for this work. Here on campus and in the Northwest “there is a demand for more voices, and more critiques of power and privilege,” she says. “My colleagues in other places can’t believe we have sold-out lectures” on subjects like race relations. In 2015, Joseph became the founding director of the Center for Communication, Difference, and Equity. It grew out of demand and desire— particularly out of wanting to offer a resource to students who were sad, angry and dazed at the events that grew out of the Ferguson, Mo., protests and riots following the police shooting of Michael Brown. Now the center, which has a home in a conference room adjacent to Joseph’s office, is a regular hangout for students looking for support from each other and guidance from Joseph. “She has a kind, warm spirit about her,” student and mentee Havana McElvaine says. “She has this way of addressing these really sensitive, hard issues.” Tae McKenzie, another regular at the center, signed up for the alumni/student workshop because Joseph was running it. “She showed me that you can be who you are,”
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Beyond teaching, mentoring and working with people on and off campus, Ralina Joseph is finishing her second book exploring how African American women in the media challenge the idea that racism and race-based discrimination are over. she says. “You can call out what you believe and are passionate about and that’s OK.” The center is a place for all of the things that fall outside traditional classes and traditional research, says Joseph. It is a
place for faculty and graduate students from across campus to collaborate on projects focusing on difference and equity, a place where current news and politics spark teach-ins and forums— where undergraduate students
can learn to be leaders. A summer CCDE course places students at the Boys & Girls Club in Rainier Valley to explore topics like youth mentorship and structural inequalities in the neighborhood. “It’s about creating
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paths forward,” says Joseph. A first-generation college student, Joseph didn’t know she wanted to be a scholar until her senior year at Brown University, when she undertook her thesis project: an exploration of magazine images of multiracial women. After college, she worked for Americorps and taught high school English and public speaking. That and working with middle school students helped hone her teaching style. “I know when I’m engaged and when I tune out,” she says. “I want students to be engaged.” Her graduate studies led her to the University of California San Diego, where she earned her master’s and doctoral degrees in ethnic studies and was mentored by Jane Rhodes, now head of African American Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago. “I remember very well her coming to me as a prospective student,” says Rhodes, who was struck by Joseph’s energy, maturity and intellectual curiosity. Rhodes focuses her scholarship on history, while Joseph pursues contemporary culture. “While we share many interests, we’re really quite different,” says Rhodes. But those differences make working together more interesting. Recently, Joseph and Rhodes coedited a special issue of Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture and Society. The project grew out of a discussion about how to make sense of race and respectability politics (where members of marginalized groups change their behaviors to be accepted by a white-majority culture). The journal was such a success—with a high volume of contributions from senior-level scholars—that Rhodes and Joseph anticipate more collaborations, continuing their mentoring relationship for years to come. “My mentors modeled a very ethical way of living,” says Joseph. “Being an academic is an all-encompassing career. They were being
Piloting the first "Interrupting Privilege" class last winter, Ralina Joseph led students and alumni in examining issues or race and social justice. The UW Alumni Association facilitated the course which was built around a series of Graduate School lectures on topics like undocumented immigrants and white fragility.
Ralina Joseph and student/mentee Havana McElvaine meet in the Center for Communication, Diversity and Equity to finalize details for a seminar for students and alumni that McElvaine will help lead later in the day.
professors in a way that seemed to me to be changing the world.” Seeing them invest in their students as well as in the larger communities in which they lived and worked, Joseph realized her markers of success would not be just how many publications
she was producing, but also how many students she was helping. And how they would go out into the world to effect change. “I think that there is a responsibility of all us, really. It is mandated at a public research university that we all be engaged
with and giving back to our communities,” she says. “For minoritized folks, LGBTQ faculty, and faculty of color… we’re asked to be with our communities in a different way. That’s a burden, and I choose to see it as an opportunity.”
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MENTOR ÜivETTE bayO uRbaN
Betty udesen
technology on their families, and the project turned its focus on women as culturebearers. “We are all participants and digital innovators, using information and communication technologies in a spectrum of ways for a multitude of reasons,” says Bayo Urban. “We don’t know how people are impacted by technology if we don’t ask them.” Bayo Urban credits many mentors for her path. Here at the UW, Associate Professor Ricardo Gomez in the Information School guided her to work with Casa Latina. And then Angela Ginorio, professor emerita of
Stephanie Torres, ’16, left, worked alongside mentor Ivette Bayo Urban in a project empowering Latina immigrants in their use of technology and public libraries. They are seen outside the —Intellectual House on the UW campus.
“A BeAUtIfUl leArnIng commUnIty” B y ha n n elor e s u de r m a n n
When Ivette Bayo Urban started volunteering with Latina immigrants in south Seattle in 2012, the Information School doctoral student had straightforward plans to mentor them in using mobile phones and computers. Instead, the women had a few things to teach her. Barriers she thought she’d encounter weren’t there—other social and technical challenges were. Most introductory computer training covers productivity tools like Microsoft Word and Excel. But those tools and classes weren’t relevant to the women’s needs, culture or ways of knowing. The faculty and students at the Indigenous Information Research Group at the iSchool helped her deepen her thinking. The women she was mentoring were diverse in where they had come from, how they arrived in the United States, and in ways they used technology. Despite having some identities in common, they were not a monolithic group of technology users. When one woman held her phone up and said, “The phone is smart, but
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I’m not,” she was saying that in society’s eyes, the phone was capable of more than she was—so it seemed to have more value than she did, says Bayo Urban. So the graduate student made the workshops more about sharing personal stories and helping one another find different ways to use technology. “I realized an importance of creating a space where nobody is the expert, or we are all the experts,” she says. In 2015, Bayo Urban developed Latina Tech: Starting Where We Are, a series of workshops to connect Latinas and their families with public libraries, where they have access to computers and other resources. Starting with a $17,000 match grant from the city of Seattle, she and 24 UW students worked with 171 adults and spent more than 200 hours with children up to age 15. “There was so much mentoring happening across generations and throughout the project,” says Bayo Urban. “All of us were students. It was a beautiful learning community.” The effort also connected eight partner organizations, including the UW’s Pipeline Project, Seattle and King County public libraries, and Casa Latina, a nonprofit that provides educational and economic opportunities for Latino immigrants. The participants discussed the impacts of
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the in mentorship Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies, widened her thinking about how social and technical systems may harm or limit those who are not part of the dominant culture. “It made me change the way I approached the women I was working with,” she says, adding that she is now sharing that approach with Gomez. “Mentoring Ivette has been fantastic,” says Gomez. “She brings her whole self into her work. And her experiences with Latina women have helped bring a new understanding of how women, Latinas, marginalized communities and underserved populations use technology in ways that fit their culture, reality and needs, not necessarily the way designers of technologies or trainers think they should.” Bayo Urban is now helping others approach digital technologies with equity in mind. With Stephanie Torres, who completed her master’s in Library & Information Science at the UW in 2016, she started SEAT (Social Justice in Education Around Technology). One of their first projects is with the Edmonds School District’s department of diversity, equity and outreach. They want to mentor teachers, librarians and families to think more about how technology in schools may be affecting students and their families, and how it could be more culturally responsive. “I want to transform what we prioritize, let’s center on the people,” says Bayo Urban. “If we value diverse communities, we should be aware of our personal, cultural, and technological differences.”
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Q&A
Two shining examples of diversity at UW
Tell us about your college experience. JOANNE: Out of deciding what I didn’t want to do, I focused on what did I want to do. When I started at the UW, I was going to go to medical school. But by my junior year I decided I wanted to be more people centered. Communications turned out to be a good fit. When I look at my life I feel such gratitude and appreciation for the University. One of the roles of a university is to provide social mobility and access. In my case, I think our University did a very good job. BRUCE: I was on a football scholarship. I would always spend the fall quarter practicing and playing and then catching up on my credits during the winter. As an athlete you’re always busy. I was a political science major with plans to go to law school. I knew I wanted to be a lawyer since I was 12. I wanted to do something where I could effect change.
What was campus like? JOANNE: This was still a time when the Black Panthers were on campus. It was turbulent. The
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t’s early evening at the Harrell house. Bruce, president of the Seattle City Council, is in the living room on his cellphone discussing business when Joanne comes to the door fresh after a run through Seward Park. Everyone removes their shoes, following a practice set by Bruce’s mother, Rose, a JapaneseAmerican who spent part of her childhood interned at Minidoka. After the war she met Clayton Harrell, a classmate at Garfield High. They made their home in the Mount Baker neighborhood. Bruce also attended Garfield, where he graduated valedictorian. He enrolled in the UW on a football scholarship. Joanne Harrell grew up in a military family living in Washington, D.C., before her father retired to Tacoma. She graduated from Wilson High. Enrolling at UW and studying communication and business led her to a career in the technology and nonprofit sectors. From her time as a student, she has sought different ways to support her communities, including serving on the UW Board of Regents since 2009.
Joanne, ’76 and ’79, and Bruce Harrell, ’79 and ’84, recipients of the 2017 Charles E. Odegaard Award. The UW honor goes to individuals who have worked on behalf of diversity at the UW and for the citizens of the state. Read more about the Harrells on the back cover. Ethnic Cultural Center was a very important convening place. Even now, years later as a regent, that’s still there in the back of my head: Students need a place where they are comfortable and can convene. Back then there was an emerging Hispanic and Latino movement as well. I remember the protests and learning about Chavez [in support of farmworkers] and taking part in the lettuce boycott. Even back then we were multicultural. BRUCE: The University was a great place to make friends. Of course Joanne is my best friend, but two of my male best friends are Doug Martin, who was on the football team, and Kirby Collins, my roommate. I love fishing and Doug Martin and I would fish after games on Saturday night and on Sunday after film. Forty years later, these core friendships are strong and intact. That was one of the best gifts the University gave me.
What do you think about students now? JOANNE: Students now are facing very real fears and concerns. I approach things with compassion, and I seek to connect. As a regent, that’s how I look at my role. I love it when students come to us [the board]. They bring such passion and energy—and sometimes anger. But it’s so important for them to come to us. That’s how we
learn. It’s wonderful to have seen one side as a student and now to see the other side. As a student I never thought I would be a regent. Last year, students came to the board asking that the University divest from coal. I told them, “We are willing to go through this journey with you, we will partner in analyzing the divestment.” And we did. I want to help them learn to trust in the process, to engage and go in and work with the people inside.
If you could go back and talk to your student self, what would you say? JOANNE: Some things that I did worked well. I was disciplined, focused and very school oriented. But it is important to look more broadly than what is right next to you. Join student government. That is a wonderful way to become aware of your potential to impact change. I would also say, “Be bold. Remember the importance of confidence and always engage in positive self-talk.” BRUCE: I was always in a hurry. I was in a rush to graduate. In a rush to finish law school. I would say, “Enjoy the moment. There is so much around you, you should want to slow up and drink it all in.” — Hannelore Sudermann the story of diversity at the UW
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ince she left the UW, Tiffany Dufu, ’97, ’99, has made much of her gifts and opportunities as a leader, mentor and advocate for women. She worked as a fundraiser for Seattle Girls’ School and Simmons College in Boston and was president of a national women’s leadership organization called the White House Project. She has been featured in The New York Times, Essence and O, The Oprah Magazine and consults big business on diversity and women’s leadership. She is now a New Yorker and chief leadership officer at Levo, a company devoted to helping millennial women advance their careers. She is also a wife (to UW alumnus Kojo Dufu ’97) and mother of two. Now the author and activist has completed her first book, “Drop the Ball: Achieving More by Doing Less.” In telling her own story she presents advice about how to realign responsibilities so that household and child-care tasks no longer present career women with an impossible burden. The book is about how Dufu realized that striving for “good enough” was better than trying to be perfect. Redefining for herself what being a “good mother” or a “good worker” is has allowed Dufu to be more successful. Family support and inner drive have made her career flourish, she says, but there is another factor that has contributed to her career’s steady climb. She has been mentored by remarkable people, many of whom she met as a student. Transferring to the UW as a sophomore, she was impressed with the support she found. “I didn’t realize that we would have a whole building devoted to our student organizations—the
Tiffany Dufu believes success shouldn’t have to mean doing it all. An author, mother and activist, Dufu is sharing the story of how she let go of perfection, focused on what was most important to her, and got help from others. She shared her story at book signing on campus in February.
Ethnic Cultural Center—and another building devoted to instructional support,” she says. “Plus, the Office of Minority Affairs is amazing. Many small colleges don’t have these resources.” She found faculty who helped shape her, like Emile Pitre, the nowretired associate vice president of the Office of Minority Affairs & Diversity, and English Professor Joycelyn K. Moody. “I had very good students at the UW, but she was exceptional,” Moody says of Dufu. “A thesis was not a requirement for her master’s degree, but the fact that she chose to write one showed her commitment. She wrote a lot of it without any information from me. Her topic was W.E.B. DuBois.” And when it came to writing her book, Dufu says she kept thinking
of lessons from Professor Emerita Colleen McElroy, ’73, the Pushcart Prize-winning writer and poet. “I could hear her telling me ‘show, don’t tell.’ I looked up to her,” says Dufu. “It can be intimidating when a mentor pushes you past your own boundary of yourself. I was a little afraid of her.” “Mentorship is everything,” says Dufu. And now she pays it forward, carving out time to mentor young women whom she encounters in her life. “[‘Drop the Ball’] is a tribute to everyone who took me to coffee, took me to lunch and wrote me a recommendation letter,” says Dufu. “I wouldn’t be where I am without them.”
viewpoint
interview
MAGDALENA FONSECA ’98, ’11
CREATING COMMUNITY FOR UNDOCUMENTED STUDENTS BY H AN NE LOR E S UDE RM AN N
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SSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF THE SAMUEL E. KELLY ETHNIC CULTURAL CENTER and 18-year UW employee in the Office of Minority Affairs & Diversity, Magdalena Fonseca knows from her own experience what life is like for undocumented immigrants. Today, she directs the Leadership Without Borders Center, which serves undocumented UW students, providing them a place to interact with each other and to find and create resources at the University. She shares her story with Viewpoint.
Undocumented students We have over 300 on all three campuses, and not all are Latino. On the Seattle campus 150 students have self-identified to Leadership Without Borders. They heard about the resources and services we provide, and they wanted to come in and talk to somebody. They’re not just seeking assistance, but seeking community.
the administration and the president and the faculty to be more aware of the undocumented-student experience. His higher profile helped create a community of undocumented students on campus. Eventually they formed a peer support group they called the Purple Group. For us at the Kelly ECC it’s about following the students’ lead and supporting them. It’s really about what they’re seeking.
Smoothing the way When the DACA went into effect in 2012, it gave the students a sense of safety. [The federal immigration program—Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals—has allowed undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as minors to get work permits and enroll in school.] They were able to work and live their lives from day to day without feeling that they could be deported. More of the students felt safer about speaking out about their experiences.
Troubled times Unfortunately, in the last two quarters we’ve started seeing students dropping from class because they aren’t able to focus. They walk across campus watching for immigration officers. They worry about their undocumented family members. They are encountering more classmates repeating political rhetoric. Some faculty aren’t equipped to respond, and then these students feel they don’t have any allies.
It’s personal I was born in Mexico and moved to Othello, Wash., when I was 6. My dad was working for a farmer who said he would sponsor him. For 10 years, I was undocumented. We were always worried about immigration. You felt that you were here, but you weren’t wanted. It was very isolating.
Finding her calling I came to the UW because my older sister came here and loved it. Ultimately, six of the nine children in my family ended up coming here. I’m a two-time Husky. I got my degree in sociology in 1998 and my masters in higher education in 2011. I now work at the Ethnic Cultural Center, and I feel like that’s where home is.
Creating allies The uncertainty of the future of immigration policy and things like DACA has really galvanized our UW community around undocumented students. Through a six-hour training for faculty and staff, we share the stories of students and their families and focus on why and how to support them. Faculty, for example, have an opportunity at the start of each quarter to make a statement about not tolerating discrimination toward anybody in their classes. They can use the words “immigration status” and have a conversation that this is a safe space for everybody. We have trained over 350 people in the past year and a half. There are a lot of folks on this campus who do support them, and that means a lot to our students.
Working with students The first student that I worked with that I know was undocumented was back in 2001. When she told me her story and how she was here in college, I hadn’t thought that could even be a possibility. I knew how lonely it was not being able to talk about being undocumented. In 2005, I met a young man who was willing to come out of the shadows and tell his story. He wanted R ON WUR ZER
Leadership Without Borders: depts.washington.edu/ecc/lwb/
the story of diversity at the UW
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in the news UW Race & Equity Initiative Update
Race and Ecology:
In its second year, the UW Race & Equity Initiative (R&EI) continues the university’s commitment to equity and inclusion through programming and event opportunities for faculty, staff and students. Some highlights from this year include:
While ecological degradation threatens all forms of life, people of color are disproportionately affected by problems such as climate change, contaminated water, and other forms of pollution. An understanding of the connections between race and ecology is necessary to protect and empower these vulnerable populations. This spring, a Racial Ecologies conference at the UW will bring scholars from across the country together with local experts and activists to exchange information and inspiration. The conference, sponsored by the Center for Communication, Difference, and Equity (CCDE), is free and open to the public. It will take place at the Samuel E. Kelly Ethnic Cultural Center on the Seattle campus June 1 and 2. The conference will begin with a keynote by Claire Jean Kim, whose recent book, “Dangerous Crossings: Race, Species, and Nature in a Multicultural Age,” argues that we must rethink the relationship between race and species to break out of familiar binaries between environmentalism and racial justice. CCDE, together with the Animal Studies Collective and the College of the Environment, is organizing a daylong, creatively formatted series of events on June 2. For information, email nishime@uw.edu.
Understanding the Connections
First Amendment on Campus A January event titled, “Speech & Counter-Speech: Rights and Responsibilities” explored the topic of the First Amendment in the context of a university. Watch a video of the conversation featuring Ron Collins (UW School of Law), Nadine Strossen (New York Law School), and Michele Storms (ACLU-Washington). It can be viewed on the RE&I website: http://bit.ly/2n6n5o0
Lewis underscores the lessons of love and peace Paragon of civil rights addresses packed Meany Hall By Jul ie G ar ne r “When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have a moral obligation to do something, to say something, to stand up,” Rep. John L. Lewis, a civil rights leader, told a rapt crowd of more than a thousand students who had packed into Meany Hall last February to hear him. Lewis (D-Ga.) was visiting the UW to share his life story, promote his graphic-novel biography, and urge students to take action and speak out when they see injustice. The son of Alabama sharecroppers, he first met Martin Luther King Jr. at 18. He has dedicated his life to the pursuit of justice through nonviolent means. Joining Lewis on the stage, co-author Andrew Aydin and artist Nate Powell talked about their graphic novel, “March,” which landed on the New York Times Bestseller list in February. The three-book series features the civil rights movement as Lewis experienced it, with the marches, demonstrations and events that changed the course of history. Lewis told the UW crowd that the lessons of nonviolent actions still apply. “What has happened today in America, it’s not just a threat to America but a threat to the planet,” he said. “If we want to survive and live as humans we must teach the way of peace and love.”
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For Students, by Students Students on all three campuses have a new opportunity to secure R&EI funding approved by student leaders for events they create that align with the initiative’s goals. The first student supported and produced event was October’s UW Racial Justice Organizing and Caucus, which featured speakers on such topics as police brutality, racial violence and systemic racism. New Trainings for Staff Over 450 UW community members participated in last spring’s pilot series of racial-equity trainings. The series has been relaunched through this spring for sessions with expert trainers Rosetta Lee, Scott Winn and Maketa Wilborn. For information, visit washington.edu/raceequity.
2017 Tribal Leadership Summit On May 17, tribal leaders from around the region will come the University of Washington for the annual Tribal Leadership Summit at —Intellectual House. The summit is an opportunity for University and tribal leaders to discuss issues of importance to indigenous communities. It was instituted in 2007 within the framework of the Washington State Centennial Accord which recognizes tribal sovereignty and calls for government-to-government conversation around issues facing tribal communities. Pictured are tribal leaders from last year’s summit.
V I E W P O I N T : : U Wa l u m . c o m / v i e w p o i n t
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viewpoint tributes
Ì Frank
Fujii, ’56, ’64
Ì Alan Sugiyama, ’84
Ì Michael
Castillano ’75
Artist and mentor Frank Fujii, a teacher and friend to hundreds of Seattle high school students, passed away at home on Mercer Island in October at age 86. Fujii was a child in a large family who lived in the Central District before being imprisoned for three years at Tule Lake during World War II. He attended Garfield High before enrolling at the UW, where he studied art, completing his bachelor’s in 1956 and earning his master’s in 1964. As a teacher at Franklin and Cleveland high schools, he coached basketball, taught art and shared his love of jazz with his students. Several credit him with rescuing them from drugs and bad decisions, teaching them to love art and music, and setting them on their creative paths. Fujii later joined the graphic arts department at Seattle Central Community College, where he also served as affirmative action officer. Today, the Wing Luke Museum features a special gallery, the Frank Fujii Youth Space, on the second floor.
When he transferred to the University of Washington in 1971, Al Sugiyama wasted no time joining the Asian Coalition and advocating for diversifying course offerings. His lifelong efforts on behalf of the Asian community and underrepresented minorities included founding a community newspaper, creating a career center to provide job training for high-risk youth and underrepresented minorities, and serving as the first Asian American elected to the Seattle School Board. He also served on the UW President’s Minority Community Advisory Committee. For his work and advocacy, Sugiyama received the 2007 Charles E. Odegaard Award, the UW’s highest achievement in diversity. He was also honored with a Distinguished Alumni Award from the UW Alumni Association’s Multicultural Alumni Partnership. And in 2010, the Seattle City Council proclaimed Oct. 28 Al Sugiyama Day. He died in January at age 67.
event calendar
and the state of the UW’s ongoing commitment to equity and justice. Associate Professor Ralina Joseph will moderate a panel that includes Larry Gossett, ’71, Verlaine Keith-Miller, ’74, ’80, Sharon Maeda, ’68, and Emile Pitre, ’69.
America. They will talk about how activism from the fringes became a national movement, galvanizing individuals to stand up and together against state violence, police brutality and social injustice.
Paulsen Lecture, UW Tacoma
May 13, 8 p.m. | Meany Theater
Black Lives Matter: A Conversation With Patrisse Cullors and Jamelle Bouie May 3, 7:30 p.m. | Pantages Theater, Tacoma.
Meany Center presents Emel Mathlouthi, “The Voice of the Tunisian Revolution.” In 2010, her song “Kelmti Horra” (my word is free) became an anthem for protesters during the Arab Spring. Banned from her country's airwaves, she rose to prominence through social media.
Equity & Difference Lecture Series History, Conflict and Promise: Civil Rights at the UW May 3, 7:30 p.m. | Kane 130 In 1968, more than 100 UW students, organized by the Black Student Union, occupied the offices of UW President Charles Odegaard. Their nonviolent actions led to changes in admission policies and curricula that echo to this day. A panel of UW alumni civil rights leaders will reflect on the legacy of the occupation
Artist/activist Patrisse Cullors, who co-founded Black Lives Matter, joins Jamelle Bouie of Slate Magazine in a frank, open discussion about race relations in
Michael Castillano, assistant vice president for the Office of Minority Affairs & Diversity during the 1970s and early 80s, passed away in December at the age of 78. The first director of the office’s Asian and Poverty Division, Castillano was appointed to the role by Samuel E. Kelly in 1975, the year he completed his master’s in education. An advocate for students of color and the Filipino community at the UW, he remained with the UW until 1982. In 1984, he became the director of development at Seattle Central Community College and in 1992 became assistant dean at South Seattle Community College. In retirement, Castillano spent another 10 years tutoring students at North Seattle Community College. He is remembered by friends and family on the “In Memory of Michael E. Castillano” page on Facebook.
Performance: Singer Emel Mathlouthi
the story of diversity at the UW
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Telling the Story of Diversity at the University of Washington
4333 Brooklyn Ave NE Campus Box 359508 Seattle, WA 98195
CHARLES E. ODEGAARD AWARD RECIPIENTS Richard A. Jones Colleen Fukui-Sketchley Denny Hurtado Rogelio Riojas Gertrude Peoples Assunta Ng Nelson Del Rio W. Ron Allen 1968 Black Student Union Alan T. Sugiyama Charles Mitchell Mike McGavick Jeff and Susan Brotman Herman McKinney Constance L. Proctor Ernest Dunston Vivian Lee Albert Black Bill Hilliard Andy Reynolds Hubert G. Locke Ron Moore Bernie Whitebear Ron Sims Sandra Madrid Ken Jacobson Herman D. Lujan J. Ray Bowen Frank Byrdwell Andrew V. Smith Phyllis Gutiérrez Kenney Norm Rice Nancy Weber William Irmscher Mark Cooper Millie Russell Minoru Masuda Toby Burton Vivian Kelly Sam & Joyce Kelly Leonie Piternick Larry Gossett Dalwyn Knight
She has held leadership roles for most of her career across high-tech, telecommunications and nonprofit sectors, including a three-year tenure as president and CEO of United Way of King County. Joanne has also served on volunteer boards for businesses and organizations including REI, AAA of Washington and the Association of Governing Boards for Universities and Colleges. MAT T H A G EN
2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997 1996 1995 1994 1993 1992 1991 1990 1989 1988 1987 1986 1985 1984 1983 1982 1981 1980 1979 1978 1977 1976 1975 1974
her role as senior director for U.S. Citizenship and Public Affairs at Microsoft, Joanne and her team work to changes lives by cultivating public and private partnerships that address problems relating to education and literacy rates.
Harrells to receive the Odegaard Award By Erin Rowley UW REGENT JOANNE HARRELL AND SEATTLE CITY COUNCIL PRESIDENT BRUCE HARRELL are the 2017 recipients of the University of Washington Charles E. Odegaard Award. The award will be presented at the 47th annual Celebration event hosted by the UW Office of Minority Affairs & Diversity (OMA&D) and Friends of the Educational Opportunity Program (FEOP) on May 16. “Together, the Harrells’ passion, leadership and civic engagement over the last three decades have made a tremendous impact throughout the region,” said Rickey Hall, vice president for Minority Affairs & Diversity and chief diversity officer. “As distinguished alumni, their advocacy for respect, civil rights, diversity and equity embody the best of what it means to be graduates of this university, and we are proud to recognize their contributions.” A Regent since 2009, Joanne, ’76 and ’79, served as board chair in 2012-13 and advocates for a more inclusive campus environment as the current chair of the Regents’ Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Advisory Committee. Bruce has been a member of the UW Alumni Board of Trustees and the UW Business and Economic Development Center Advisory Board. The Harrells’ commitment to giving back does not end there. In
Bruce has been a civic leader since graduating from the UW School of Law, representing youth and seniors, union members, nonprofits and affordable housing companies. He has consistently protected the rights of people and advocated for respect and civility. A Seattle City Council member since 2007, he currently chairs the Education, Equity and Governance Committee and is council president. Bruce has also worked as a senior attorney for technology and telecommunications companies. He is a community volunteer and has served on several regional committees, including the Race and Social Justice Community Roundtable. The Harrells have received many community and leadership awards for their work. Joanne was named the UW Department of Communication’s 2013 Distinguished Alumna after being inducted into its Hall of Fame in 2009. Bruce was the UW Department of Political Science Distinguished Alumnus in 2007. He also received a 2008 Husky Legend Award for his outstanding UW football career. Established in 1973, the Odegaard Award honors individuals whose leadership in the community exemplifies the former UW president’s work on behalf of diversity. It is the only University and community-selected award, and is regarded as the highest achievement in diversity at the UW.
JOIN OMA&D ON MAY 16 FOR CELEBRATION 2017 HUB Ballroom, UW Seattle campus 5 p.m. reception | 6:30 p.m. program PRICE: $125 REGISTER: washington.edu/omad/celebration by April 25 CONTACT: Melanie Truong / 206-685-9594 WHERE: TIME: