S R E AS OTNHE TO LOVE
You can organize a movement, build a community, find a campus family, find your calling or just escape from class. Four decades of alumni share their love of this place.
♥ | Because it’s the best place on campus Students Alisa Chin, left, Sophie Nget, center, and Alina Doan love meeting up at the Kelly ECC. It’s a place for them to share their culture, connect with friends and take a break from campus.
When I think of mental health and things like that, I think of the ECC. It offered a place of inclusion and belonging for all of us. And when I was a student, pretty much every student of color knew every other student of color on campus. Beyond being a base for all the student associations, it was a place where successful people in the Hispanic community—like engineers at Boeing—could connect with us. They would come out and feed us during finals and bring us presents during the holidays. Those were like family gatherings. It was also one of the places the offcampus community felt they had access to connect with students. Within the students, every group did something special, and we were all part of it. The Hawaiian students, for example, held luaus. The building during my time as a student was run down. It was not the nicest place on campus, but it was the best place. —Roy Diaz, ’94, ’96, ’02, is an intellectual property lawyer and former president of the UW Alumni Association.
INTERVIEWS BY
Hannelore Sudermann P H OTO S B Y
Sophanna Tes
♥ | Because it is a different world
I grew up on the Yakama Reservation and came from White Swan High School in Yakima. My graduating class was about 36. My first class at the UW had over 200. It was culture shock. Without the ECC and the Minority Scholars Engineering Program, I don’t think I would have made it through. At first, it was mostly tutoring at the Instructional Center across from the ECC four to five days a week, and later the ECC became place for socializing. Though the engineering program had hundreds of students, only two of us were Native American. It was lonely. The ECC offered a different world. It was the one place I could see another Native American. A couple of my friends were always there no matter what time of day. If someone wasn’t there, they would be showing up soon. My experience with the ECC is one of the reasons I became so involved: I was president of the chemical engineering student organization, active in First Nations at UW and the first student to participate in OMA&D’s ambassador program. It’s why I’m working with students now. It’s why I’m mentoring them. —Jerald Harris, ’01, is a citizen of the Chinook Indian Nation. He works as a mentor and enrichment coordinator with students in �he Confederated �ribes of the Grand Ronde.
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V I E W P O I N T : : U Wa l u m .c o m / v i ew p o i n t
