School
of the Year
Award
honors accomplishments at Chief Leschi School
 |
| Education
Program Director Ginger MacDonald, center, participates
in a traditional Native American dance with Chief
Leschi School students and staff at an assembly
at the school Nov. 22. |
It's
not a Nobel, an Oscar or a Pulitzer. But for the winners
of UW Tacoma's annual "School of the Year"
award, it's worth more than any other prize.
Puyallup's
Chief Leschi School is a phenomenal success story,
an example of school reform at its best. So when UW
Tacoma's Education Program announced that Chief Leschi
had earned its School of the Year award, school leaders
chose to savor the moment as a symbol of a year of
astonishing accomplishments.
Continue
reading the story
Gardner,
UW Tacoma founders honored
 |
| Booth
Gardner |
Former
Gov. Booth Gardner and former UW President William
P. Gerberding were honored at UW Tacoma Monday as
the university dedicated its new Founders Stone.
Their
names, along with the names of the UW Board of Regents
who served when UW Tacoma was established in 1990,
are inscribed on a plaque mounted on the Founders
Stone, which has been installed at the center of campus
as a permanent tribute.
Gardner,
governor of Washington from 1985 to 1993, signed the
legislation establishing UW Tacoma and supported the
campus throughout his administration.
Two
of the founding Regents, Mari Clack and Jon Runstad,
were present, along with a number of local elected
officials.
Gas
smell prompts campus evacuation
The
smell of propane drove more than 1,000 students, staff
and faculty out of campus buildings for two hours
Monday, Dec. 4, as dozens of firefighters and engineers
from Puget Sound Energy sought the source of the odor.
The
gas smell was noticed just after noon and was reported
from 21st to 11th streets along the Pacific Avenue
corridor, affecting a large portion of downtown Tacoma.
Firefighters later attributed the smell to a five-gallon
propane tank left beside a dumpster behind the Harmon
Building, but many on campus questioned how a small
amount of gas could be responsible for such a strong
odor, and calculations by a UW faculty expert have
raised questions about the reported cause.
The
first reports came from the Harmon Building and GWP,
leading Tacoma Fire Department investigators to believe
that the source was external to the buildings and
brought in through ventilation system intake fans.
The amount of gas in buildings and on campus was below
the threshold of instruments designed to measure propane
levels.
According
to the fire department, the instruments found measurable
amounts of propane only in the basement of one campus
building, even though the smell was extremely strong
all over campus and beyond. A fire official indicated
that the human nose can detect tiny amounts of propane's
strong odorant, called mercaptan.
Jim
Gawel, UWT's associate professor of environmental
chemistry and engineering, believes there may be an
alternative explanation. He calculated the amount
of mercaptan in a five-gallon tank of propane and
estimates that under the right conditions, the smell
would be detectable within a maximum area of about
300 meters wide by 300 meters long. For comparison,
the UW Tacoma campus is about 420 meters long from
21st to 17th streets.
Since
it's probable that not all of the propane would have
been released from the container, it’s more
likely that a five-gallon tank would affect a much
smaller area, and the strong smell across campus indicates
a different source, he said.
“Judging
from accounts of the odor affecting all of UWT’s
buildings, The Swiss, the Russell Building, I-705,
and Highway 509, and comparing this area to the results
above, I find it highly unlikely that one five-gallon
propane tank could be the source,” Gawel said.
Ysabel
Trinidad, vice president for finance and administration,
says UW Tacoma will continue to work to determine
the cause of the gas odor. Chancellor Patricia Spakes
is reviewing the emergency response effort with input
from faculty, staff and students.
Governor:
UW Tacoma a model of education
 |
| Gov.
Chris Gregoire talks to a
science class
during her visit Nov. 14. |
Gov.
Chris Gregoire hailed UW Tacoma as a model of higher
education during her visit to campus Monday, Nov. 13.
UW
Tacoma's interdisciplinary approach and unique freshman
core curriculum should be emulated by other colleges
and the state's K-12 schools if Washington is going
to improve its educational system, she said.
"The
challenge in our state is that we have one of the highest
numbers [among other states] of AA degrees, but we fall
dramatically in terms of the number of BA students,"
she said. "What you've got here is exactly what we should
be doing."
Gregoire
visited UW Tacoma to meet with students, staff and faculty
and discuss details of Washington Learns, her plan for
changing Washington's education system to position the
state as a global competitor.
"We
will never be able to achieve greatness if we don't
invest in education," she said. "We have to invest."
Campaign
goal increased — again
With
less than two years left in its capital campaign, the
University of Washington Tacoma has surpassed its $30
million campaign goal and set a new goal of $35 million.
The
additional $5 million will support scholarships and
the construction of UW Tacoma's new Assembly Hall on
Pacific Avenue. The state Legislature has appropriated
$7.5 million for the building, which is expected to
cost $12.25 million.
UW
Tacoma's efforts to raise scholarship funds are bolstered
by UW's "Students First" initiative, which
will provide a 50 percent match for any endowment gift
for scholarships above $100,000.
UW
Tacoma's capital campaign is part of Campaign UW: Creating
Futures, the eight-year, $2 billion campaign of the
University of Washington, which began July 1, 2000 and
ends June 30, 2008. The university as a whole has raised
$1.8 billion toward its goal.
UWT's
original campaign objective was $20.85 million. The
campus surpassed this goal in May 2004 and immediately
set a new target of $30 million. That mark was exceeded
in August.
Donors
to UW Tacoma include alumni, parents, students, faculty,
staff, corporations and other community members who
are committed to higher education. Since the campaign
began, more than 2,000 donors have made gifts to the
campus.
 |
| Special
Assistant to the Chancellor Jim Coolsen tries
out a commercial-grade treadmill as Registrar
Bobbe Miller-Murray looks on at the opening of
the new UW Tacoma Fitness Center. The center is
open to all UWT students, staff and faculty, with
no fees charged through the end of this academic
year. The fitness center is located on the ground
floor of the WCG building, near the UWT gallery.
|
Computing
the future: New degree at Institute of Technology
 |
| Larry
Wear |
A
new program beginning this January at the Institute
of Technology will train computer engineers to make
the chips that power our toasters, cars, music players
and more.
The
new Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Engineering
and Systems will offer courses in programming, computer
architecture, electrical engineering, data structures
and more. Graduates often embark upon careers in embedded
systems, according to Professor Larry Wear, who is heading
up the program at the Institute.
“Pretty
much anything you buy today that is electrical or runs
on batteries has a computer in it,” he said. “Computer
engineers put computers into things that aren't designed
to be computers. They need to understand how the hardware
works and figure out how to interface it with things
like toasters and stereos.”
The
program is currently open only to transfer students
who have studied calculus, physics and chemistry, preferably
with an associate of science degree. Starting in Fall
2007, the program will be open to freshmen. Implementation
of this program is pending formal approval from the
Higher Education Coordinating Board, which is anticipated
in December.
Pie
Day 2006: the agony and the ecstasy
| Left:
Chancellor Pat Spakes' Chocolate and Coconut Pecan
Tart won top honors at UW Tacoma's annual Pie Day.
Right: The remains of a caramelized apple
pie made by Ben Corbett, son of Associate Professor
Katie Baird (IAS). |
Faculty
members brought dozens of pies, both homemade and store-bought,
to the ninth-annual Pie Day celebration at UW Tacoma
Nov. 22.
In
a blind vote by staff and faculty, Chancellor Pat Spakes
took home first prize for pies with her chocolate, coconut
and pecan tart. The award for best cheesecake went to
new faculty member Liz Alexander (IAS).
Pie
Day, a UW Tacoma tradition since 1997, was established
by faculty members who wanted to thank staff for their
work moving UWT into its permanent location.
UW
Tacoma in the news
News and projects of interest to
the UW Tacoma community.
- Read
The News Tribune's article
and editorial
about UW Tacoma's increased fundraising goal.
- Learn
more about Chief Leschi's School of the Year award
in The
News Tribune.
- Court
17 is scheduled to open early
next year. Read about it in The
News Tribune.
- UW
Tacoma is partnering with Tacoma Art Museum. Learn
more in The
News Tribune.
- UW
Tacoma student Ryan Moss is blogging
about his adventures in Costa Rica on The News Tribune
Web site.
Faculty
and staff notes
Cebu,
the acclaimed 1992 novel by UW Tacoma Lecturer Peter
Bacho (IAS), was included in Columns
Magazine's list of the all-time top 100 books by UW
authors, released this month. Other noted faculty and
alumni authors on the list include Beverly Cleary, Ann
Rule and Edmond Meany. Read the article here.
Jeri
Carter has been hired as associate director
of the Student Counseling Center.
Wendy
Guthrie has been hired as a major gifts officer
in the Office of Advancement.
Marcie
Pierson is the new office assistant in Urban
Studies.
The
art of Tim Kapler (Media Services),
along with works by IAS student Michelle Britanny
and alumna Evelyn Ysais (IAS '04),
is on display at Metro Coffee though Dec. 30. The exhibit,
entitled "Nature," consists of seven photographs and
other diverse works.
Marcie
Lazzari (Social Work) will be on sabbatical
Winter Quarter while she works as a senior scholar with
the Council on Social Work Education. She will focus
on the development of leadership within social work
education.
Alicia
Lewis has been hired as a student affairs
specialist in Student Affairs.
Valerie
Mediate-Urevig has been hired as an office
assistant in Nursing.
Administrative
Snapshot: A look at issues and projects at UWT
If
you are working on a project of interest to the UWT
community, tell us about it at uwtnews@u.washington.edu.
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a topic:
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