It’s an instrument unlike any you’ve ever seen or heard. Tracing its origins to early 20th century Trinidad, the steel pan is constructed by hammering notes into the sunken bottom of an oil drum and played using small, rubber-tipped mallets. But the instrument’s outward simplicity belies complex origins. “For the people of Trinidad, the steel pan represents [...]

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As millions of students go back to school this September, one University of Washington professor says school leaders and other involved adults have just as much opportunity to learn once the first bell rings. “There are forms of expertise that educators don’t have,” says Dr. Ann Ishimaru, an associate professor of Educational Policy, Organizations & [...]

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Hailing from Yakima and wearing a well-loved Mariners cap, Dr. Andrew Loveless might seem like your average Washingtonian. However, the principal lecturer in the Department of Mathematics has set himself apart in a field that is notoriously difficult to teach. In his classes, Loveless utilizes a strategy of gamification that emphasizes student engagement to mitigate [...]

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As co-director of the University of Washington Tribal Court Public Defense Clinic, Brenda Williams’ work bridges two worlds. “When folks hear what I do, they’ll often think that University of Washington law students enter the Tulalip Tribal Court space and provide a service, but it’s actually the reverse,” she says. “What our students gain from [...]

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For Angélica Cházaro, great tumult comes with even greater opportunity. An assistant professor at the University of Washington School of Law, Cházaro specializes in immigration and refugee law. Over the past two years, her expertise has been called on more than ever as US immigration policy dominates the national political conversation. “Teaching immigration law has [...]

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Call her a professor. Call her a Buddhist chaplain. But before anything else, call Jane Compson what she calls herself: a curator. “I’m not a psychologist; I’m not a neuroscientist; but one of the things I think I am quite good at is explaining concepts to laypeople, because I am one myself,” says Compson, an [...]

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Doug Jeck teaches students to think on their feet—by asking them to painstakingly create life-size human forms that can stand on theirs. The associate professor of 3D4M: ceramics + glass + sculpture meets me in the Ceramics Building right before his ART 353: Intermediate Ceramic Art final. Arrayed about one of the building’s studios spaces [...]

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When Jim Gawel looks at a lake, he sees an opportunity to learn—not just for the students he instructs as an associate professor of environmental chemistry and engineering in UW Tacoma’s School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences, but for entire populations who rely on and reside by those water bodies. “Especially in urban areas, lakes [...]

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When Amy Lambert first set foot in Washington, she never imagined she’d one day return for a master’s degree—let alone to devote nearly two decades to documenting and conserving one of North America’s rarest butterflies. At the time, Lambert was merely stopping through—a rising junior pursuing a BFA in Sculpture at Florida State University on [...]

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This is the first in a series of weekly spotlights featuring 2018 winners of the Husky Green Award. In support of the University of Washington’s long-standing commitment to sustainability, the Husky Green Awards recognize exemplary achievement of an individual or team from the UW community who have demonstrated leadership, initiative and dedication to campus sustainability. [...]

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Building Blocks: Storefront Studio on Mainstreet charts the grassroots evolution of a community outreach studio offered by the University of Washington College of Built Environments. Since 2003, Director Jim Nicholls has been leading groups of architecture, landscape, and planning students to partner with local small towns to study their main streets. The exhibit and book documents the [...]

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While some may be celebrating St. Patrick’s Day this weekend, there’s another holiday taking center stage at the University of Washington—a celebration more than 3,000 years in the making. Nowruz (meaning New Day and pronounced No-ROOZ) is a non-religious Persian New Year celebration honoring the first day of spring observed by nearly 300 million people [...]

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