A Newsletter for Friends and Alumni of the University of Washington
Presidential Feature: Creating Futures Essential to Meeting Challenges of the
21st Century

President Mark A. Emmert

In the nearly 12 months since I became president of the University of Washington, I’ve been asked many times, “Why a campaign?” “Why now?” and “Isn’t $2 billion rather ambitious?” My response from day one has remained the same: The UW is a place that did so many things for me and for so many others. What could be better than to make sure it is a place that continues to do that for future generations?

As president, my number one goal for this university is to further expand the University’s stellar national and international standing. With the UW already ranked as the leading public university in competing for federal research funding, I will continue to support the growth of seminal research and even greater educational opportunities. These efforts must also offer access and affordability for students, promote diversity across the University, and provide the resources needed to recruit and retain the finest faculty in all academic fields. Campaign UW: Creating Futures will help us reach that goal. A $2 billion campaign is ambitious, but it is no more so than the ambition that drives our faculty and students. Their aspirations and ingenuity will help to shape the future, and we need your support to make that happen.

The UW of the future will be one of very few places where the biggest, most complicated, most challenging questions and problems of the 21st century are addressed — questions that cross the boundaries of science, policy, and humanistic understanding, questions that engage the world. There are not many entities that have the unusually strong culture of cross-disciplinary collaboration and collegiality necessary to tackle the kinds of enormous, compelling questions we can take on here. That, I believe, is our special work, and this Campaign will help make it possible.

For more than 150 years, public higher education has been the social, cultural, and economic ladder of our society. The successful completion of the Campaign will enhance educational opportunities for all students and provide faculty and staff the support they need to continue to work on some of the most vexing problems of our time. For example, just one element of Campaign UW, the Matching Initiative, aims to establish 100 new faculty chairs and professorships, 100 new graduate fellowships, and 100 new undergraduate scholarships. Think of the impact that one piece of Campaign UW will have on the University’s ability to recruit and retain top faculty, attract great graduate students, and keep the door open to deserving undergraduates.

This Campaign will have a transformative effect on the University of Washington today and will keep having that effect well into the future. At just past the mid-point of Campaign UW, we’re more than halfway to reaching our $2 billion goal. With your continued support, we are creating better futures for our community, our region, and the world beyond.

On behalf of all of our students and faculty, present and future, thank you for your support.

Return to June 2005 Campaign Newsletter