A Newsletter for Friends and Alumni of the University of Washington

A Word from President Emmert: Honoring First-class Faculty

A world-class university owes its strength in large part to its outstanding faculty, and the University of Washington is fortunate to have some of the very best. Our faculty are recognized with the highest accolades of their professions and are deeply involved in making important contributions to their fields.

Their work is helping to secure the UW’s stature as one of the world’s great institutions of higher learning. But just as important, our faculty make a difference in our students’ lives every day, in ways that may be large or small, but are most certainly unforgettable.

Like alumnus Don Logan (‘56, ‘57) (see article, right), I was impressed and humbled by Professor Tom Pressly. His brilliance inspired me when I was an undergraduate at the UW and influenced my own decision to embrace an academic life. So it is with personal as well as institutional gratitude that I thank the friends and alumni whose contributions in honor of faculty are enabling the UW to attract some of the most gifted educators and distinguished experts in the world — and to keep them here. Your generosity is making great things possible for our students and for the world at large. Thank you.

Mark A. Emmert (’75)
President

Feature: Inspiration to last a lifetime

When Don Logan (’56, ’67) recalls the powerhouse professors from his years at the UW, the names are likely to be familiar to generations of Huskies: Giovanni Costigan, Max Savelle, Stull Holt, and Tom Pressly — all of them stars among the University’s legion of legendary faculty.

Logan, who went on to become a history teacher himself, says he is lucky to have had the opportunity to take classes from some of the UW’s great educators. “When you have an instructor who is outstanding, then people flock to that person,” he says, recalling how Professor Costigan’s classes often had to be moved to larger spaces in order to accommodate more students.
Logan recently paid a permanent tribute to outstanding faculty by creating the Donald W. Logan Family Endowed Chair in American History. The endowment will provide funding for a specialist in 19th century U.S. history, research and graduate student support, and periodic lectures on the Civil War by nationally eminent scholars.

Besides acknowledging the importance of his University education, Logan says his gift will allow the University to address an ongoing need for faculty support. “We’re really underfunded compared to other universities of the same size,” he says. “That’s a problem.” John Findlay, chair of the Department of History, agrees with that assessment. “A gift like Don’s can make an enormous difference to a department and might mean the difference between keeping an esteemed faculty member and losing that person to another university. We are grateful to have this significant source of support.”

Like Logan, Richard Getty (’74) felt indebted to the UW for the start it gave him in life. His gifts toward an endowed scholarship in the College of Forest Resources are giving students similar opportunities while honoring a friend and former colleague who taught in the College for 26 years.

“Over the years I became very aware of what he was doing at the University and all of the things that he had done for the students,” Getty says of retired faculty member William McKean (’68), whom he met while both were working at Weyerhaueser Corporation after earning advanced degrees from the UW. “I thought he made a monumental difference in students’ lives.”
It seemed fitting to Getty, then, to create a tribute that would make a difference in students’ lives. Upon McKean’s retirement in 2005, Getty led an effort to establish the William McKean Endowed Scholarship to support undergraduates interested in careers in paper science and engineering.

Getty is gratified that the scholarship will ensure that students continue to have opportunities to learn from great teachers whose lessons they might carry with them throughout their lives. “I believe in my own heart that my education was what got me to where I am now,” says Getty, president of Tacoma-based R.K. Getty Corporation, a real estate investment firm. “The amount of money I gave is very small compared to what I got out of it.”

Return to Spring 2007 Campaign Newsletter