UW and the Community

When 50,000 visitors descended on New York's Central Park for Ultimate Block Party, an event celebrating the importance of play for children’s developing brains, a team from the UW’s Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences was there.

Albert von Keller's early 20th century paintings, on view at the Frye Art Museum, explore the occult. To place his work in context, the Frye and the UW Department of Germanics are presenting a three-lecture series, “Connections and Contexts: Evenings on German Art and Culture.”

For 15 years, Jana Mohr-Lone (PhD, '96) has guided philosophical discussions of everything from art to happiness in K-12 classrooms. Now the rest of us can hear one of those discussions on Philosophy Talk, an hour-long radio program.

Liliana Lengua, professor of psychology, is studying the impacts of economic disadvantage and parenting in the development of "effortful control," the ability to regulate one's responses to external stimuli.

Women gained voting rights in Washington State 100 years ago. To commemorate this momentous event, the Women’s Center will host a November 6 gala honoring 100 women who were the first to break the barriers in various fields. 

A year-long cultural exchange between the indigenous Ainu community of Japan and several Washington State tribal groups, organized by the Burke Museum, culminated with a memorable canoe journey.

UW geography students extensively researched neighborhoods along three new RapidRide bus routes in King County, then created a website to share their information with artists creating work for those routes. 

A new Tribal Museum Program is now offered through the Northwest Indian College, thanks to the vision of UW Professor Emeritus James Nason and the involvement of Burke Museum staff. 

Working in teams with seniors from the Pike Market Senior Center, students in a course on qualitative research methods learned to embrace the "organized chaos" that is field research.

When 1,200 high school students descend on the UW campus for Math Day each year, they discover that math explains many things—including card tricks and a boomerang's flight path. 

As part of a Dance Program course on teaching methods, UW undergraduates traveled to Yakima to teach dance to high school teens involved in the GEAR UP Program. 

The new Center for Human Rights, based in the College of Arts and Sciences with Angelina Godoy as director, hopes to encourage broad collaboration on human rights issues. “It’s gratifying to see how readily colleagues across the campus have embraced the Center’s interdisciplinary vision,” says Godoy. 

Have you ever read a book steeped in science and wished you could discuss it with an expert in the field? That's the idea behind the Biology Book Club, introduced by a professor and a staffer in the Department of Biology. 

Anthropology Professor Steve Harrell, PhD students Barbara Grub and Tami Blumenfield, and alumna Victoria Poling ('04) created the Cool Mountain Education Fund, providing scholarships for students in China’s Liangshan region to continue their studies beyond primary school.

The Department of Scandinavian Studies celebrates its centennial on September 26 with a tree-planting ceremony, live performances, and lots and lots of meatballs.