Features
AN I L KAPAHI
Transform Curing cancer. Preserving the environment. Helping children. When you think about which causes to support, how do you decide? They are all incredibly deserving. But No. 1 on my list: supporting higher education. Last year, I had the opportunity to meet the Nguyen family in their Renton home. The wall in the dining room was covered with the family’s diplomas. Sitting at the table: seven University of Washington graduates—three engineers, two dentists, an entrepreneur, a teacher. Pretty heady stuff for anyone, let alone a family that escaped a war-torn homeland to land here, in America, to start a new life. They didn’t know much English. They didn’t have friends. They missed home. But their parents wouldn’t let their kids hide. The parents told their children: you will go to school. And you will go to college. Period. They all came to the University of Washington. The result? Lives completely transformed. This is what the University of Washington does on a daily basis. And why we need alumni and friends to become involved in our most ambitious fundraising campaign in UW history. By joining our campaign “Be Boundless—For Washington, For the World,” you can help us unleash the potential of our students, faculty, programs and partnerships to make a difference. Go to Page 32 and read Hannelore Sudermann’s cover story and you will understand just how critical the University is to all of us, and why we need everyone’s support. One transformational example is the record $210 million gift from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to create a home for the UW’s Population Health Initiative. This project will focus on improving the health of the world’s people, and the Gates Foundation could have made that donation anywhere. It chose the UW for a reason. Then there’s the work of Immunology Professor Michael Gale Jr., ’85, ’94, (Page 32), who is working to find a way to defeat the devastating Zika virus. Generous gifts provide scholarships for people like Dulce Gutiérrez, ’13, (Page 22), who came from a single-parent Yakima family and packed fruit in the summers. Yet because of her UW education, she went on to make history as one of the first Latina city council members in Eastern Washington. Gifts make possible the work of an alum like Kert Lin, ’07, ’11, a fourth-grade teacher in one of the most diverse public schools in the state of Washington. Lin’s school, Lakeridge Elementary, worked with the UW College of Education to transform a school in crisis into one that became a model for the entire state and was named a 2016 School of Distinction. You can create a world of good by starting with the things you hold dear. Your ideas and ideals. Your hopes and dreams. With the University of Washington, you can connect your passion with philanthropy. What you care about can change the world. Join us.
jon marmor, ’94, editor
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In The Heart of Yakima
BY M I STY SH O CK RULE
Dulce Gutiérrez, ’13, grew up in a single-parent household, packed fruit in the summer—and made history as Yakima’s first Latina city council member. And Eastern Washington is keeping an eye on Yakima politics.
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For Washington, For the World BY H A N N E LO R E SUDERM ANN
Transforming the student experience, expanding the impact of UW research, empowering possibility through innovation, and driving the public good. That’s what the UW’s most ambitious fundraising campaign is focused on.
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Zeroing in on Zika
BY B O N N I E ROCHM AN
The answer to the devastating Zika virus may be in the molecules—and Professor Michael Gale Jr., ’85, ’94, is working feverishly to develop an antiviral drug to kill the world’s newest public health threat.
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The West Coast’s First Gridiron Giant BY LY N N BO RLAND
It began as a six-team league featuring Whitman College and Oregon Agricultural College. But it grew into the mighty Pac-12. Washington was top dawg when it started—and remains on top today.