Chancellor's Corner

Greetings alumni and friends, Here we are, halfway into the academic year. We’ve weathered our fair share of snow and ice and eagerly await the warmer days of spring and summer. Before we know it, commencement will be here! So, what have we accomplished so far in 2010-11? Quite a lot, even during these difficult economic times and diminishing state resources.

Through the hard work and dedication of our students, alumni, faculty and staff, we can celebrate several major initiatives for our campus community.

The first initiative concerns a significant enhancement to our intellectual climate here at UW Bothell – the chancellor’s advisory board forum. We will have more details to share later, but in short, we envision an entire week of stimulating, multi-disciplinary intellectual engagement revolving around the topic of creativity and innovation.

Secondly, we have several campus and facilities improvements in the works including: our new suite of educational spaces in the Beardslee Professional building; the improvements to our UW Bookstore café (see page 8); the planned additions of a multi-use athletic facility (see page 8), and the Sarah Simonds Green Conservatory – both of which are being funded completely from private and student funds.

Finally, we are thrilled to be introducing on-campus housing. At press time, we are still working out final negotiations, but I can say that the UW Board of Regents approved our purchase of a 90-unit apartment complex which sits immediately adjacent to the campus. This is a self sustaining project well-suited to the current economic climate. If all goes according to plan, we will be able to offer student housing on campus in the Fall of 2011…exciting news indeed!

As we get through the rest of this year and approach another fall, we all will be working diligently to make our new campus additions “student-ready.”

In the meantime, enjoy the spring, the longer days, and make sure to find some time to enjoy the natural beauty of our campus.

Kind regards,

Kenyon S. Chan
Chancellor