Emmert quizzes graduating seniors on pros and cons of UW experience
Kayla Webley
2005-05-06
The Daily
As part of his year-long effort to connect with students, UW President Mark Emmert visited an upper-level business course yesterday to hear about graduating seniors’ experiences at the UW.
“From the seniors graduating [Emmert] wants to get a sense of what their experience has been like now that they are leaving the University,” said Corey Phelps, an assistant professor in the Business School and instructor of Management 430, the class Emmert visited.
Emmert began his mission to connect with students by speaking to freshman interest group students in autumn quarter, stopping by sophomore and junior-level classes in the winter and finishing the year with seniors.
“When you are president of a university it is easy to not have as much contact with students as you would like,” Emmert said to the class. “It’s really easy to lose track of what’s going around on the campus.”
Emmert asked the students a variety of questions ranging from their experiences as freshmen to their post-graduation plans.
Starting out with the positive, Emmert questioned students about the best part of their experiences at UW.
Some students noted the high quality of professors, interdisciplinary work, scenery and the immense opportunities the UW offers — if students take the initiative.
“The beauty of the University of Washington is you just can’t outgrow it,” said Emmert.
When one student commented about the strong sense of belonging she felt in her years at the UW, Emmert said building community is one of his worries for UW students, given its size.
To combat this problem, Emmert bounced ideas off the students to help ensure all students — especially incoming freshmen — felt “loved and wanted.”
Ideas discussed included mandating that all freshmen live on campus and setting up more specific living groups — such as adding more themed residence halls — to fit each student in with a group immediately upon entering the UW.
A number of concerns came up when Emmert asked students what they did not like about the University, namely the disparity in funding across departments and majors, the 210-credit policy and problems with teaching assistants.
Emmert also addressed a concern of his own which is letting the “rest of the world” know how good the UW is.
“Part of it is we don’t do a lot of reaching outside of the Pacific Northwest,” said Emmert.
Emmert said it is difficult to remedy the problem because the UW is already overcrowded with Washington students and thus cannot recruit out of state and internationally.
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