鈥淪tudent players 鈥� in their training, in their practices and on the field 鈥� are developing complex and valuable skill sets,鈥� said , a 91探花 teaching professor of anthropology and curator of Oceanic and Asian culture at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e developing and analyzing plays, observing human behavior, anticipating their opponents, and adapting a complex strategy based on real-time information that they鈥檙e synthesizing from their surroundings. That hasn鈥檛 been widely acknowledged, and does a disservice to players, especially in the academic opportunities they pursue and their future careers.鈥�

Barker and three current members of the 91探花football team 鈥� , and 鈥� are studying how the skills they develop to maximize their chances of victory on the field have applications outside the stadium. Their work, which is ongoing, is showing that the research methods and analytical abilities of student-athletes are applicable in academic and research settings, as well as jobs in a variety of fields.

鈥淲e’re focused on bridging the gap between school and football, student-athletes and students, to just show there’s hard work in both the classroom and on the field,鈥� said Esteen, a sophomore safety, who noted studying opponents, their tendencies, and analyzing angles and distances on the field as some examples of football-related skills that can translate to academic work. 鈥淢any students wouldn’t know that there are probably more than 100 similarities between school and football.鈥�

This project began in the classroom. Football players taking an introductory-level course called 鈥淎nthropology and Sports鈥� started to recognize that the types of skills they developed as student-athletes had parallels to skills that their fellow undergraduates learned and practiced in internships, independent research projects and other research and learning settings that help students prepare for graduate school and the job market.

鈥淚n our class with athletes and non-athletes, we would have a member of the football team describe to us some of the studying and analyses they do of past games, for example, and as they walked us through the step-by-step process, fellow students would point out that they鈥檙e essentially performing advanced trigonometry, human behavioral analysis, and so on,鈥� said Barker.

Players at the college level often spend thousands of hours immersed in their sport. It became clear during the course that those research methods aren鈥檛 widely acknowledged in academic settings, with real-world consequences for players.

鈥淭hese are skills that other students would put on their resumes for applications for internships, graduate school and jobs,鈥� said Barker. 鈥淥nce we realized that they have these research聽skills they are not accounting for in their applications to graduate school or for professional jobs, then we focused on the need to articulate the research skills that they acquire.鈥�

Since then, Barker, Ale, Esteen and Tuitele have explored the connections between research skills acquired聽in football and so-called 鈥渢raditional鈥� academic skills. The students used interviews, focus groups and other analysis methods to collect data that would help them better articulate the research knowledge and skills that emerge from deep engagement with football 鈥� as well as how those skills are perceived and interpreted by players and non-players. So far, they鈥檝e identified overlaps between research skills acquired聽in football or the classroom for fields ranging from psychology and data science to applied mathematics and game theory.

鈥淥ne part of the research was actually looking at the Boeing Technical Apprenticeship Program,鈥� said Tuitele, a junior defensive lineman. 鈥淭here are traits that they require, like teamwork, determination, responsibility, accountability. There鈥檚 a list of traits that they鈥檙e looking for in their program. And I was, like, ‘Oh, this is perfect.’ We were listing each one of them and I was thinking we already do all of these things in football that we can apply to other careers.鈥�

Part of the group鈥檚 goal is to help researchers and educators in other academic fields recognize the unique skill sets and knowledge of student-athletes in their lecture halls and research laboratories.

鈥淭hat鈥檚 kind of the point, just to educate and convey to people who may not see football and school as equal,鈥� said Tuitele. 鈥淎 lot of people would separate that and separate the 鈥榮tudent鈥� and 鈥榓thlete.鈥� And we鈥檙e really just trying to bridge that hyphen in between 鈥榮tudent-athlete.鈥� Changing that hyphen to an equal sign is what we did in our research project 鈥� 鈥榮tudent-athlete鈥� is going to be 鈥榮tudent-equals-athlete,鈥� because the knowledge that we use in academics is the same knowledge that we use in football, and vice versa.鈥�

The group also wants to help college football players become advocates for their skill sets as they pursue academic opportunities in college, as well as apply for jobs and graduate-level programs. College players pursue a variety of careers, but often without leveraging the knowledge base and intellectual abilities they鈥檝e fostered through practice, study and performance on the field.

鈥淚 know, personally, a lot of football players who don鈥檛 feel like they can apply themselves into the real world after football,鈥� said Tuitele. 鈥淭hey feel like they lose their identity after football, you know? Sometimes they feel like football is all that they know and football is who they are. And we just tried to really show that, for football players who feel that way, you can apply yourself to real world. Things that you learned in football, you can also apply to any career, any job that you want in the future.鈥�

Nearly 20 years ago, members of a 91探花student, faculty and staff organization called Voyagers noticed something missing.

The group, for Pacific Islander students and their allies, found little of their heritage or culture reflected in courses and activities, and scant evidence of efforts to grow their numbers of students and faculty. They mobilized for recognition, and over time, as other groups were involved, there were achievements to celebrate: an affiliation with the Ethnic Cultural Center, the event in April.

Now, after lobbying by faculty and students, there is an academic victory: a newly minor in , beginning in spring quarter. The 25-credit, interdisciplinary program is housed in the Department of American Indian Studies and includes classes from the departments of American Ethnic Studies, Anthropology and English, and the School of Marine and Environmental Affairs.

The goal is to offer students a “transformative academic experience” in a coherent, organized curriculum that opens new lines of inquiry into the histories and cultures of a vast yet community-oriented region.

“The new minor is exciting for us. It allows the university to join hands with the Pacific Islander community in Washington state by educating about Oceanic knowledge. It also creates visibility for a population that often feels invisible in the larger institution,” said , who helped push for the new program as a lecturer in the Department of Anthropology and curator of Oceanic and Asian Culture at the Burke Museum.

The minor, one of nine new 91探花minors over the past three years, is believed to be the only such program outside the University of Hawaii. City College of San Francisco offers a 17-credit certificate in Critical Pacific Islands Studies, while the University of Utah is currently developing a Pacific Islander Studies initiative.

Here at the UW, the name includes “Oceania” 鈥� the geographic region that includes Guam, the Marshall Islands and Polynesia, and a nod to the link between the vast ocean and the islands. Housing the program in American Indian Studies reflects that department’s own thinking about identity, said AIS advisor Kai Wise.

“A lot of courses study First Nations in Canada, and indigenous peoples in Mexico and Central America. This minor supports the idea that we’re a broader department looking at indigenous studies, not just in the United States,” Wise said.

The minor includes a five-credit practicum, designed to give students experience working with the populations they’re studying. Students who pursue this minor, like other majors in its home and related departments, often go into community service or organizing work as a career, Wise said.

That’s how Raeleen Camacho, a 91探花junior, plans to use the minor. A native of Guam, she wants to become a public health nurse and return to work there.

“It will help me help people in my community,” she said. “These classes give me an understanding of how each island is different, with different traditions, languages and cultures.”

Countering stereotypes, embracing identity

Washington has the of Pacific Islanders in the nation, but the general public is often unaware of issues facing the community, said Taylor Ahana-Jamile, independent learning program manager for 91探花Study Abroad and a 91探花alum. What鈥檚 more, he said, young Pacific Islanders sometimes have little understanding of their own identities, due to the legacy of colonization.

“You have young Pacific Islanders who cannot speak their ancestors’ language, do not know their history and then are unfamiliar with their mother and father’s cultures. But it is not the Samoan American parents’ fault that their children do not know their language. It is not the people of聽Micronesia’s responsibility to teach their children about the聽devastating history of atomic bomb testings. It is the colonizers’,” said Ahana-Jamile, who as an undergraduate was president of the . “With the minor we can focus on such issues, and we can start to teach our children who they are and where they come from.”

At the UW, Pacific Islander students say they sometimes have felt stereotyped, or generalized as “Asian,” said Kat Punzalan, director of the . The minor can help educate non-Pacific Islanders as well, she said.

“Visibility is one of the biggest challenges that impacts the Pacific Islander community on campus, and people simply don’t have much of an understanding of who we are,” Punzalan said. Pacific Islanders excel in a variety of activities, pursue majors in assorted disciplines and contribute through research, the Office of Minority Affairs and Diversity’s student ambassador programs and cultural events, she pointed out. “We are celebrating the minor today, but the next step is a major!”

To the people involved in establishing the new minor, the recognition is similar to that achieved by African-American students in the 1960s, when protests led to the establishment of the, or when later efforts resulted in the creation of departments in American Indian and ethnic studies. All were the work of students who wanted to see their culture, history and identity reflected in the staffing, teaching and outreach of the university.

Classes related to Pacific Islander history and culture have been offered for some time, but organizers of the minor such as , an associate professor of American Ethnic Studies, saw the program as a way to more formally institutionalize the curriculum and validate it as a field of study at the UW.

“Instead of thinking only faculty and staff are the sources of knowledge, the minor is a gift from the students to the 91探花community,” he said. “The more we can enable a university environment that recognizes and values what students bring into the classroom, the better. The Pacific Islander students who advocated with us wanted to be co-learners and co-producers of knowledge. They wanted their cultures and histories to be part of our academic community: That’s what being an Islander is all about. In true Pacific Islander spirit, this is a collective.”

Helen Enguerra, an admissions counselor in the Office of Minority Affairs and Diversity, remembers coming to the 91探花several years ago as a freshman, eager to find community. Born and raised in American Samoa until she was a teenager, Enguerra said she wasn’t used to the individual nature of the college student experience.

“For me, going to school wasn’t just for myself, it was for my family. I was used to having people support me, and here, it felt like you do everything on your own.”

But Enguerra took some anthropology classes, joined the Polynesian Student Alliance, and began to see community in new places.

“I learned that study groups can be a community. It’s about the聽Pacific Islander value of reciprocity, how you help one another,” she said.

Today, Pacific Islanders make up about , and reaching out to prospective students is part of Enguerra’s job. Having a designated minor, with so many courses reflecting the interests and learning styles of Pacific Islander students, can help with retention and recruitment, she said.

Community is part of that learning style, added Barker, who works with a group of Pacific Islander students from the 91探花each week at the Burke Museum. She formed the group, known as , nearly five years ago as a way to help Pacific Islander students feel connected through artifacts, study and friendship. Her anthropology classes features students and people from the community as instructors, as with her special topic during winter quarter, Oceanic Research Methods: The Culture of the Canoe.

“There is an Oceanic sense of community building that, when we bring it into the classroom, it is a powerful thing,” she said.

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For more information on the Oceania and Pacific Islander Studies minor, contact Wise at kaiwise@uw.edu.