Green Rat Clingfish, described by 91̽��biologist Adam Summers, noted among ‘most remarkable’ new marine species of 2019��

The Green Rat Clingfish is having a moment of fame, thanks to , 91̽��professor of biology and fishery sciences, and his co-authors.

That’s because the has included the fish, first described by the researchers in a 2018 in the journal ZooKeys, as one of the “10 most remarkable new marine species from 2019.” The group the list on March 19, to coincide with Taxonomist Appreciation Day. Taxonomy is the science of naming, defining and classifying groups of organisms by shared characteristics.

The Green Rat Clingfish, or Barryichthys algicola, is a small, slender, green fish with a paler green stripe on the side of its tiny head, an orange iris and green fins. Among the smallest species of clingfish, it lives on algae along the southern Australian coast. Summers and co-authors of Texas A&M University and of the Western Australia Museum, in Perth, described the fish based on 22 specimens found in Victoria, New South Wales and Tasmania. They also created a new genus ��— above species, below family in the taxonomic naming — Barryichthys.

Summers said of the discovery: “It is tiny and bright green, and it has a belly sucker. What could be better in a fish?”

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Mari Ostendorf named a corresponding fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh

The Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland’s National Academy, has chosen��, 91̽��professor of electrical and computer engineering, as one its new corresponding fellows for 2020.

Ostendorf was named one of eight corresponding fellows,����March 3. Fellows are leading thinkers and experts whose work has had a significant impact on the nation of Scotland. The corresponding fellow designation is for those who have attained high international standing in fields in the society’s domain, but who are not residents of the United Kingdom.

The society named��, who join the 1600 existing fellows from diverse fields such as physical and life sciences, arts, humanities, social sciences, education, business, industry and public life.

Ostendorf, who came to the 91̽��in 1999, is a professor of systems design methodologies in electrical and computer engineering and an adjunct professor of linguistics and of computer science and engineering. She is also the UW��associate vice provost for research.

The Royal Society of Edinburgh was established in 1783 under the mission “Knowledge made useful.” Of 91̽��faculty,��John Scott, chair of the Department of Pharmacology, is also a corresponding����with the society.

Read more on the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering��.

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Thaisa Way receives 2020 Outstanding Educator Award from Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture

The Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture has given , 91̽��professor of landscape architecture, its Outstanding Educator Award for 2020.

The award, one of 11 award the council gives annually to faculty members, honors “truly outstanding, innovative and noteworthy work as an educator whose career is recognized as having made a significant contribution to the landscape architecture discipline.” Among the requirements for nomination is that the faculty member’s work must have been recognized at the national or international level in two or more of these areas: research, public service, outreach or service to education.

Way, an urban landscape historian, was to receive the award in person at the council’s 2020 conference, planned for March in Louisville, Kentucky, but the event was canceled due to the coronavirus.

She has written or edited several books, including “” in 2015, published by 91̽�� Press, which came out in paperback last year.

91̽��Notebook is a section of the 91̽��News site dedicated to telling stories of the good work done by faculty and staff at the 91̽��. Read all posts here.

A teacher discusses respectful world travel, a historian explores Silicon Valley’s evolution, a professor and violist plays the music of Robert Schumann and a late English faculty member’s meditation on Seattle returns …

Here’s a quick look at some gift-worthy books and music created by 91̽��faculty in the last year — and a reminder of some recent favorites.

O’Mara’s ‘Code’: History professor Margaret O’Mara provides a sweeping history of California’s computer industry titans in her book “,” published by Penguin Press. Publishers Weekly wrote: “O’Mara’s extraordinarily comprehensive history is a must-read for anyone interested in how a one-horse town birthed a revolution that has shifted the course of modern civilization.” The New York Times called it an “accessible yet sophisticated chronicle.” �� for a 2020 Pacific Northwest Book Award.

Seattle stories: 91̽�� Press is republishing 91̽��English professor ‘s well-loved 1976 reflections on his city, its history and its possible futures, “.” Pacific Northwest Quarterly called the book “an exhilarating critique of Seattle’s birth, growth, sickness, health, promise and fulfillment. Any serious student of Seattle or of recent urban history will now read Roger Sale, and with good reason.” Sale, who taught at the 91̽��for decades, died in 2017. The new edition has an introduction by Seattle writer Knute Berger.

Mindful travel: How can travelers respectfully explore cultures with lower incomes, different cultural patterns and far fewer luxuries? Anu Taranath, lecturer in English and the Comparative History of Ideas program, explores such questions in “,” published by Between the Lines. Taranath has led student trip to India, Mexico and other locations. “Mindful travel in an unequal world,” she says, is about “paying attention, and noticing positionality in relation to each other. It’s about understanding that we are all living in a much longer history that has put us in different positions of advantage and disadvantage, and equipped us with very few tools to talk about it.”

Salish Sea fishes: , curator emeritus of fishes at the Burke Museum and a professor emeritus of aquatic and fishery sciences, teamed with James Orr of the Alaska Fisheries Center for “,” the first-ever documenting of all the known species of fishes that live in the Salish Sea. Published by 91̽��Press, this three-volume set represents the culmination of 40 years of work and features striking illustrations by and details about 260 species of fish, complete with the ecology and life history of each species.

Watras plays Schumann: , professor of viola, offers new music and a masterwork by composer in “Schumann Resonances,” a CD released on Seattle’s Planet M Records. Schumann’s is the centerpiece and artistic jumping-off point for the CD, which is inspired by fairy tales and folklore, and features 91̽��faculty colleagues and . The music and culture blog An Earful wrote: “Besides having a burnished tone and monster technique, violist Watras has a gift for contextualizing the music of the past … with ‘Schumann Resonances,’ Watras continues to prove herself a curator, performer and composer of unique abilities.”

Solo cello, Icelandic composers: Assistant professor of music and cellist has a new release on the Sono Luminus label titled “,” which features music for solo cello by several Icelandic composers and a return to an earlier composition, “Solitaire.” In liner notes, writes: “This project is a compilation of pieces by composers that not only share my mother-tongue and culture, in language and music, but also bring their unique perspective and expression in their compositions … I couldn’t have asked for more generous artists to come into my life and allow me to explore my voice through their music.”

Fanfiction examined: Fan fiction has exploded in popularity in recent years. In their book, “,” and examine fanfiction writers and repositories and the novel ways young people support and learn from each other through participation in online fanfiction communities. Davis is an associate professor in the 91̽��; Aragon is a professor in the . Published by MIT Press.

Here are a few other notable 2019 titles from 91̽��Press.

Seawomen, Icelandic waters: “ by Margaret Willson, affiliate professor of anthropology and a faculty member in the Canadian Studies Center has been released in a paperback edition. The book, first published in 2016, was a finalist for a Washington State Book Award.

Asian American voices: A new, third edition of “,” published in 1974 and co-edited by , 91̽��professor of English. The New York Times Book Review : “The stories are … strewn with new insights buried in the flesh of the narrative; they illuminate areas of darkness in the hidden experiences of a people who had been little more than exotic figments of someone else’s imagination.”

Haag remembered: A paperback edition of “,” which explores the career of the founder of the 91̽��Department of Landscape Architecture, best known in Seattle for his . Written by 91̽��architecture professor , who said Haag’s legacy is found in the places he designed, which “inspire students to think beyond what they know … they ignite civic engagement and public service, for Rich’s most important work was in the public realm.”

Staff discounts: 91̽��Press is offering a 40% discount on all titles during the holidays. Staff and faculty get a 10% discount year-round when ordering through their website using the code WUWE.

• Joanne De Pue, School of Music communications director, assisted with this story.

91̽��Notebook is a section of the 91̽��News site dedicated to telling stories of the good work done by faculty and staff at the 91̽��. Read all posts here.

Recent notable books by 91̽�� faculty members explore the legal history of Indigenous nations and the mentoring benefits of fan fiction. Plus, a 91̽��anthropologist’s book is honored, a former English faculty member is remembered in a biography, and 91̽��Press brings out paperback editions of three popular titles.

Alexandra Harmon’s ‘Reclaiming the Reservation’ examines effects of 1978 Supreme Court decision on tribal sovereignty

A new book by , 91̽��professor of , explores the legal history of Indigenous nations claiming regulatory power over their reserved homelands — and the “promises and perils” of relying on the U.S. legal system in such matters.

Harmon’s “” was published in July by 91̽�� Press.

In the 1970s, Harmon writes, the Quinault and Suquamish tribes, among dozens of Indigenous nations across the United Stated, asserted their sovereignty by applying their laws to all people on their reservations, and this included arresting non-Indians for minor offenses.

“Tribal governments had long sought to manage affairs in their territories, and their bid for all-inclusive reservation jurisdiction was an important, bold move, driven by deeply rooted local histories as well as pan-Indian activism,” Harmon wrote. “They believed federal law supported their case.”

However, this effort ended with a 1978 that non-Indians were not subject to tribal prosecution for criminal offenses. “The court cited two centuries of U.S. legal history to justify their decision but relied solely on the interpretations of non-Indians,” Harmon writes.

In “Reclaiming the Reservation,” Harmon looks at the histories of Quinault, Suquamish and other tribes to explore the roots of their claims of regulatory power in their reserved homelands. She also shows how tribes have responded in the decades since 1978, “seeking and often finding new ways to protect their interests and assert their sovereignty.”

“Harmon brilliantly explains how tribal nations have sought to assert sovereignty through the extension of civil and criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians living within the boundaries of their nations,” wrote reviewer of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “‘Reclaiming the Reservation’ is precisely the kind of history that the field desperately needs.”

For more information, contact Harmon at aharmon@uw.edu.

* * *

Katie Davis, Cecilia Aragon find mentoring lessons in the world of fan fiction

Fan fiction has exploded in popularity in recent years, with more than 1.5 million amateur writers — most in their teens or twenties — publishing 7 million stories and 176 million reviews on a single online site, Fanfiction.net, alone.

In their new book, “,” and examine fanfiction writers and repositories and the novel ways young people support and learn from each through participation in online fanfiction communities. Davis is an associate professor in the 91̽��; Aragon is a professor in the .

They find that “these sites are not shallow agglomerations and regurgitations of pop culture but rather online spaces for sophisticated and informal learning.”

Aragon and Davis call this novel system of interactive advice and instruction “distributed mentoring,” and describe its attributes — each supported, they write, by an aspect of networked technologies.

The two authors combine qualitative and quantitative analyses in a nine-month study of three fanfiction sites, and also analyze the “lexical diversity in the 61.5 billion words on the Fanfiction.net site.”

They consider how distributed mentoring could improve not only other online learning platforms but also formal writing instruction in schools.

“” was published this month by MIT Press.

For more information, contact Aragon at aragon@uw.edu or Davis at kdavis78@uw.edu.

* * *

Seawomen and Seattle architects: Paperback editions coming from 91̽��Press

91̽�� Press will release paperback editions of three popular UW-related books in September.

• “,” by . This is the paperback version of a second edition published in 2014. The book was first published in 1994. This edition includes four additional profiles. Ochsner, a 91̽��professor of architecture, said the book seeks to show “the wide variety of kinds of architectural achievement and the extraordinary diversity of those who contributed to making Seattle’s built environment.”
• “” explores the career of the founder of the 91̽��Department of Landscape Architecture, best known in Seattle for his . Author and 91̽��architecture professor said Haag’s legacy is found in the places he designed, which “inspire students to think beyond what they know … they ignite civic engagement and public service, for Rich’s most important work was in the public realm.”
• “” uses extensive historical and field research to document the women who have withstood the trials of fishing in Iceland from the historic times of small open rowboats to today’s high-tech fisheries. A finalist for the 2017 Washington State Book Award in general nonfiction/history, the book is by , affiliate associate professor of anthropology, also with the Canadian Studies Arctic Program.

Other book notes:

Honor for Sareeta Amrute’s ‘Encoding Class’: The has given its top book honor in social sciences for 2019 to “,” by 91̽��associate professor of anthropology. The group presented the award to Amrute at its annual conference, in Leiden, the Netherlands. “Encoding Class” was published in 2016 by Duke University Press.

Joanna Russ, who taught at UW, remembered in biography: “Experimental, strange, and unabashedly feminist, ‘s groundbreaking science fiction grew out of a belief that the genre was ideal for expressing radical thought,” states from fellow sci-fi writer . Russ was a Hugo and Nebula award-winning writer who from 1977 to 1991; her work is widely taught and studied. In 2006, editors of the 91̽��alumni magazine Columns named Russ’s 1975 novel “” among the top .

Today, the same body leads the 91̽��faculty in shared governance, advocating for faculty and academic freedom, as well as for how the university makes good as a public good.

It wasn’t always that way.

“Eighty years ago we didn’t actually have the clear mandate for these important missions” said , professor of landscape architecture and chair of the Faculty Senate. “And 80 years isn’t that long.”

On May 18, 1938, 91̽��President called the first meeting of the Faculty Senate to order. In the two decades that followed, the Faculty Senate rapidly evolved and, in 1947, the university president was replaced as chair with an elected faculty member.

In 1956, the Faculty Senate emerged with a “constitution” in the form of the Faculty Code, the framework for shared governance that remains in effect to this day. The accord��affirmed the ideals of shared governance at the 91̽��and was instrumental in cementing trust between the university faculty and the administration.

“A university is a community of scholars contributing, each according to his own talents and interests, to the transmission and advancement of knowledge,” the Faculty Code says. “A university administration must seek wisely and diligently to advance the common effort, and the strength of a university is greatest when its faculty and administration join for the advancement of common objectives.”

During the past 80 years, the Faculty Senate has solidified academic freedom as a core value, Way said.

Today, the Faculty Senate does much more than oversee the curriculum. It contributes to leading the university on many fronts, Way said. The chair joins the Provost and the President in decision making that impacts the wellbeing of the university as a whole.

“UW’s Faculty Senate is part of that leadership group,” Way said. “The Faculty Senate here said, ‘Yes, we’re in charge of curriculum, we’re in charge of our discipline, we are the ones who pursue academics,’ but if we’re not also part of the discussion around finances of the institution as a whole, around our relationship with the state and the legislature, all of this, we can’t really do what we do as teachers and scholars.”

The 91̽��Faculty Senate is a great example of the role faculty should — and can — play in shared governance, said Provost .

“The Faculty Senate is thoughtful, analytical and devoted to the institution — and willing to work with administration in identifying, pursuing and achieving important 91̽��goals,” Baldasty said. “As provost, I’ve found the Faculty Senate to be an important partner in this work.”

The Faculty Senate is a democratic institution with 143 elected members and a chair who serves a one-year term. Way’s term ends on July 31, 2018. She’ll be replaced by Dr. , a professor of radiation oncology who served as vice chair for the 2017-18 academic year. , a professor at the Information School, has been elected to replace Sandison as vice chair.

“One of the remarkable things about our system of shared governance is its breadth and comprehensiveness. Faculty from all three campuses are represented in the Faculty Senate and serve on our university faculty councils,” said , an associate professor at 91̽��Tacoma and former chair of the Faculty Senate. “Most important, just as we have federal, state and local government, faculty at the 91̽��benefit from the opportunity to help govern the affairs of their own academic units, their school, college or campus, and the university as a whole.”

Faculty enjoy certain rights and privileges, but also have collective responsibility for the stewardship of the institution in collaboration with the administration, at all levels, in our departments, in all schools and colleges and across each distinctive campus, Barsness said.

“We’re a big, complex institution. If academics are going to be our mission, then the faculty — the academics — need to play a role in shared governance,” Way said. “We need to have a voice and we need to have a strong contributing role.”

Still, the institution isn’t static. The senate’s focus and work has evolved in many ways and continues to change to meet the needs of today’s students and faculty, Way said.

For example, the senate recently voted to require the tenure and promotion committee to recognize faculty who incorporate diversity into their scholarship. As a result, tenure panels will consider such scholarship when it is submitted in the evaluation of their peers.

“What we can’t say is how you consider it or what the metrics are because that’s up to the disciplines,” Way said. “What diversity scholarship looks like in the College of Education is going to be different than what it looks like in the School of Law.”

And, like diversity, community-engaged scholarship is increasingly important at the UW, Way said. Shared governance also has catalyzed opportunities for both President to call on the faculty to be more engaged and for disciplines to develop relevant standards. In the middle is the Faculty Senate, which will establish guidelines, similar to diversity, for how faculty should be measured.

Today, the Faculty Senate works to strengthen the university’s role as a public good, as part of a belief that higher education serves the broader community as does the scholarship and knowledge produced.

“Our code and culture is going to have to better articulate our role as a public good and our role as having a real impact on our communities,” Way said. “That’s going to change how we do things.”

Way believes the future for academics will be less governed by departmental rules and more focused on what problem the faculty member is trying to solve, be it an equation, social issue or disease. The same holds for students. For students, college will be less about choosing a major, and more about what big issue they’re trying to address, she said.

That shift brings new challenges to the Faculty Senate as it manages faculty, since they still teach in traditionally structured departments but are engaged in interdisciplinary endeavors to solve broader challenges like population health, homelessness and other complex problems.

“Shared governance is going to be part of figuring out what the university of the future looks like,” Way said.

Faculty governance is evidence that the 91̽��has been changing the way scholarship is passed along from one generation to the next. Looking back at 80 years of shared investment in the UW’s mission is similar to looking back at careers of faculty and thinking about how it’s very different to be a faculty today than it was in 1952, Way said.

“It will continue to change,” Way said. “Our careers are changing. The way we do things is changing. Faculty governance is changing.”

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Seattle’s homeless crisis isn’t confined to one part of town – nor does it hinge on one solution.

The University District community includes as much as one-third of King County’s homeless youth over any given year. It’s a neighborhood where a food bank and youth shelter are available, and where young people on the streets can blend in.

But more needs to be done in the U District and beyond to help homeless young adults become self-sufficient over the long term.

Now the 91̽��, in a partnership among faculty, student and community service agencies – and with $1 million in state funding over two years – is launching , an effort to establish a neighborhood hub and navigation center specifically for homeless young people. The Doorway Project will bring youth in the U District together with 91̽��faculty and students to develop plans for a hub starting with a pop-up café on Dec. 3 in the parking lot of the University Heights Community Center – the first of four such events that organizers hope will lead to plans for permanent site next year.

“A public university has a mandate to have a larger impact on these kinds of problems,” said , a professor in the 91̽��School of Nursing and coordinator of The Doorway Project. “But it shouldn’t be an ivory tower, think-tank solution; it needs to involve public scholarship, informed by the public and impacting the public.”

The café event, scheduled from noon to 4 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 3, marks the first step in a three-pronged University initiative to tackle homelessness. With pay-as-you-can food trucks, live music, social-service agency representatives and access to indoor restrooms and warming space, The Doorway Project aims to connect with homeless youth while including the University District neighborhood as a whole.

“We wanted it to be youth-friendly, but not youth-exclusive,” Ensign said.

Homelessness in Seattle has been on the rise. The annual Count Us In report count last January recorded , a roughly 10 percent increase over the . Of that number, nearly 1,500 were between the ages of 18 and 24, living alone or with a family member.

In the University District, several agencies within a few blocks of campus, such as the University District Food Bank, Roots Young Adult Shelter and YouthCare’s University District Youth Center, are trying to meet some of the need. But the population exceeds the available resources and, in many cases, young people are reluctant to take advantage of existing services, Ensign said.

A part of , an interdisciplinary effort to tackle city issues through research, teaching, and community collaboration, The Doorway Project emerged from a 2016 faculty summit, which Urban@ 91̽��director convened to brainstorm how the university could help alleviate homelessness around all three of its campuses. From that summit, Urban@ 91̽��embarked on its Homelessness Research Initiative: to develop a multidisciplinary social change curriculum; to identify and serve housing- and food-insecure 91̽��students; and to establish a safe community hub for social services.

“If the existing system just scales up what it’s doing, it’s still not going to be enough to meet the growing homeless population,” said Way, a professor of landscape architecture who chairs the 91̽��Faculty Senate. “Can we think about offering services in a different framework with faculty, staff and students at the table; with community agencies, the city and the state at the table? We can do something together that none of us could have done alone.”

With the support of Washington Speaker of the House Frank Chopp (D – Seattle), a longtime advocate of housing and social services, the 91̽��received $1 million from the state over two years. The $500,000 this year will be split between the University and to launch The Doorway Project.

Chopp said The Doorway Project represents a unique partnership between the University and service providers.

“Youth homelessness is on the rise in our community, and that’s a trend we must reverse,” he said. “This is a great opportunity for the 91̽��to fully utilize its resources and academic expertise, and to engage faculty and students to address this growing crisis.”

��The Doorway Project pop-up events are intended to test different ways of connecting homeless youth with services in order to inform design of a permanent location next year. Ensign, who has worked with homeless youth for more than 30 years, leads the project for the UW. She drew upon her time working with the street population in Auckland, New Zealand, where the has long provided a variety of homeless services within the walls of an otherwise typical community restaurant, and began envisioning a similar, service-oriented neighborhood café in the University District.

The concept of a neighborhood café is meant to both reach out and draw in, said , a teaching associate in the School of Social Work and a leader of The Doorway Project, along with Ensign and , a professor in the 91̽��School of Law.

“The whole idea of being homeless is very labeling on a young person. Young people generally do not want to be identified as being homeless,” she said. “This is an effort not about being homeless but inviting the community in. If a person is homeless, or on the brink of being homeless, or simply presents a need, we’d be able to respond to those needs in some way. At the same time, maybe there are other people from the neighborhood who would come in and see the needs and want to help.”

The research component is critical, Ensign said, because it involves asking homeless youth what they want – mapping where they go and what services they turn to now, and how that system could be enhanced.

Kelly said this approach sets the effort on a path forward. “Understanding these reasons can move us forward on multiple fronts,” Kelly said. “By listening in a way that recognizes the expertise of the youth themselves, we can design a place that meets their needs in a user-friendly way. ��Through listening, we will also hear about the barriers to access that exist right now, and we may be able to identify the larger structural challenges baked into the laws and policies that govern how services are offered.”

YouthCare, which has worked with homeless youth in Seattle for more than 40 years, will coordinate café operations and the availability of resources and information from various social services. At the UW, the School of Nursing and the Carlson Leadership & Public Service Center will conduct community-based data collection and the planning and design of the café.

“We know what works to stabilize young people and help them develop their potential,” said YouthCare CEO and President Melinda Giovengo. “One thing we’ve found that works extremely well is to engage young people who are experiencing homelessness, treat them as the rightful experts on their experience, and give them a voice in solutions going forward. We’re really proud to be part of the Doorway Project, because it’s a new way of addressing youth homelessness in the University District—asking youth to be part of the conversation.”

###

For more information, contact Ensign at 206-890-0679 or bjensign@uw.edu; Way at 206-685-2523 or tway@uw.edu; or Brittny Nielsen at YouthCare, 206-204-1411 or Brittny.Nielsen@youthcare.org.

The 2017 NEH Summer Institute, titled “CITY/NATURE: Urban Environmental Humanities,” is funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, part of a supporting 290 humanities projects across the United States. The summer institute, administered through the 91̽��, was awarded a grant of $179,256 to fund the program.

The summer program for teachers “responds to the call for a broader and more inclusive approach” to the teaching of environmental studies, co-organizer , associate professor of landscape architecture, wrote in a statement. “Intended for college and university faculty, the institute will explore the emerging landscape of the urban environmental humanities as it informs scholarship and teaching.”

Though the program’s readings and discussions “will engage a range of global cities, the institute will use Seattle as an urban case study throughout.” About 25 college and university teachers will attend.

Organizing the program with Way are , associate professor of landscape architecture; and , associate professor of French and Italian studies. 91̽��faculty joining them as guest speakers will be , associate professor in the Jackson School and director of the ; , associate professor of architecture; , associate professor of history and , associate professor of classics. Other guest speakers will include David Pellow of the University of California, Santa Barbara, William Gleason of Princeton University, Laura Pulido of the University of Southern California and Stephanie LeMenager of the University of Oregon.

“Cities are our greatest challenge and our greatest opportunity to steward the natural world,” Way said. “Humanists can help scientists and planners think about people, culture, and society in our understanding of the natural world, and scientists and planners can help humanists understand the role of the natural world in our global cultures.”

###

For more information about the 2017 NEH Summer Institute, contact Way at 206-685-2523 or tway@uw.edu.

When put a call out last spring to see if 91̽�� faculty members working on urban issues wanted to join forces, she wasn’t sure what the response would be.

“There were a lot of people who said, ‘You’re not going to get anyone to show up,'” said Way, a 91̽��associate professor of landscape architecture.

But more than 80 people representing 12 of the UW’s colleges and schools��turned up to the gathering, held on a Monday afternoon at the tail end of the quarter. The meeting launched the creation of , an interdisciplinary effort that has been incubating for more than three years to bring together 91̽��researchers, Seattle officials and citizens to collaborate on the most pressing issues facing a rapidly growing city and region.

There are more than 200 91̽��faculty members working on urban topics, Way said, from geographers using GIS technology to address the complexities of homelessness to data scientists working on transportation challenges to teams of researchers working on food access and Seattle’s minimum wage.

Faculty members, particularly younger ones, are increasingly motivated by a desire for their work to have a real-world impact, Way said, and urban issues present a significant and compelling opportunity to make a difference in their own backyard, as well as around the globe.

“I think the generation of faculty who have come into the university in the past decade want to be part of a larger effort,” said Way, Urban@UW’s executive director. “Urban issues are a very visceral, very present challenge and a remarkable opportunity. That’s the fantastic thing about cities — they’re both our problem and our answer.”

Urban@ 91̽��will hold its kickoff event from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. this Thursday, Oct. 29, at the . The keynote speaker is , an associate professor at New York University who studies race, housing and poverty.

91̽��President and Seattle Mayor Ed Murray will discuss the new , a partnership between the city and��university spearheaded by UW’s eScience Institute and Urban@UW. The collaboration, part of the White House’s new initiative, will focus on infrastructure, service delivery to citizens, democratic governance and increased civic participation and data-driven policymaking.

Following the presentations, more than 90 faculty members, city and county decision-makers and local stakeholders will brainstorm ideas for collaborative projects in six areas: disaster preparedness and response, food and economic disparity, housing and poverty, climate change and environmental justice, growth and transportation, and the MetroLab Network. Each topic will have a 91̽��faculty lead and a designated community member going forward.

The goal, Urban@ 91̽��Program Manager Jen Davison said, is to develop pilot projects that will be launched over the coming year and supported by Urban@UW, anything from a series of conversations to a small-scale research project.

“We don’t want to be too prescriptive for what they come up with,” Davison said. “We want these projects to be driven by the needs of the community and the capacities of our researchers and teachers.”

Other universities have launched urban-focused initiatives, but Way said they tend to be more narrowly focused and involve fewer departments. Seattle is an ideal city for the effort, she said — small enough to be nimble but large enough to have big-city problems, a place where bold thinking and ambition thrive.

“We’ve got this creative, innovative community that can help us think about what it takes to do something differently,” Way said. “We have this wonderful opportunity to think across disciplines in a lot of different worlds and practices.”

The effort will take a holistic approach, Way said, with the goal of fostering well-being and opportunity for all Seattle residents.

“These problems are multifaceted, and that means cities can’t address housing without addressing where schools are, without addressing transportation, without addressing employment,” she said.

Urban@ 91̽��received funding for three years from the 91̽��Office of Research and is working in partnership with , the UW’s innovation incubator, as well as with UW’s . Its headquarters are in Startup Hall, just off campus, and Davison is its sole employee.

Way envisions Urban@ 91̽��becoming a hub that the mayor of Bellingham or an NGO in Bogota could tap into for expertise on a range of issues, and where urban scholars might come from around the world to build and gain knowledge that can be applied in other cities.

“We want to be able to show that we can be a resource for more than Seattle,”��she said. “I hope we can continue to build these partnerships so that in ten years, we’re an internationally recognized center for innovative urban research and practice.”

is an associate professor of landscape architecture in the 91̽�� and author of “” She answered a few questions about the book and the work of Haag, whom she often fondly calls “Rich.”

Q: Here we have an affectionate and detailed biography of ,��well-known landscape architect and founder in 1964 of the UW’s . How did you come to write this book?

TW: When��I arrived in Seattle to teach at the 91̽��in 2007,��I needed a project that would ground me in my new place — so as a historian��I looked for a good story, one that would allow me to discover this place and the community��I had joined. Rich Haag was a terrific story as he had founded the department��I was now teaching in and he was known for pushing the boundaries of design, something��I wanted to do as a teacher and writer.

Q: Haag spent 1953 to 1955 in Japan on a Fulbright Fellowship. How did his time there affect his later career? What influences from that time can be seen in his public work?

TW: There is a whole chapter on this so��I will refrain here, except to say that Rich’s photographs of Japan inspired a whole generation of architecture students to become landscape architects — including , , Bob Hanna, and Frank James among others. Rich’s view of the world is deeply embedded in a mix of his Kentucky youth and his Japan experience.

Q: Haag will always be associated with his award-winning work creating Seattle’s Gas Works Park on a ruined, toxic industrial site. Why, unlike so many other possible plans for the area, did he decide to keep the industrial buildings there?

TW: Re-seeing the industrial buildings and the toxic landscapes of Gas Works reveals the power and magic of a good designer — one who is an artist, a scientist and an activist. Rich re-imagined the post-industrial wasteland because he saw and continues to see the world through the lens of design, imagination and art. He preserved the character of the landscape because it was and remains a part of our urban history, our cultural legacy — it is a part of us — and thus not something we can simply throw away and make disappear.

By engaging our legacy instead of covering it over and throwing it out, he is suggesting through the design of a public place that we can learn from and with and of our places — from the simplest corner of overgrown meadow to the sweeping landforms of Gas Works to the towers and the barns.

As people and as communities we mark, transform and shape our landscapes. Re-seeing these places after we have damaged them should not require merely hiding them. For Gas Works Park Rich helped us re-imagine the landscape and make a place that we continue to learn with. It inspires us to think carefully about how we mark, transform and shape our future landscapes. It instigates activism and civic engagement. It gives pleasure and joy.

Q: You repeat landscape architect and writer Gary R. Hilderbrand’s comment that “for a group of idealistic, young people rebelling against architecture, Haag, with an almost religious zeal, delivered an epiphany: The landscape is the site for urgent and meaningful work.” What was his meaning, and why were these young idealists said to be rebelling against architecture?

TW: In the early 1960s many young people, college students, wanted to foster a different relationship with the world than what they saw around them — they wanted to steward the environment, to be a part of a larger community that questioned the authority of past generations, and they wanted to be fully engaged in the arts, in experience.

And for young architects, architecture as a traditional profession and practice appeared to have too many rules and boundaries and barriers. On the other hand, landscape was wide open, literally and figuratively. Rich made such work the place of difference — he demonstrated through his own work that designing the public realm of parks, plazas, streets and campuses could be critical contributions to society.

He inspired students to realize the potential of public space to foster democracy as they imagined it. Cities are knit together by their public landscapes, by the public realm. Rich opened the eyes of young designers to the potential of focusing on this amazing domain or space of design — essentially designing the urban landscape.

Q: Speaking of those students, what is Haag’s ongoing legacy among current and future students of the 91̽��College of Built Environments?

TW: Rich’s legacy is in his places that continue to inspire and ignite — they inspire students to think beyond what they know, to push their own imagination beyond the places they have seen. They ignite civic engagement and public service, for Rich’s most important work was in the public realm.

Such work underscores the amazing contributions of designers to the public realm, and not just to the facades but to the very fabric that makes the city a place to live, work and dream.

Students continue to come to the 91̽��and the College of Built Environments to follow in those footsteps. Today our focus on community participatory design is another extension of this focus on��the��public realm and the city. This��is all part of Richard Haag’s legacy.

• Video by 91̽�� Press