Office Hours: a visit with UW President Mark Emmert
Fall Reflections



Well hi, and welcome to this year’s first installment of Office Hours. This has 
been a very, very busy summer of course for all of us and we certainly have an 
exciting fall started right now. The biggest thing that happened over summer 
of course was the recruitment of another freshman class at the university. And 
this freshman class is an extraordinary one. As it turns out we had nearly 
twenty thousand applications coming from all around the world. We wound up 
with a class of more than 55 hundred entering freshman with the best grade 
point averages and the best test scores we’ve ever seen. In fact they 
exceeded a 3.7 grade point average and more than 1200 on their SAT scores. 
We even had one student show up with a perfect SAT score, which of course is 
an extraordinary feat. The students come from all 50 states and 74 nations 
around the globe. Taken all together it’s an extraordinary freshman class that I 
know we are going to enjoy for many years to come. We also had an 
opportunity to start the year in a really remarkable fashion. We had our 
traditional freshman convocation, but this one was quite extraordinary. We 
had standing room only in the Hec-Ed field house. It was a wonderful day and 
we were able to honor maybe the first family of the University of Washington, 
the Gates family; giving honorary degrees to Bill Gates and his father Bill Gates 
Sr. and we were even able to have the proclamation for Bill Gates Sr. read by 
his daughter, Christy Blake. It was a fabulous way to begin a new year.

And for living out your faith, that thoughtful people can join forces to improve 
our common life, the University of Washington is proud to confer upon you the 
degree of Doctor of Humane Letters, Honoris Causa. 

Applause

And for all you have done to bring dignity and hope to the troubled face of 
humanity, the University of Washington is proud to confer upon you the 
degree of Doctor of Humane Letters, Honoris Causa.

Applause

But I have to admit that over the last few days, I have been getting increasingly 
anxious about this event. I know that am not here just to get a degree, I am 
also here to give you some advice about the next four years. That’s the part 
that’s worrying me. I keep asking myself, do they know I’m a college drop out? 
Do they know I just quit a steady well paying job to volunteer for a non-profit?

Applause

Fall is a time of new beginnings and renewal for all universities and we at the 
UW are off to a terrific start. This year our students will lend their voices and 
their passion to electing the next President of the United States. A critical 
decision at this historic moment. And this year we can’t forget that we are 
welcoming 250 new faculty to the university to teach and do the cutting edge 
research for which we are well known. And also this year we’ll continue to 
work on new public transportation options, launch our new College of the 
Environment and continue to make progress to be an exemplar to the rest of 
the nation for sustainable practices in the way we manage all three of our 
campuses. Indeed, we are the only campus in the northwest that’s received 
an A- for the college sustainability report card and one of only 6 institutions in 
the nation to have received it two years in a row. We’re very proud of that 
accomplishment and want to build on it.

And this year of course is going to be very important politically in Olympia and 
in Washington DC. The agenda for this year in Olympia is going to be 
challenging to say the least. The state is of course facing a very significant 
budget deficit, estimates right now are that the biennial deficit will be around 
3.2 billion dollars, but frankly that’s likely to grow, as we hear more revenue 
estimates in the future. That means for the University of Washington, we’re 
going to have to work extremely hard to hang on to the terrific gains we’ve 
had in the past two biennial. I’m confident we can do that, but it’s going to 
take a lot of hard work on a lot of peoples’ part. Secondly down there, were 
going to be working to try and make sure we get more flexibility and some 
more permission to do some of the things we need to do, to control the way 
we do capital construction, and reduce some of our costs to be able to manage 
some of our resources more flexibly. And of course we also want to have 
some more flexibility to the way we apply tuition and fees to the issues in 
front of us. Overall it’s going to be a challenging time, but we can do this 
together. We’ve also begun the year in great style with faculty recognitions. 
One of our outstanding faculty is a rock star in more than one way. David 
Montgomery, of Earth and Space Sciences, studies how soils and rivers impact 
civilizations and received the prestigious McArthur Fellowship prize, the genius 
grant for his great work. But he also plays in a local rock band called Great Dirt, 
and he was thrilled to have it all played on the radio when he finally want the 
McArthur Fellowship. Two of our faculty also were named to the prestigious 
Institute of Medicine, Lawrence Cory of Laboratory Medicine, and our Provost 
Phyllis Wise. And I’m also pleased to welcome to the University this year, two 
new deans, and one familiar face but in a new role. First of all we welcome to 
the University Marla Salmon, from Emory University who will be taking over as 
Dean of the Nursing School. Our second new dean is Tom Baily, who will be 
joining us as Dean of Pharmacy and returning to the UW after a long stint in the 
private sector. And finally Scott Woodward, our Vice President for External 
Affairs, is now going to be our Athletic Director. We’re looking forward to great 
leadership from all three of these new fine folks.

As always, I’d like to hear from you, so if you have thoughts or ideas, please 
email me at pres@u.washington.edu. And thanks for watching this installment 
of Office Hours.