Since 1994, alumni and friends in the Multicultural Alumni Partnership have worked together to promote diversity at the UW and address issues of equity and diversity on our campuses and in our community. They do this through mentoring, supporting lectures, networking in the community and providing scholarships. Each academic year, the partnership reaches out to historically underrepresented UW students with financial support. This yearâs promising scholars range from early undergraduates who are still zeroing in on a major to those pursuing graduate and professional degrees.
Gillian Duenas says âHÃ¥fa adai!â (âHelloâ in Chamorro). A 2020 alum with a degree in speech and hearing sciences and a minor in diversity, Duenas returned to campus for the master of social work program. Being a first-generation college student and a Pacific Islander woman at the UW was challenging, but she found passion and strength with Pacific Islander and Indigenous communities at
Hussein assembles hardware that her students and others from around the world could access remotely.
Rania Hussein had a dilemma: The 60 students in her Design of Digital Circuits and Systems course would need access to materials they’d normally use in an in-person lab. She knew the UW wasn’t alone in facing this problem so Hussein partnered with educators at universities in Michigan, Malaysia, Spain and Brazil to create a distributed remote circuit board lab. Thanks to this collaboration, students at any of the participating universities could remotely access hardware located at any of the other institutions. Hussein’s approach was centered on equity: “I wanted students to continue designing and testing circuits after the class ended and develop their technical skills equitably, without having to return borrowed kits or purchase expensive hardware.”