New faculty take tour of state

On the morning of June 15, with graduation exercises and classes finished for the year, 35 faculty new to the University of Washington will join President Richard L. McCormick aboard a Gray Line bus for a five-day journey to learn more about their new home state.

Since he became UW president, a consistent McCormick theme has been that “we are the University of Washington, not the University of Seattle.”

To help establish that fact, McCormick borrowed an idea from his previous employer, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which sent a busload of new faculty on a weeklong tour of that state last year and again this year.

During the UW Faculty Field Tour, as it is called, the professors will visit a number of sites including Microsoft, Naval Station Everett, Boeing, a fruit packing plant and orchard near Wenatchee, the Grand Coulee Dam, Spokane, the Tri-Cities area, Hanford, the Yakama Indian Nation, a migrant health care clinic, the Columbia River, the Gifford Pinchot National Forest and Tacoma.

They will hear presentations from specially selected speakers at virtually every stop along the way. Faculty will also have the opportunity to meet people from other disciplines and form associations the organizers hope will last well beyond the conclusion of the trip.

Dr. John B. Coombs, associate vice president for medical affairs and associate dean of medicine, is chairing the Field Tour’s faculty advisory committee.

“The aim of this trip is to give our new faculty a feel and appreciation for their new home state,” Coombs said. “We want them to see where their students come from, what some of the issues are for Washingtonians beyond the Puget Sound area, and how the UW might do a better job of working with its constituents.”

No appropriated state money is being used to fund the trip. To qualify for the trip, faculty must have been at the UW for three years or less. The organizers were delighted with the overwhelming response to the call for volunteers, with some 50 faculty, representing campuses in Seattle, Tacoma and Bothell wanting to sign up. For space reasons, the number of participants had to be held to 35, but if the venture is a success, another trip will likely be held next year. ¶