Faculty Field Tour

The bus passes Spokane Falls on its way into the city.

(Editor’s Note: Kevin Kawamoto, an assistant professor in communications, was one of 35 UW faculty to participate with President Richard L. McCormick in the five-day faculty bus tour around the state. The trip, a first for the UW, was an opportunity for faculty members who have been here three years or less to learn about the state and get to know each other. A faculty advisory committee headed by Dr. John B. Coombs, associate vice president for medical affairs, oversaw the planning, and took part in the tour. No appropriated state money was used to fund the trip. Kawamoto came to the UW in 1996 from New York, although he was born and raised in Hawaii. He describes his bus tour experiences below.)

Hopping on a bus for five days with 34 other faculty members and touring Washington sounded like a terrific opportunity to learn more about the state, especially outside of Seattle, but I must confess that initially I had some reservations about signing up for the Faculty Field Tour (FFT). I had never done anything like it, and apparently neither had the University. This could end up being a very long five days, I thought to myself, as I filled out the on-line application form and hit the send button.

It didn’t take me long to realize, however, what a unique and important experience this was going to be—not only for me, but for the University and the many communities it serves and draws upon for talented students and other resources. As the day of our departure approached, I was actually getting excited about becoming a student again in what President McCormick referred to as a “traveling symposium.”

The state would be our laboratory and classroom, and each day would present us with a series of topics about the state’s people, geography, social institutions, industries, non-profit organizations, environment and role in the global marketplace.

A crane takes faculty members 200 feet straight up at the Wind River Canopy research site.

Day One
It seemed appropriate, symbolically speaking, that we departed Seattle from the Burke Museum. Aside from being an easy-to-find landmark, museums are crossroads between the public and scholars, where the former can view and study the results of field research and historical analysis. This time, however, it was the scholars going into the diverse communities to learn from the public.

Our first stop was Microsoft, where William Neukom, senior vice president for law and corporate affairs, told us that more than 60 percent of their revenues come from overseas licensing of Microsoft products. He argued for the importance of respecting and enforcing intellectual property rights both domestically and overseas, where software theft can be rampant.

After we left Microsoft and headed north to Everett a heated discussion about intellectual property ignited in the back of the bus. (I can’t articulate all the points of view, but I know it was noisy back there!)

Next we visited the Naval Station Everett and Boeing, receiving warm receptions and excellent tours of both facilities. Both the naval station and Boeing are major employers in the region and have UW connections: Rear Admiral William D. Center earned a master’s degree from the University in 1978, and Boeing has contributed a considerable amount of money to the University and employs many of its graduates.

Our day ended in Leavenworth with a Bavarian-style dinner including a variety of German sausages, sauerkraut and potatoes and a serenade of traditional medleys from the old country. A number of local community leaders joined us for dinner, and UW History Professor John Findlay gave us a historical overview of the state.

UW History Professor John Findlay gives tour participants an overview of Washington history.

Day Two
We toured fruit orchards in Wenatchee and learned about the apple industry from Chief Wenatchee president and general manager Brian Birdsall and Flinn Farms manager Mike Flinn. Both men talked about the difficulties and rewards, some deep-seated and intangible, of contemporary agricultural production and the process by which fruit goes from the farm to grocery shelves, whether here in the United States or abroad. We visited an apple packing plant that had special and seemingly cumbersome quarantine requirements imposed by the Japanese government to prevent the introduction of certain insects to Japan. A couple of the apple growers who spoke to us didn’t hide their skepticism of the procedure, suggesting that it was more a trade barrier than a genuine entomological precaution, but it was what had to be done to gain access to the Japanese apple market.

Washington’s global interdependence was becoming clearer each day.

After the orchards, we headed for the Grand Coulee Dam, riding alongside the beautiful and expansive Columbia River. Someone had the foresight to bring along the Peter, Paul and Mary rendition of Woody Guthrie’s Roll on Columbia, which was broadcast on the bus’ speaker system as the river indeed rolled on beside us. The lyrics were thoughtfully included in our Faculty Field Tour folder, but it was the striking baritone of Dr. John Coombs that emboldened the rest of us to join in.

We descended into the bowels of the Grand Coulee Dam on a kind of diagonally-inclined elevator. From the underwater facility you can hear the thunderous churning of cylinders and almost deafening drone of machinery and water. You could almost feel the massive amounts of power being created right then and there.

Eric Cheney, UW Professor of Geological Sciences, had joined us to explain the fascinating geological features surrounding us. On the way to Spokane, agriculturalists Donald Graedel and Lloyd Bourne gave a joint presentation on Washington’s agricultural industry.

A Yakama youth performs.

That evening we ate in style at the former mansion of Patrick “Patsy” Clark, an Irish immigrant who came to the United States in the 1870s and made a fortune in the gold and silver mines. The mansion is now a stately restaurant, and it was there that we had a chance to meet and interact with a variety of government, business and University leaders to discuss our mutual concerns and hear what others had to say. I think it’s safe to say that most of us returned to our rooms with considerable food for thought to accompany our well-nourished bellies.

Day Three

After a slide presentation by Larry Schoonover, deputy director of programs for the Cheney Cowles Museum, and a tour of Spokane, we headed to the Tri-Cities, walked through the impressive Batelle research facility, and observed a simulated alert response at the Washington Public Power facility in Hanford. Remarkably, there was an actual problem occurring about the same time with the actual nuclear power plant across the field. We were never in any danger, but still, it was an eerie coincidence. While we left the facility unscathed (as far as I know), I learned that many things in our day-to-day lives give us small doses of radiation, including watching television, using a video display terminal and even wearing a luminous (LCD) wristwatch.

It was long ride to Yakima where we had dinner at Grant’s Brewery Pub and heard presentations about Columbia Basin fish and wildlife. Salmon fishing is obviously an important part of the Northwest economy, but it is also an important part of some Native American traditions. Sometimes government conservation efforts clash with those traditions, as is often reported in the news media, but other times they work together on joint concerns, as Brian Allee of the Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife and Dave Fast of the Yakama Indian Nation and Yakama Fisheries Project have done.

Day Four
By this time, some of us needed a bit of nuclear power to get our batteries re-charged, so we were given a one-hour reprieve on getting our luggage outside the hotel room door—8 a.m. rather than 7 a.m. That day we toured the Migrant Farm Workers Clinic and then departed for the Yakama Nation Cultural Center. We learned about the challenges—cultural, economic, political—of providing medical and dental care for migrant farm workers. Because the UW School of Medicine already has a strong presence in Yakima, there was some informal discussions among some of the medical and nursing school faculty about continued support, perhaps in new ways, of the clinic and its dedicated staff.

From left, Paul LePore, sociology; Ginger Armbrust, oceanography; and David L. Secord, Environmental Science/ Tacoma enjoy a lively conversation aboard the bus as the Faculty Field Tour progresses.

What was interesting here and in other places was the different perspectives we were getting from different people talking about the same issues. At the Migrant Farm Workers Clinic, for example, we heard a different point of view about the provision of health care services for migrant workers than we heard from one of the apple growers. Truth, if there be such a thing, percolates upwards from a diversity of perspectives, and the FFT helped us get at these different perspectives.

At the Yakama Nation Cultural Center we were treated to deep fried bread, a staple at most meals there, and traditional dances performed by a troupe of children in colorful native dress. As faculty intermingled with Yakama Nation representatives, President McCormick reaffirmed the University’s support of recruiting Native American students.

We touched down that night at the Skamania Lodge in Stevenson, where incoming UW students from the region joined us for dinner. A freshman sitting at my table, Randy Kwong, sent me an e-mail message later telling me he was considering a communications major. I thought this was just the kind of thing we would want to grow out of that experience.

Day Five

The last day was the highlight of my week. It was literally uplifting as we were hoisted in a cage in groups of seven by a crane to view pine trees from a bird’s-eye perspective. This was at the Wind River Canopy Site, where trees can be studied from a height of 200 feet above the forest floor. The ride was better than a ferris wheel! Of course, this equipment is used for serious research: studying the life of trees and the ecosystem within which they exist is crucial in a state that has a significant forestry industry.

The ride back to Seattle took us past Olympia and through Tacoma, where we visted the Port of Tacoma and saw where some of our colleagues work at the UW Tacoma campus. (My roommate for the tour, Jose Rios, is an assistant professor of education at UW Tacoma.) It was the first time many of us had seen the Tacoma campus, which has a very different character than the Seattle campus.

The long but productive week ended with a picnic at President McCormick’s residence in Seattle. We had come full circle, but like the protagonist in Homer’s Odyssey, we had returned home much wiser than when we departed.

President Richard L. McCormick, right, enjoys a red delicious apple and the perspective of apple grower Mike Flinn, along with other FFT participants.

A special note of thanks should go to the FFT coordinator, Kay Rodriguez, and the exceptional staff members who spared no expense in effort or thoughtfulness to make this trip a resounding success. Without their tireless planning and execution, none of this would have been possible.

Although the FFT was a lot of fun, it was much more than that, and not very easy to define succinctly. I met and befriended colleagues from a wide range of fields and disciplines, and from the branch campuses. I saw up close the range of people, places, industries and organizations that comprise the social fabric of Washington state. I heard stories about politics, immigration, the environment, education, labor—and so much more— that have helped to make me a more informed member of the University community. Finally, I have gained a rich appreciation for both the tremendous diversity of resources in this state as well as the needs and expectations that are linked to its resources.

I also think that we helped to build many little bridges, conceptually speaking, between Eastern and Western Washington. As President McCormick has said on a number of occasions: “We are not the University of Seattle. We are the University of Washington.”

That is a message that all of us in the state, no matter what side of the Cascades we reside, should take to heart. ¶

Kevin Kawamoto, Assistant Professor, School of Communications