University Week Homepage

Distinguished Teaching Awards
David Domke
Erika Goldstein
James Green
John Peterson
Priti Ramamurthy
Barry Witham
Carol Zander

Excellence in Teaching Awards
Chia-Hui Huang
Steve Wolfman

Distinguished Staff Awards
Brian Davis & James Boeckstiegel
Gary Ausman
Felicia Hecker
Sandra Kroupa
Keith Ward

Distinguished Graduate Mentor Award
Thomas Daniel

S. Sterling Munro Public Service Teaching Award
Sergio Palleroni

Outstanding Public Service Award
Anita Ramasastry

Brotman Diversity Award
Business Educational Opportunity Program
Student Outreach Ambassador Program

Brotman Award for Instructional Excellence
Dance Program
Research Apprenticeship Program

Alumni Association Distinguished Service Award
Geoff & Judy Vernon

Alumna Summa Laude Dignatus
Donald Baker

UW Recognition Award
ARCS Foundation, Seattle Chapter

President's Medalist
Roy Chan

Research Apprenticeship Program, Instructional Excellence

Brotman Instructional Excellence Award

The Brotman Awards were made possible by donations from Jeffrey and Susan Brotmman. Jeffrey Brotman is a UW law school graduate and a regent. Susan Brotman is on the UW Foundation Board of Directors. The Brotman Award for Instructional Excellence recognizes collaboration within and among departments, programs and groups that improves the quality of undergraduate education.

The Research Apprenticeship Program for undergraduates at Friday Harbor Laboratories grew out of a recognition that few undergraduates — including many with unusual talent — have the time, money or opportunity to engage in focused, intense research on a full-time basis.

“Yet we know that such an experience can make a profound difference and comes at a crucial stage for many students who are making choices about their futures,” says Dennis Willows, director of Friday Harbor Laboratories.

As student Carli Halpenny says, “While my experience at Friday Harbor Laboratories was only for three months, the long-term effects are already visible whether in stories, in career path choices or general attitude and outlook. I have since decided to enter graduate school toward the goal of a research career, and already notice how much more I ask ‘why?’ whereupon I take it upon myself to find out the answers.”

And Irene Choi says, “When I first went to Friday Harbor Laboratories, I believed that scientific progress occurred through breakthroughs in research from simply doing one experiment. I now understand, instead, that the real bedrock upon which science is built happens because of the perseverance of researchers tackling one small problem at a time. This new understanding has made it possible for me to contemplate making research part of my career.”

Since Willows helped launch the research apprenticeship program in 1999, more than 100 undergraduates have each spent three intense months at Friday Harbor Laboratories. There they conduct quarter-long research projects as part of a team with six or seven other undergraduates, a faculty mentor and one or two graduate research assistants. Subjects range from considering the effectiveness of marine reserves to studying the behavior and neurobiology of live sea slugs by implanting microelectrodes into their brains to considering policies about fish habitat under the state’s Growth Management Act.

Initially funded with UW Tools for Transformation money — a special pool of money created to, among other things, serve students in new ways — today’s research apprenticeship program gets three-quarters of its operational support from outside sources including private foundations, and national science and educational organizations.

“As a result, training students in this unusual way now costs the University much less than teaching the same students in the traditional campus environment,” Willows says. The number of off-campus funding sources is one of the things he didn’t anticipate.

He said he also was surprised the program attracted faculty from widely different disciplines. For instance, a group looking at the management of biological preserves that have been established at the site needed the insights of a landscape architecture faculty member because it’s impossible to divorce the marine areas from the terrestrial.

In materials supporting the program’s nomination for a Brotman award, students and faculty alike talked about the pleasure of being immersed in their subject matter.

“Upon first reading the slogan for Friday Harbor Laboratories, ‘A Life Changing Experience,’ I laughed at the cliché, but after completing the program I would entirely agree,” Halpenny says.

– Sandra Hines
News & Information