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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

Felicia Hecker, Middle East Center

Distinguished Staff Award

Distinguished Staff Awards are given to staff who have made outstanding contributions to the mission of their unit or the University. They respond creatively to challenges, maintain the highest standards in their work, establish productive working relationships, and promote a respectful and supportive workplace.

Felicia Hecker remembers clearly waking up to her clock radio the morning of Sept. 11 and hearing what she thought must have been a movie trailer.

“They were saying something about the Twin Towers being damaged and maybe collapsing,” recalled Hecker, associate director of the Middle East Center in the Jackson School of International Studies. “I thought it was a promo for some ridiculous movie.” She hit the snooze button and shut her eyes.

Five minutes later, when the radio came on again, she was annoyed and wondered why they were still talking about the World Trade Center Towers. But as she listened, Hecker quickly realized it wasn’t a Hollywood fabrication. She turned on her television and, with the rest of the nation, watched in horror at live footage of the devastation. All the while, a troubling thought kept recurring.

“I didn’t want the cause of this tragedy to be what I feared it was going to be in the worst way,” Hecker said. “My job is sufficiently difficult without that as an added aspect.”

Thus began one of the most challenging periods of Hecker’s nearly 30-year tenure with the Jackson School as she and the Middle East Center attempted to navigate the aftermath of Sept. 11, educating the Pacific Northwest and the nation about the region from where the attacks had originated. In the following months, Hecker would field thousands of calls and e-mails, work to make the UW’s scholars available to the news media, and put together a lecture series, the Open Classroom, that attracted the largest audiences in the University’s history for public lectures on campus — all in addition to her regular duties.

Her performance during the crisis, and over her long UW tenure, has earned her a place among this year’s Distinguished Staff Award winners.

Ellis Goldberg, professor of political science and director of the Middle East Center, called Hecker’s contributions even before the September attacks “superlative.” In 1999, she wrote the history of the Jackson School. In 2000, she wrote the grant proposal that ensured the continued existence of the center, and the past two summers she has organized the Jackson School’s Summer Seminar for teachers.

But it was her willingness to “assume extraordinary responsibilities in crisis” that underlined the extent of her commitment to the University. The attacks occurred while the UW was on break, and many of the faculty associated with the center, including the director at the time, were out of town.

“Ms. Hecker independently conceived the Open Classroom project to ensure that the University responded appropriately to the desire of the general public for information about the causes and consequences of the attack,” Goldberg said. “Some 15,000 people attended the series of seven talks and hundreds of thousands of people have seen the talks on television, downloaded them from the Jackson School Web site, or read accounts of them in the print media.”

Steven Goldsmith, a media relations officer in the UW Office of News and Information who worked with Hecker in handling the needs of the news media after the attack, concurred.

“Her work was fabulous,” Goldsmith said. “Felicia brought this project to life in a very short time and in a manner that showed the University of Washington at its best.”

The pressure and stress of pulling together such a huge undertaking were intense, Hecker admits. But the payoff came when she saw the need it filled.

“Many people sent e-mails telling us how important it was for them to attend the Open Classroom series and find out more about the Islamic world,” she said. “In that time of national crisis, we marshaled the University’s resources to help.”

– Rob Harrill
News & Information