College Access and Success

For many young people growing up in marginalized communities, it can be difficult to see futures filled with opportunity.

Nikum Pon (PhD '13) dreams of changing that.

Before his dream came to life, however, Pon had to escape one of the worst tragedies of the 20th century. Born in Cambodia during Pol Pot's rule and a genocide in which more than a million Cambodians died, Pon fled with his family to a refugee camp in Thailand.

Dalya Perez grew up on the University of Washington campus, playing with the ducks in Drumheller Fountain and running through the cherry blossom lanes. Yet it was hard to picture herself as a future UW student during those childhood years.

Her parents came to the United States as immigrants, and UW was a place of opportunity — her father worked as an officer with the campus police department while her uncle worked as a custodian.

A recent study by a UW College of Education professor and doctoral student found that graduates of the University of Washington’s two early-entrance university programs excelled in their academic and subsequent professional lives.

UW College of Education students La’akea Yoshida and Christina Black dreamed of doing a world of good as educators. “My entire life, I have wanted to make a difference in the classroom,” says Christina, a recent master’s in teaching graduate and recipient of the Daniel V. Iyall Student Support Fund. Her Alaska Native grandfather never had the opportunity to attend college, nor her mother, who raised Christina and her siblings as a single parent.

Two College of Education students in the Education Leadership and Policy Studies area have written and received a grant from the Hazel Miller Foundation. Ashley Patricia Ferrell, MEd student in Organizational and Policy Studies, and Mariah Moody, MEd student in Higher Education, wrote the grant to support the College Access Project, which aims to increase the percentage of first generation college-bound, low income, and under-represented students who will graduate from high school "college ready".

Children from diverse backgrounds may have little or no exposure to either science or scientists. They sometimes don’t think science is something they can do.

“If you have never heard of an engineer, you don’t know you can be one,” says Andrew Shouse, associate director of the UW’s Institute for Science + Math Education.

The UW College of Education, Washington STEM, and School District Partners have been named a joint finalist in the inaugural Road Map Project Awards Program for our work to increase equity and eliminate opportunity gaps for students in South King County and South Seattle.

Formal Partnership with University of Washington Tacoma Allows Qualifying Puyallup School District Graduates to Directly Matriculate

The National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) selected "Rethinking Advanced High School Coursework: Tackling the Depth/Breadth Tension in the AP US Government and Politics Course," by Walter Parker, Susan Mosborg, John Bransford, Nancy Vye, John Wilkerson and Robert Abbott, as one of two 2013 Exemplary Research in Social Studies Award winners. The award will be presented at the 93rd NCSS Annual Conference Nov. 22-24, in St. Louis, Missouri.