Ellington

UW Dream Project

An update on the progress of the Dream Project, a UW student-initiated high-school outreach program, was presented to the Board of Regents yesterday.

The Dream Project, which can be taken as a 2-credit course, pairs UW students (Dream Team mentors) with first-generation and low-income high-school students (Dream Scholars). Dream Team mentors work with Dream Scholars for about one-and-a-half to two years to help them with the college-admissions process.

Since its creation in 2006, the Dream Project has grown significantly. The program began with 11 Dream Team mentors working with 103 Dream Scholars from three high schools. As of the current academic year, there are 217 Dream Team mentors working with 418 Dream Scholars from nine high schools.

Additionally, the Dream Project has raised more than $350,000 since its creation, mostly from private donors, as well as from a statewide grant organization called College Spark Washington. These funds are used for the project’s operations and scholarships for the Dream Scholars.

Jenee Myers Twitchell, one of the first Dream Team Mentors and now a first-year doctorate student, said that it has been rewarding for her to see the progress of the Dream Project.

“It’s kind of surreal to think about how much it has grown and how successful we’ve been,” she said. “For me, it’s been really nice to continue to work with students, high school and undergraduate, and watch them go through the whole process. I think that part of it, handing off the leadership, is the most rewarding part of the whole thing.”

The Dream Project has been established at UW Bothell and Colorado State University, and members plan to expand the program even further nationally.

New graduate certificate program

The Board of Regents approved a new Graduate Certificate Program in Nonprofit Management, to be offered by the Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs.

The 15-to-18-credit certificate program is intended to prepare students with the skills and knowledge needed for the management of nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations, including management and governance, fundraising and resource development, and similarities and differences in management and governance in different cultural and geographic contexts.

The graduate faculty of the Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs first proposed this new program to the Graduate School in May 2009.

“The lines between the public, private and nonprofit sectors are blurring, leaving federal, state and local governments increasingly turning to nonprofit organizations to deliver services they once provided,” the UW administration and the Academic and Student Affairs Committee of the Board of Regents wrote in the proposal. “Nonprofit managers must now have expertise in an ever-growing range of skills.”

The Graduate Certificate Program in Nonprofit Management is expected to be available by the end of this academic year. It will have provisional status with a review scheduled for the 2014-15 academic year.

New master’s degree

The Board of Regents granted authority to the Information School to offer a new Master of Science in Information Science (MSIS) degree.

The MSIS will be a part of the Doctor of Philosophy degree program that the Information School offers. Students who are in the process of doctoral candidacy are eligible for this degree.

Students who do not continue onto doctoral candidacy may also receive this degree. If the student successfully completes three of the four General Examination sections required for the doctoral program candidacy, or if the student passes all four sections but is unable or unwilling to pursue the doctoral degree, the student can receive the MSIS degree for the appropriate academic recognition.

The graduate faculty of the Information School first proposed the MSIS degree to the Graduate School in January 2009.

MSIS recipients will be more qualified than many with a graduate degree to lecture or to teach part time at a university for an undergraduate or graduate program with an information focus, according to the proposal.

The MSIS degree option will be available spring quarter 2010.

College of the Environment

The Board of Regents decided yesterday that two schools from the College of Ocean and Fishery Sciences, the School of Oceanography and the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, be relocated into the College of the Environment, effective March 16.

In the same proposal, the board also approved a recommendation that with all its academic programs consolidated into the College of the Environment, the College of Ocean and Fishery Sciences be eliminated, effective July 1.

Along with the two aforementioned schools, the three other major units of the College of Ocean and Fishery Sciences are the School of Marine Affairs, the Applied Physics Lab and the Washington Sea Grant program. The School of Marine Affairs was relocated to the College of the Environment during the previous academic year; the Applied Physics Lab now reports directly to President Mark Emmert and Provost Phyllis Wise; and the Washington Sea Grant program will be relocated to the College of the Environment by the end of this academic year.

“The proposed reorganization of these academic programs into the College of the Environment continues the efforts initiated in 2008 to bring the world-class environmental science programs at the University of Washington together into one comprehensive organizational unit,” the UW administration and the Academic and Student Affairs Committee of the Board of Regents wrote in the proposal. “This reorganization will support the University’s efforts to build the strongest and most capable environmental research and teaching institution in the world.”

On Jan. 13, the secretary of the faculty notified the faculty of the College of Ocean and Fishery Sciences of the reorganization and consolidation proposal and of their option to petition for additional review. There were no requests for additional review, according to a letter from Emmert and Wise to the Board of Regents.

Reach News Editor Joanna Nolasco at news@dailyuw.com.