The UW's Distinguished Staff Award (DSA) is the University's highest staff honor, recognizing employees who exemplify excellence in collaboration, innovation, impact, career achievement, and diversity, equity and inclusion. Winners of the DSA are announced in May.
Today, the Yoshino cherry trees in the UW’s Quad are as iconic to the University as Suzzallo Library and Drumheller Fountain. But it’s been 60 years since they were transplanted from the Arboretum, and even legends aren’t immortal.
Late Friday afternoon before Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend, Jodene Davis returned to her office in Mary Gates Hall, where she works as a director in Undergraduate Academic Affairs. Her colleagues pointed to the ceiling in the hall of their ground-floor suite. Water was coming out of the tiles, making its way down the wall and out the bottom of a doorframe.
Don Satko has lived in the Puget Sound region all his life. He doesn’t remember there being many snowstorms growing up in the 1970s, but “now it seems like it's every year,” he said.
As a heavy equipment operator with UW Facilities, Satko sees the impact of snowier winters up close. He runs the snowplows, de-icer truck and other equipment used to keep the Seattle campus safe.
While more than 1,000 people work in UW Facilities, most employees interact with a much smaller set of colleagues in their day-to-day jobs. Mechanics work with other mechanics and custodians with other custodians in their individual areas or shops. Building cross-team awareness is one of the goals of Stepping Stones for Success, UWF’s longtime leadership program for front-line staff.
The challenge: Prepare the UW campus to host a live national TV show, manage hundreds of students lined up before dawn, and do it all on the busiest spot in campus. You have less than a week. Go.
Every September, UW sports fans return to campus decked out in Husky colors — but this year, they won’t be the only ones creating a purple haze on Montlake. The venues can turn purple too, thanks to new sports lighting.
On a Friday morning, a dozen people dance around a hallway in the Physics/Astronomy Auditorium. Chatter and laughter fill the air, but there’s no music. They aren’t dancing with each other, and their partners aren’t people.
According to the most recent survey, 13% of the UW community is driving to campus alone, a record low. The numbers reflect the continued impact of remote work as well as support for mass transit despite post-pandemic declines.
At home, there are simple steps you can take to save energy: program your thermostat, fix a leaky pipe, tell the kids to turn off the light when they leave the room, and so on. Smart home devices make doing this even easier, automatically increasing or decreasing energy usage to match your activity.
At the UW, the same principles apply. But instead of one house, there are 170 buildings with a range of functions, from labs to residence halls. Instead of 2,000 square feet, there are 19 million. Instead of one thermostat controlling a few pieces of equipment or zones, at the UW, each building may have 100 zones.
Internships take education beyond book learning to hands-on learning. Students get to put a skill or knowledge into practice ahead of their career journey — experience especially valuable for the UW Facilities interns who are graduating this year.
This article was updated on May 8 after it was announced that UW Facilities' Mike Morris won the DSA award for career achievement.
The UW's Distinguished Staff Award (DSA) is the University's highest staff honor, recognizing employees who exemplify excellence in collaboration, innovation, impact, career achievement, and diversity, equity and inclusion.
Congratulations to Mike Morris, Program Support Supervisor 2 with Maintenance & Construction, who has earned the DSA in the career achievement category. He and the other awardees will be honored at the Awards of Excellence ceremony at Meany Hall on Thursday, June 8.
A lot has changed on the UW campus over the years. New buildings go up, old buildings get renovated and light rail tunnels down below. One thing remains constant: The cherry trees in the Quad bloom every March.
The UW campus is not only a home for higher learning, it’s also a home to wildlife. Rabbits, ducks, geese, deer, squirrels and more all enjoy the UW’s hundreds of acres of lawns, hidden gardens and green space. And then there are the coyotes.
If you’re walking on campus near the HUB or the Quad, you may do a double take at some of the fire hydrants. Painted in purple and gold, they might seem like a fun expression of school spirit. They’re also all painted the same shades, suggesting that one person or group is painting them all.
At the Nov. 16 graduation ceremony for Stepping Stones to Success, UW Facilities’ leadership development program for front-line staff, instructor Sarah Lewis-Assink joked, “The word ‘empathy’ has been used 14,546 times in this program.”
With Thanksgiving over, fall has given way to winter, as if on cue. The Puget Sound region has already seen snow, sleet, rain mixed with snow, hail and more — and the winter wonderland won’t end there. Experts are saying it’ll be another La Niña winter, which means wetter, colder weather predicted through February.
My name is Jacob Emmons and I am a metal tradesman at the UW. I’m part of a team in UW Facilities' Shop 16 that maintains and repairs equipment such as fans, pumps, water heaters and kitchen equipment. Most of our repairs are performed in the field or in our workshop located in the basement of Gould Hall.
After a blistering summer, fall temperatures have continued to break records. The Seattle area has seen the most ever October days over 70 degrees Fahrenheit and, with temperatures hitting 88 degrees on Oct. 16, the latest day ever in the year to go above 80 degrees.
With record-breaking heat waves and more 90-degree-plus days each summer, increasing temperatures are killing many of our region’s trees. Birch trees, prized for their silvery bark, are becoming more vulnerable to a destructive pest, altering our region’s streets, green spaces and landscapes — including the UW campus.
Amid the scramble to move out of the residence halls every June, waste reduction may be not at the top of most students’ priorities. That’s where UW Recycling steps in, helping students donate things as part of the annual Student Cleanup, Recycle and Moveout (SCRAM) program. In addition to diverting waste, the event aims to prevent illegal dumping and support the local community.
As the store for unwanted items from UW departments and medical facilities, UW Surplus sells everything from office chairs and athletic gear to DNA sequencers and a research vessel. COVID-19 moved sales online, but now the public store is open again to customers.
Congratulations to custodian Evalina Taganna Romano for being one of the winners of the UW Together We Will award for 2022. She and the other winners from across the University will be honored at the 52nd annual Awards of Excellence reception at Meany Hall on Thursday, June 9. The Together We Will Awards serve as a temporary replacement for the Distinguished Staff Award (DSA) program, which will be back next year.
