A Transformative Gift for Arts & Sciences

When John Simpson decided to honor his late wife Katherine through a gift in both their names, he knew right away where he wanted to focus that support: the University of Washington College of Arts & Sciences.

John spent most of his professional career in the College, first as a professor of neuroscience and later as dean of Arts & Sciences. Katherine, who passed away in 2022, earned her UW bachelor’s degree in art — also in the Arts & Sciences — and spent many years as professional staff in the College.

“I wanted to create something to memorialize Katherine in the place she loved more than anywhere, which was the University,” John says. “One of her highest aspirations was to support the College.”

The newly created Katherine and John Simpson Endowed Deanship in the College of Arts & Sciences provides that support in a transformative way. The endowment solidifies the importance and vitality of the arts, humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences. And the gift builds on previous gifts to the College from the Simpson family.

The Simpson family’s connection to higher education and the arts spans generations. John’s grandparents, Walter and Jessie Simpson, were college graduates who believed in the importance of humanistic education and passed on those values to their son Barclay, John’s father. Barclay grew the family business, the Simpson Screen Company — still operating as Simpson Strong Tie — and instilled the importance of philanthropy in his own children.

John fondly recalls his father’s “put something back” fund, a pot of money reserved for philanthropy, mostly focused on education and the arts. “My father’s notion was that money his business earned should be put back into society to do good things,” he says. “My parents modeled that, and as a consequence, it’s been natural for me to engage in philanthropy myself.”

John joined the UW faculty as an assistant professor of psychology in 1975 and was tapped to serve as dean of the College of Arts & Sciences in 1994. As dean, he encouraged his father to make a major gift to the humanities at the UW, recognizing that the humanities, so central to the College, needed additional support. That led to the creation of the Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities in 2000, in honor of Barclay’s father.  

John’s recent gift honoring Katherine is a wonderful expansion of that family legacy of support for the College.

“This generous gift firmly cements the Simpson family’s connection to the UW and builds on earlier Simpson family gifts,” says Dianne Harris, dean of the College of Arts & Sciences. “At a critical time in higher education, this gift allows the College to continue the impactful work we are doing across campus, throughout the state, and around the world.”

The wording of the Katherine and John Simpson Endowed Deanship prioritizes interdisciplinary work while providing flexibility for the College’s dean to decide where funds are most needed at any given time. In crafting the endowment, John consulted with Dean Harris and with Kevin Thompson, the College’s associate dean for advancement. But the endowment was also informed by his own leadership roles in academia.  

“How I wish I had something like this when I was dean,” John says, recalling the tiny pot of flexible money available to him at that time. “People came to me with so many great ideas, and I could only fund a small number of requests. I didn’t begin to have the resources needed to do most of the things I wanted to do.”

Given his own experience, John asked that the endowment be fluid, dynamic, and changeable according to conditions while encouraging interdisciplinary teaching and research. “I’m a strong believer in the notion of drawing from diverse disciplines and philosophies and methodologies and techniques to answer problems,” he says. “That’s the sort of work I want to foster.”

Those were lessons learned at the UW but also at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where John served as executive vice chancellor and provost after his time at the UW, and at the University of Buffalo, where he then served as president. Now retired, John admits that his post-UW positions gave him an even greater appreciation of the University of Washington.

“Being in those other roles, I had considerable perspective from outside on this university,” he says. “And what I decided was that the University of Washington is a very special place. It is a remarkable university. My heart’s always been with the UW, not only for the place it has had in my history but for the quality of my colleagues, both faculty and staff. Looking back, despite the challenges, I think my favorite job of all time was being the Dean of Arts & Sciences.”

The Katherine and John Simpson Endowed Deanship now creates more opportunities for future deans to support innovative projects, as John envisioned.

“I’m fortunate enough to have the means to help the College, and it feels natural to do so,” John says. “It’s very gratifying to put something back into an enterprise that has been so important to both Katherine and me.”

To learn more about opportunities to support the UW College of Arts & Sciences, visit the College’s Giving page or contact Kevin Thompson at kpthomps@uw.edu.