Diversity

Humanities 103, part of the Humanities First program for first-year students, emphasizes place-based learning through thoughtfully designed field trips. 

Upper Skagit elder Vi Hilbert's legacy in language and culture preservation lives on through archival records collected in the Vi Hilbert Collection, first curated and digitized by retired longtime UW Ethnomusicologist Laurel Sercombe and now housed through UW LIbraries, and through a documentary film and symphony she commissioned, Healing Heart of the First People of This Land," staged at the UW in February 2026 by the UW Symphony and soloist (and School of Music alumna) Adia S. Bowen.  

A bilingual educator with 18 years of experience at both the college level and in K–12 public schools, Whitemarsh hopes to give back to her hometown of Pasco.

A Burke Museum exhibit, co-curated by Coast Salish weavers and Burke curators, highlights the importance of weaving to Coast Salish communities.

Before earning his UW degree in American Indian studies, Devin Sampson-Craig took a break to act in a Netflix film about basketball players on the Navajo Nation reservation.

"What might the virtual assistant in your phone sound like if the artificial intelligence that powered it emerged from the consciousness of a Black girl from Chicago?" writes Timeka Tounsel, associate professor of Black studies in communication at the UW. Golden M. Owens, assistant professor of cinema & media studies at the UW, is quoted.

In the spring of 1970, a group of Native American students brainstormed ways to prioritize Native studies at the UW. By fall, the American Indian Studies Center was formed, with faculty from across campus teaching anthropology, art, and history from a Native perspective. Five faculty from the department share their thoughts on 55 years of Native knowledge at the UW.

Henry Jackson-Spieker, assistant professor of ceramics, glass and sculpture at the UW, is a born-and-raised Seattle artist known for his art installations. In his own work he uses a mix of material metal, glass, paracord, neon, wood to push viewers expectations of space and discernment, forcing them to rethink their physical and sociological relationship to everything around them.

While at the UW, artist Kyra Wolfenbarger was a researcher, museum intern, and arts writer. What shaped her most were the people she met along the way.

“Angela has spent her career bringing tough issues into the light, and she has done so with integrity and an honest desire to inform the public,” says Rickey Hall, vice president for Minority Affairs and Diversity and the UW diversity officer.

The Asian American Foundation's study shows increased concerns about Asian American loyalty and national security. Connie So, teaching professor of American ethnic studies at the UW, is quoted.

In Seattle, two local radio shows, Indigenous Jazz on Daybreak Star Radio and Sounds of Survivance on KEXP, are joining the efforts to illuminate and celebrate the Indigenous jazz genius. John-Carlos Perea, associate professor of ethnomusicology and an adjunct associate professor of American Indian Studies, is quoted.

Any institution with a depository of Indigenous items that receives federal funds must notify a tribe if it has the tribes property and obtain informed consent. But a staggering number of institutions have ignored the law. Sven Haakanson, chair of anthropology at the UW and curator of Native American anthropology at the Burke Museum, is quoted.

Things were a little bit different at Town Hall on March 4. Things were a little bitwarmer. Activist and educator Margo Okazawa-Rey was in the house.Linh Thy Nguyn, assistant professor of American ethnic studies at the UW, is quoted.

A video project led by School of Music professor Stephen Price highlights the work of Black composers for organ and provides historical context.