Just a decade ago, the University of Washington was seen by many as a loser. It was losing money as state revenue plunged with the early ’80s recession. It was losing the battle against time as walls rotted and bricks cracked. It lost some of its faculty stars to other institutions. It seemed that the only place the UW was a winner was on the football field. In a biting satire for April Fools’ Day one year, The Daily announced that the state had decided to close the University but keep the football team.
What a difference a decade can make. While our football team is still a winner, so is the entire University. The state’s contribution to the UW has risen in each of the last three state budgets. Private giving is at an all-time high as the Campaign for Washington climbs to 92 percent of its $250 million goal. We have a brand-new library, plus new buildings for chemistry, the health sciences and physics awaiting groundbreaking ceremonies. Faculty recruitment is up and the world has recognized some exceptional UW professors—such as Nobel Prize-winning physicist Hans Dehmelt and National Book Award Winner Charles Johnson.
This issue of Columns also focuses on winners and at least one potential loser. Memory expert Elizabeth Loftus discusses winning and losing in the courtroom. She questions the validity of verdicts based on testimony drawn from childhood memories. We profile Barbara Hedges, the new UW athletic director who wants to keep our student-athletes winning on the playing field—and in the classroom. We examine the triumph of William Zoller, a chemistry professor who lost his memory in a terrifying car accident and against great odds fought his way back into the classroom. And we take a look at the prospect of light rail for the Puget Sound area, which several of our professors feel may be a “loser” in the battle against gridlock.
As a footnote to this catalog of winners, we’d like to list the national and regional awards recently given to your alumni magazine. In a competition against college magazines from 50 states and 10 Canadian provinces, the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) gave University Photographer Davis Freeman a Bronze Award for the December Columns cover and photo spread on the new Allen Library. Competing against other Northwest graphic artists, Designer Ken Shafer won a 1991 Certificate of Design Excellence from PRINT magazine for his feature spreads in Columns. The Washington Press Association gave us a First Place Award for Color, Non-Profit Magazines in its 1991 competition. And the Public Relations Society of America, Puget Sound Chapter, awarded us a 1991 Citation of Excellence, Honorable Mention, for Excellence in Periodicals.