Bjong Wolf Yeigh, chancellor of the University of Washington Bothell, is proud that his campus “is really doing something about serving underserved populations.”
He pointed out, for example, that Tyrell Edwards became the school’s first Fulbright Student Scholar last year while pursuing a master’s degree in cultural studies.
“Ty created a leadership conference for students from diverse backgrounds. He’s also a great student and a great scholar,” Yeigh says, adding that Edwards, who attended a community college before earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees at UW Bothell, exemplifies the university’s commitment to underserved communities.
Founded in 1990, UW Bothell was designed to be interdisciplinary and to take innovative steps in building its programs, according to Yeigh, who was appointed chancellor in May 2013.
“Because we are young, at the onset [its founders] wanted it to be a very flat organization—that is, very nimble and easy to work with,” says Yeigh. “People often tell me we can get things done faster and more easily here than at a lot of other institutions because the structure lends itself to being very flexible.
“What drew me to this campus was that, when I visited, I saw students who were very much like me some 30-odd years ago when I was a student,” says Yeigh. “This campus is really doing something about serving underserved populations, and I was really happy to be part of that. About half of our student body are first-generation college students, and about 43 percent of our student body are students of color.”
Yeigh also takes pride in the gender makeup of his faculty. “If you look at the national percentage of women in computer science, you’re looking at [percentages] in the teens,” he points out. “About 40 percent of our computer science faculty here at UW Bothell are women.”
