The Integrator: Summer 2022
A newsletter for ISS students, alumni, faculty, and staff
Vol. 5, Issue 2 // Summer Quarter 2022
Year in Review with ISS Co-Director Meg Spratt
Trauma. Justice. Equity. Resilience.
These are just some of the keywords from recent ISS student portfolios that capture the poignant connections between our scholarship and our real-life struggles and successes. We’ve made it through another year of pandemic and have witnessed heart-breaking national and international tragedies. Yet we continue to find ways to cope, grow, and thrive – often in the context of our intellectual work and our relationships with one another.
In 2022, the ISS program suffered a deeply personal loss with the death of our beloved colleague, adviser Joe Hannah. We also said goodbye to Aimee Kelly, ISS assistant director of academic services, who moved on to an excellent opportunity in another UW unit. Both Joe and Aimee helped build ISS and their legacies will remain with us.
In the midst of loss, we celebrated triumphs. Faculty and staff continued the collaborative effort at the heart of ISS with ongoing updates to our thematic and core courses, making our program stronger and our classes even more accessible. Our ace advising team – working especially hard under difficult circumstances – served the needs of our students with grace, offered consistent support to faculty, and even developed an important new Canvas-based resource: The ISS Student HUB.
And, we proudly reached an important milestone in our still relatively young program: 500 graduates.
As I reflect on the past academic year and plan for the next, I am so deeply appreciative of our students, alumni, staff and faculty. You’ve stepped up, done the work, spoken out for what’s right, cared for each other, and met your own personal challenges.
What an amazing, inspiring group of people!
- Meg Spratt, ISS Co-Director
Remembering Joe Hannah
Our ISS community suffered a devastating loss this year with the passing of our beloved colleague Joe Hannah, who died of cancer in April. Joe leaves an unfillable hole in our program and in our hearts, but we are grateful for the opportunity to honor his legacy by carrying forward his work of serving ISS students. We hope this tribute video brings some comfort to those who knew and loved our Joe.
Image
2022 Featured Student Portfolio: Vanessa Stoner
The ISS Portfolio is a central component of our curriculum. Every student creates a portfolio during their time in ISS, and this portfolio represents the full breadth and depth of their work in the program. Each year, the ISS faculty and staff select two outstanding portfolios for the special honor of the Portfolio Award. Considering the overall high quality of ISS student portfolios, this is an especially prestigious honor. Please join us in congratulating this year's two Portfolio Award winners, Vanessa Stoner and Rick Ramirez. We're pleased to share a little bit more detail about Vanessa's scholarship and portfolio. Enjoy!
Vanessa Stoner
Vanessa joined the U.S. Army as a paralegal in 2001, after studying sociology at the UW. Vanessa deployed to Baghdad, where she worked at the U.S. Embassy and the Army’s 3ID Headquarters, teaching Iraqi police and Army forces how to gather evidence and take a case to trial in the Central Criminal Court of Iraq. Vanessa was a paralegal for a prosecutor’s office for 11 years, where she realized the traditional criminal legal system was not effectively helping to keep the community safe and not effectively addressing the needs or behavior of the person legally involved. In 2019, she began working in the Seattle City Attorney’s Office, where she manages several of the office’s criminal diversion programs. Vanessa is committed to criminal legal system reform and involved in many of her office’s racial equity workgroups and is a member of the City’s Race and Social Justice Initiative change team.
Inspired by newly appointed U.S. Attorney Nicholas Brown’s recognition of the problem of mass incarceration and criminal legal system inequity, Vanessa recently accepted a paralegal position in the Cyber Crimes Unit of the U.S. Attorney’s Office. She is eager to continue to serve her community, put her new degree in Integrated Social Sciences to use and bring in a perspective of how social institutions’ policies impact individuals and communities.
The award committee was deeply impressed by Vanessa's strong focus on criminal justice reform, the depth of her research, and the integration of her theme throughout her portfolio.
ISS graduates its 500th Husky!
Our program hit a major milestone this June when we graduated our 500th Husky! ISS was founded in 2014 with the mission of making a UW education accessible to all. We are incredibly proud of every student who has earned their UW diploma through ISS. You are all part of a large and growing community of ISS alumni who are out there changing the world for the better, and we celebrate you!
Check out this feature story about our 500th graduate, A Milestone for Integrated Social Sciences, in this month's Perspectives Newsletter. The story features 2022 ISS graduates Myra Kelly, Kristen Christensen, and Gerrod-Raul De Guzman! Click here to read the story.
"[ISS 2022 graduate Myra] Kelly credits the mentorship of ISS faculty and advisers with helping her reach this important milestone. 'I really believe they wanted me to succeed,' she says. 'The advising team and professors helped me develop as a student. They weren’t doing the work for me, but they were saying, "You can do this. You actually can." And I realized they were right -- and I did it.'"
A fond farewell to Aimee Kelly
Image
Aimee joined ISS in its exhilarating pre-launch days. In fact, she started just two weeks before the beginning of Autumn 2014 when we had 104 new students, a bunch of faculty who had never taught online before, hope in our hearts, and terror in our eyes. Aimee was a guiding light of ISS, especially in designing our vaunted “high touch” advising model, a system requiring advisers to work proactively with an assigned caseload of students. With an M.A. in Geography from the UW, Aimee had a history of online teaching and advising at other universities, which meant she quickly became the go-to person for faculty still learning Canvas. With a head for systems, Aimee brought order to the creative chaos of our start-up environment. She proved herself over and over to be a compassionate and committed adviser, an outstanding teacher, and a courageous colleague. During her time in ISS Aimee soon became a leader in the UW advising community. Most notably, when the COVID-19 pandemic broke, and the UW “pivoted” to remote instruction, Aimee also pivoted to become an educator of advisers, leading the charge in helping the advising community learn effective online advising tools and practices. Many of our graduates today benefited from Aimee’s guidance and skill in solving thorny problems. The entire ISS program has benefited from Aimee’s razor-sharp mind, boundless energy, warmth, and infectious laughter.
All of us in ISS wish Aimee the best of all things in her very bright UW future.
Summer reads!
Looking for a beach read? Here's what ISSers are reading this summer:
Image
"I’ve been reading The Turquoise Ledge by Leslie Marmon Silko, it’s a memoir about family and about her relationship with the plants, animals and natural landscapes around her. One of my very favorite books is Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. I was given the Silko book by my friend who suggested I read it, as they are both very invested in how we socialize with and understand the natural world. Reading the book is helping me to slow down a little bit."
Image
"I’m reading Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline, a follow-up to the 2011 novel Ready Player One (which was later made into a Spielberg-produced movie.) The book is a page-turner filled with adventure, soaked in pop-culture references, and has a story arc clearly influenced by World of Warcraft and D&D. It was a perfect diversion during the train rides I took traveling around Europe this June."
Image
"Among other books, I'm reading The Watergate Girl by Jill Wine-Banks. It reminds me of the summer of 1974, which turned out to be pivotal in my eventual decision to become a journalist, and it gives me hope that America can find a path to political justice and a stronger democracy in 2022."
Image
"I'm reading Alice Waters' book, We Are What We Eat and I wanted to recommend it as a great example of keywords out in the wild. The first half of the book is dedicated to fast food culture words, and the second half is dedicated to slow food culture words. Each essay is inspiring in how concise yet meaty (no pun intended) it is. It's also a nice break from thinking about my own keywords :)"
Image
"I am finally reading Octavia Butler's Kindred, a book that has been on my must-read list for ages. It's currently being turned into a TV series written by one of my favorite playwrights, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, so I wanted to read it before that comes out. Next up is Jen Silverman's We Play Ourselves. Jen is also one of my favorite playwrights. I guess there's a theme here. If you are interested in exploring these writers' plays, I recommend Jacobs-Jenkins' An Octoroon and Silverman's The Moors as great starting points."
And finally, if you are looking for ISS Co-Director Mel Wensel this summer, you'll find her (happily) buried under a stack of New Yorkers.
Bulletin Board:
We will soon be hiring! ISS expects to soon post openings for two positions: Assistant Director of Academic Services and Assistant Academic Adviser. These positions will be posted to the ISS website as soon as they live. If you or someone you know is interested, please check back soon!
Know someone who should be an ISSer? Our next admission cycle is for Spring Quarter 2023, so now is the perfect time for prospective ISS students to begin a conversation about completing their degree. If you know someone who could benefit from our 100% online degree completion program, have them reach out to our Admission & Outreach Adviser, Holly Arsenault, at issinfo@uw.edu or 206-685-8858, or sign up for an upcoming info session.
Featured courses! Your ISS Advising Team has highlighted some specific, campus-based online courses to satisfy general education and general elective requirements. You can check them out here on our Featured Courses page! Space in these courses may be limited. If you are interested in taking one or more of these courses, please complete this online request form before September 1st for priority consideration. Thereafter, your ISS adviser will be in contact regarding next steps.
New and returning communications classes! We are pleased to announce that we will be adding a new course to our curriculum for Winter Quarter 2023: COM 437: Rhetoric of Science and Medicine, taught by Professor Amanda Friz. We're also happy to share that the very popular course COM 220: Public Speaking, taught by Professor Leah Ceccarelli will return in Spring 2023!
Important dates:
- Registration for Fall 2022 is open now. Visit this page for ISS-specific registration information.
- ISS orientation will welcome new ISS students beginning on September 7, 2022.
- Autumn quarter begins Wednesday, September 28, 2022.
Your support makes a difference!
"I knew I needed to change my life altogether. The ISS program gave me so much support every step of the way. What I always tell everyone is that this is a program where you're never going to feel alone."
Ramón Bentley
BA, Integrated Social Sciences, 2019
Your gifts to the Friends of Integrated Social Sciences fund turn the dream of a UW degree into reality for so many students. Thank you!