Friends At Foster
The individuals featured on this page were nominated by ALPFA UW members. Our members feels these individuals have made an impactful difference in their journey to, or at Foster.
We thank you for the work that you do, and the support you have provided our members.
ANDY MARZANO
What is your favorite thing about ALPFA?
My favorite thing about ALPFA is the ALPFAMILIA aspect of it. ALPFA makes sure that they are building a community for their members and providing them with resources. I’ve had the pleasure of working hands-on with ALPFA and seeing it grow. It makes me happy when I go to an ALPFA meeting and seeing all the genuine people. It leaves me happy every time I attend an ALPFA meeting
What is your current role at the University of Washington?
My current role at the University of Washington is that I am the Associate Director of the Undergraduate Diversity Services at the Foster School of Business. I am also the staff advisor for ALPFA.
How important do you feel Diversity & Inclusion are at the University of Washington?
Improving Diversity & Inclusion at the University of Washington is the most important thing we can do. This is the most important initiative the University needs to take on. If you think about how good the rankings are of UW, imagine how better they can be when we bring in diverse perspectives into the campus. There is so much untapped potential out there. It is our duty and the University’s duty to provide these opportunities to Diversity & Inclusion communities. Education is the most important thing students can pursue. Education can empower people to change the world. Like the quote by Cesar Chavez says “You cannot un-educate the person who has learned to read. You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore.” It is so important to give students these opportunities. Giving them these opportunities can fulfill the American Dream by achieving higher education, and if it is not accessible to everyone then we are not fulfilling our mission
How have you leveraged your role at UW to contribute to Diversity & Inclusion efforts?
My current role is mainly to improve the Diversity & Inclusion efforts at the Foster School of Business. However, what I have done to leverage my role is to coordinate with student organizations. I love working with Diversity & Inclusion organization and seeing them grow and help guide them to fulfill their mission.
What does building community mean to you? And how important is it to build or find yours while at UW?
Building a community is a personal value of mine. I love interacting with people and getting to know them. Creating a community is the most important thing we can do. We should be creating spaces for all people where they can feel like themselves. A community is building these spaces where people feel connected. The UW is a large institution so finding that community is important or even creating your own community by finding your people.
If you could give underrepresented first year students (freshman/transfers) one piece of advice what would it be?
A piece of advice I would like to give underrepresented first-year students (freshman/transfers) is to use your people. Even if you come into the institution feeling like you have no one there are always people there for yours. Even if it’s just one person, that person will be able to find other people for you. Make sure to network when you are at UW!
LINDSEY FRIESSNIG
What is your current role at the University of Washington?
I am a staff member at Foster Career Services, been at the office for more than two years and I have for most of my time been working with undergraduate students. I’ll be transitioning to an Assistant Director for Specialized Master Students.
How important do you feel Diversity & Inclusion are at the University of Washington?
I’ve been in higher ed[ucation] for my entire career and being at the University of Washington I really do feel that leadership, they walk the talk, and especially at the Foster School of Business, under the leadership of Dean Hodge. I’ve really seen the needle move in making Foster a more accessible and welcoming environment for all students, and I’m really excited about it. I think it’s definitely a work in progress, and I’m excited UW is leading the charge.
How have you leveraged your role at UW to contribute to Diversity & Inclusion efforts?
I would say that being in my role at Foster Career Services I’ve had the chance to really work with the Undergraduate Diversity Services (UDS) team, and it’s been really exciting because we’ve been able to work together and strategize on how to best support students, to make the most of the resources that Foster Career Services, and through this collaboration with UDS you’ve developed a new event. Such as prepping for success for the career fair, a brand new networking night, and bringing diverse alum back to campus. I would say that collaboration is what I’ve leveraged in order to really do some work on creating accessibility to diverse students for our office.
What does building community mean to you? And how important is it to build or find yours while at UW?
I am someone who loves community and I think it’s so important, especially when you are at a university that’s so large. There are so many opportunities and I think when you are in this new environment for students, so many students join UW different walks of life in at different times. Finding like-minded people who you can study with, or vent about classes with or, apply and go through the internship recruiting process with is so helpful. I would just encourage students to get involved. I know when I was an undergrad that’s what made me love my experience, getting to be involved with things, learning when I got too involved, time management, you learn all of these skills are going to help you later on in life. Working with peopl you get along with, working with people you don’t get along with. All in all, I think community is great and I especially now that we’re all virtual really see the importance of it, whether it’s in person or making time to connect online.
If you could give underrepresented first year students (freshman/transfers) one piece of advice what would it be?
You are not an island. I think it’s so easy to think that this is all on you to navigate, absolutely everything, and something that I encourage all students to do is just to ask for help. There are so many people who have open doors, inboxes, who want to help. Help you navigate a campus, college campuses are not designed for everybody, there are staff members in place to help students, whether it’s signing up for classes, finding an hour so More even an internship or full time job. So, I encourage students to ask for help.
CHRISTINA NICHOLS
What is your current role at the University of Washington
I currently teach as a lecturer in the accounting department.
How important do you feel Diversity & Inclusion are at the University of Washington
I feel it’s really important, I think being at a big university it can feel for a lot of people that it’s big and overwhelming and you don’t really find a place sometimes. I think diversity and inclusion can mean a lot of things, and I think it’s just important to make some of the big university feel smaller. Whether it be through relationships you have, clubs, organizations that you’re in, classes, or just meeting people. I think that’s the way that it can feel smaller, if you are just going through the school on your own, you don’t really see that sense of community. I think part of what makes UW a really great place is just the people, people that are there and getting to know all the different people that are going to school or working there. I think it’s a really important thing to be aware of, and something that is just important to have at the university and keep working towards. It’s something that never can just be like, yeah we’ve done this, it’s something I think myself and university it’s something we need to continually work toward just being inclusive, and being understanding of everyone that’s here.
How have you leveraged your role at UW to contribute to Diversity & Inclusion efforts?
I’m relatively new to the university, I was part time for a little while, so I’m a second or third year of full time of teaching here. It’s something that I feel like I’ve tried to get involved. We teach an Accounting 199 class, which a lot of times EOP students are first priority for signing up. That’s really given me exposure to understand, it’s a typically a more diverse group, smaller class, and it’s been one of my favorite classes to teach. You get to know the students, and get to learn about the group, what people are going through and stuff. There hasn’t been something that I feel like I’ve initially done as far as reaching out and trying to make changes, there’s things that are brought in like workshops that I’ve been able to go to. I know Foster has workshops where it’s students who are kind of expressing how foster feels for diversity, and inclusion. Just attending those has been so helpful, being there is something that I’m trying to do right now, just when there’s an opportunity to connect and learn from current students and what they feel are places that are not inclusive. How do we make a classroom more inclusive? How do we bring in different points of view? That’s something that I really strive to work toward right now. It’s just learning about what we can do. I think the next step for me is how can I act on that, and how can I become a bigger role within Foster for this, whether it be small scale is classroom based. How can I focus on the things I can control in a classroom, what are projects we can be working on, or even just thinking about cases. Constantly thinking about on exams, how do I bring in different names from different backgrounds, just to make sure it’s not just Joe Smith, who’s run a company, there are thousands of other names we can be using. It’s just a small thing, but I think it can expand, that’s one place that I want to work on first is within classroom, something that I feel like I can do in my role, and then working on a bigger scale through Foster, becoming involved in that. Honestly I don’t know exactly what that looks like, I think it’s helpful to learn from students, what that looks like, and I hope that I can figure out what the best kind of path forward is.
What does building community mean to you? And how important is it to build or find yours while at UW?
Community, I think can be taken a lot of different ways. I think initially, your first community is my family being that kind of the first community that I’m used to. There’s your family, community, who you define as family can be different too. Your friend community which can be really important for support. There’s also your general community of where you live, or how you define that is kind of up to you, it can be from your workplace, your neighborhood, those type of things. It’s really important to have all of those serving different points of yourself. For me, I think it’s just really important, I know for when I went through college it was such an important time of shifting, going away from really being at home and having the first time to really make the decisions on your own. In a way, it felt like having to define who your friends were, who is at your school, who do I see, who do I want to be a part of. Who are new people that I’m meeting that will make me grow and expand my way of thinking too. I went to a big school too, I think really important that that community is found within university for each person that comes in. I think that can be really hard when you’re starting out, especially in those first couple years.
If you could give underrepresented first year students (freshman/transfers) one piece of advice what would it be?
Mine’s going to be from a teaching perspective. Reach out. To your instructors with questions, or just get to know them. I know from my perspective, I teach because I want to know the students and I want to help students grow, and that’s going to be the case for I would say all your teachers, they’re coming into this because they’re wanting to see you grow and they want to get to know you. Be willing to let your teachers know you and be willing to approach them. I think that’s sometimes really hard to do, especially coming in, if you feel like I’m the only one here, or that this is, I don’t know what to expect. We’re here to listen, so that would be my one piece of advice from a teaching perspective, just to reach out.
AARON ROBERTSON
What is your current role at the University of Washington?
I’m an advisor for the Foster School of Business. I work with prospective students, and currently enrolled Foster students. I help people become successful applicants through academic advising, mentoring and coaching. Once students get into Foster, I help them stay in and be successful. I’d like to think that I also help people to tap into their talents and help them become the best student they can be.
How important do you feel Diversity & Inclusion are at the University of Washington?
For me issues of diversity and inclusion are things I’ve been thinking about for 35 or 40 years now, they’ve been hugely important to me in my life since I was a kid for variety of reasons. I alternate between feeling very optimistic, and very pessimistic. I have very broad ideas of diversity and inclusion, and I have high standards of what I think we should be, and what the university could be. There are a lot of obstacles that may hinder true diversity and inclusion and that’s the pessimism part. The optimism is that in my 11 years at the UW I’ve seen a greater and greater awareness of what these obstacles might be. Also, the desire to change them as well as the desire for our business students to go out and make a difference in the private sector, in the corporate world, and the determined drive to do so is where my optimism lies. I think in my list of priorities it is right up at the top, along with true equity, and true inclusiveness.
How have you leveraged your role at UW to contribute to Diversity & Inclusion efforts?
There’s not a day that goes by, especially when I’m working the office, when I don’t think about these issues in some fashion. I have an expansive definition of diversity, it’s about representation, it’s about understanding talents, and really tapping into all the talents that we have available. A non-inclusive and non-diverse environment will not reach the talent that is available, and so as an advisor I think I have a role in not letting that happen. I have a role in helping students to publish their talents. I do that by helping them to design their classes, to schedule their classes in a way that their talents blossom, also helping them determine what these talents are. On top of that I also liaison with the Undergraduate Diversity Services (UDS) office, and with our Office of Minority Affairs & Diversity (OMA&D) and Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) offices. In a broader systemic perspective, I am the EOP liaison for advising, so I work a lot with OMA&D to facilitate hand offs for students. I try whatever I can to be openly supportive of Foster diversity initiatives. For example, I have attended ALPFA meetings in the past, I follow your social media, and support your events. I donate where I can, and I try to put my money, and my actions where my feelings are. I also attend diversity committee meetings, and I do that because it’s really important to me. At the most fundamental micro level I want people to shine their light, and know what that light is in order for them to shine the brightest.
What does building community mean to you? And how important is it to build or find yours while at UW?
Community to me is a truly non-competitive relationship. When you have a community of people it’s not so much about lift as you climb, it’s more of a push. Let’s all pull and push each other up together, I’m not above you, I’m with you, and that to me is what a real community is. We’ve got people who are there for you regardless, and there’s no extraneous factors at all. People are truly there because of you. I think it’s very important because college can be a very isolating experience in many ways, it’s almost a paradox in that we’re constantly around people in ways that we won’t be when we get out in the real world, and yet many times I find that students feel more and more alone. There’s a lot of intense pressure, especially within the Foster. We’re worried about our jobs, our internships, were worried about the grading curve so, I think it’s important to have people around to just preserve some perspective on life. Also, to help you keep your mental health together, and remind yourself that you’re more than just a number.
If you could give underrepresented first year students (freshman/transfers) one piece of advice what would it be?
Usually you’re coming from a small place to a real big place, even if it’s just the Foster school, so you have to build a community. To add-on, try something you don’t think you would like. If you think you have no interest in finance check out the finance club. Just push yourself and try something new, it is your chance to do it now. It is your chance to try something, so go ahead, you have nothing to lose.