UW Arts & Sciences Faculty Who Are UW Parents

UW Professor, UW Parent

Six A&S faculty, all parents of University of Washington students, gathered in May to discuss their dual roles as professors and parents. The group included: Ann Baker, senior lecturer in philosophy (son graduated in 2002); Al Black, principal lecturer in sociology (freshman daughter, senior daughter); Jonathon Brown, associate professor of psychology (freshman son); Stan Chernicoff, senior lecturer in earth and space sciences and director of Student Athlete Academic Services (freshman son, senior son); Gail Nomura, assistant professor of American Ethnic Studies (freshman daughter); and Don Marshall, professor of mathematics (son and daughter graduated in 1999 and 2001 respectively).

A&S Perspectives: How did your children make the decision to attend
the University of Washington?


Al Black with daughters Alia and Nicole. Photo by Nancy Joseph.

Al Black: My daughters chose the UW partly because I was here and partly because of the cost. It was prohibitive to go to the black universities we were interested in. The older daughter came out of high school as an average student and went to community college. She matured a lot, became a better student, and transferred here. The younger daughter came directly to the UW with scholarships and has done very, very well.

Don Marshall: My son wanted to stay out west. His big concern about the UW was large classes, so we suggested that he sit in on one to see how it felt. That reduced his fears a lot. He also knew that once you get past the introductory courses, classes get much smaller. My daughter did not want to go to the UW. She went to another school but it didn’t work out, so she transferred to the UW.

Jonathon Brown: My son got into other schools, but when we visited them he didn’t feel as comfortable. I think there is a certain ambivalence about my being here, but we have always had a very close relationship and still do.

A&S Perspectives: Have others found your children ambivalent about being on the same campus as you?

Gail Nomura: My daughter viewed the University of Washington as her last recourse, because she did not want to be at the same university as her parents. (My husband is also a UW professor.) But the reality is that, of the schools we could afford, this was her best choice. She’s been quite happy—once she got past the first quarter.


	Stan Chernicoff with wife Julie Stein, a divisional dean in the UW College of Arts and Sciences, and sons Matt and David.

Stan Chernicoff: My older son chose an East Coast school because he wanted an “away from home experience” and something about that school resonated with him. As it turned out, he got tired of traveling back and forth for visits, and he called one day to tell us he wanted to transfer back to the UW. My younger son wanted to go nowhere other than the University of Washington. He always knew he was going to the UW.

Ann Baker: That was true for my son, too. He always wanted to attend the UW. I told him he could attend on one condition: if he decided to major in philosophy—because he was very interested in philosophy—he had to promise to transfer out of the UW because I didn’t want his major to be in my department. So he chose to come here and then two years later, what happened? He decided to major in philosophy. And he did not want to leave. So that’s been a hard part, because our department is so small.

A&S Perspectives: Has he taken any of your courses?

Baker: Yes, he’s taken some introductory classes from me, and that’s been great.

Black: Each of my daughters has taken two of my courses. I can’t imagine a person being happier than to have his children in his class. It’s like a fantasy, really.

Brown: I didn’t know you could have your child in your class.

Chernicoff: It’s fine as long as you don’t grade them. Someone else—a TA—has to compile the grade.

Baker: The classes my son took from me had TAs. I try not to talk to my colleagues who have him in their classes. I don’t want to put any pressure on them at all.

A&S Perspectives: I’m guessing the department bends over backwards to be impartial.


Ann Baker and her son David. Photo by Nancy Joseph.

Baker: One of our new senior colleagues didn’t know he was my son, and when we were talking about student awards in a faculty meeting, he asked, “What about this David Baker? I just thought he was so good.” Everybody tittered but then we just dropped it, because David couldn’t come up for any of the department awards. It was really uncomfortable.

A&S Perspectives: So he may have missed out on opportunities for special recognition.

Baker: Yes, in the department itself, he probably did.

Black: It think that’s absolutely ludicrous. I understand why we have this policy, but when my children pay their tuition they should have the same range of options every other child should have.

Baker: And don’t you find that you’re harder on your own kids when they are in your class?

Black: Yes. I will not tolerate them not doing their work. And while I’m obviously not going to show them the exams, if they want to discuss the content of the course, I’ll discuss it from the time they get up in the morning ‘til the time they go to bed, if they can stand it. I’ve been discussing the content almost since they were born.

A&S Perspectives: Has having children here changed your perspective on students in general?
Brown: It really has. I realize that these students are all somebody’s kids, and I try to remember that now.

Nomura: I think many of us, though, thought about the students almost like a parent before our own children were here.

A&S Perspectives: Are there any specific situations where that comes up?


	Jonathon Brown and son Jacob. Photo by Kathy Sauber.

Brown: One example is registering for courses. I’ve had students complain to me that they tried to get into my class but couldn’t. I’m not terribly sympathetic by nature, so mostly I figured, “Sure you did. You waited until the end, now you can’t get into the course.” But I know that my son got up yesterday at 5:50 a.m. to register and couldn’t get online and had trouble registering. It’s made me just a little more sympathetic to the problems and challenges of being at a big university.

Baker: The good news is that registering gets less frustrating when they’re not freshmen.

A&S Perspectives: So having a child here has made you more willing to give students the benefit of the doubt?

Brown: Well, not always. For example, a student who had been doing poorly in one of my classes sent me an email saying he was sick. I can’t remember the condition, but it was an arcane medical condition I had never heard of. My son happened to be over so I asked him what he thought I should do, since the condition sounded pretty serious. He said, “Oh, that one’s on college-excuse.net. That’s the one you use when you want your professor to give you a break.” So I wrote back to the student and said, “OK, fine, just bring notes from the doctors you’ve seen and I’m sure we can work something out.” I never heard another word and he dropped the class. So I’d say my son helped me be a little more savvy about some things.

Chernicoff: I got to see the other side of that through my younger son, who was sick with debilitating infections fairly frequently this past year. He missed a lot of class. In some cases, his professors were not willing to accept that he was sick, even with doctors’ notes. I know he was sick because I had him with a 104 degree fever, bathed in sweat, on our couch for a week. In certain departments they are very unsympathetic because they probably have too many collegeexcuse.net things coming at them.

Nomura: Throughout my career I’ve been supportive of students regarding absences, but I also realize that if we don’t police this—in a humanitarian manner—then students who crawled in when they were not feeling well, or who weren’t lying, are the ones who suffer.

Baker: On an unrelated subject, I’m wondering whether all your kids live in the dorms. I ask because my son, who was in a dorm for a while and then shared an apartment, was really lonely in his first year. One of his good friends from high school joined a fraternity, and my son was really sad that he was missing out on all those social events.

Chernicoff: One of my sons lives in a fraternity; the other one lives in a house.

Black: One daughter lives in a dorm and the other lives in an apartment in our basement.

Nomura: Mine lives in a sorority.

Baker: I have had a prejudice against the Greek system, having seen from my own college experience, and my daughter’s, how the Greek system took time away from academics. But seeing my son so lonely, it made me wonder.

Brown: I also haven’t had a great stereotype of fraternities, but I have enormous confidence in my son, who wanted to join one. It’s been a good experience for him. I think sororities and fraternities are probably like people—there are some good ones and some bad ones. That’s been good for me to understand. But maybe some of that is self-interest—I don’t want people having stereotypes about fraternities now that my kid is in one.

A&S Perspectives: Ann, did your son get past that lonely time, finding a sense of community?

Baker: The jazz choir gave him a sense of social cohesion. But this huge school, for somebody who isn’t in the Greek system or doesn’t have some other activity like that, can make a student really feel socially at a loss. It’s definitely made me more sympathetic to freshmen in my intro class who come to talk with me in my office. I find out that sometimes they just want to talk because they are so lonesome. They have no one to talk to.

Marshall: My son is a pretty laid-back guy and made friends easily. But my daughter, who transfered here, had a lot of trouble getting to know people. She never really connected to people here.

Black: This has been an issue for me too, for different reasons. Given Initiative 200, there are a small number of African American males on this campus and a larger group of African American females. So we are really concerned about our daughters’ social lives. In fact, the youngest one very likely will transfer to a black college, at least for a year, because of this concern.


Gail Nomura with daughter Emi Nomura Sumida. Photo by Nancy Joseph.

Nomura: I agree that the UW is not as diverse as it could be. But we found it to be more diverse than the other in-state universities, which is one reason why our daughter selected the UW. She still has to work to build those connections here. When she was looking at sororities, she was looking to see if there was any diversity at all. Any shred of it. Because that was one of her priorities. She also joined the Hawaii Club. She has had to actively seek out that diversity.

A&S Perspectives: Do your children ever ask you for advice, recognizing that you may have insights to offer after all your years here?

Chernicoff: I told my kids, “I have to treat you as if you went away to college somewhere far away. When you want to see me, come and see me. If there’s something you want from me, please feel free to ask. I’m not going to interfere.” My older son wants no part of advice. After he transferred here, an entire year went by where I only saw him one time on campus—by accident, as we were both walking across Red Square. The younger one is at my office almost every day.

Black: I really encourage my children to see me. It’s up to them to decide. I also have resources—books, a computer they can use when I’m not using it—so they do come periodically. And to be candid, they’ve got a built-in editor. They’ll have me look at their papers. I try to be careful not to do editing myself but just make suggestions.

Nomura: I don’t actively give my daughter advice, but I definitely think that having two parents as professors has made a difference. It empowers her to talk to the professor when she has concerns. I’ve encouraged her to go investigate when she has a question.

A&S Perspectives: Because this university is so large, it has a lot of opportunities to offer—research, study abroad, clubs. Do you feel that your children have taken full advantage of what’s here?

Baker: Honestly, no. My son got into music and got a lot out of that, but he didn’t take advantage of other offerings. I think he was just too young. He was more interested in the social stuff. That’s given me a better perspective for my students. I think I’ll be a little less aghast that they’re not more excited about all the intellectual possibilities here.


Hans Peter and Kirsten Marshall, whose father is Professor Don Marshall (below).

Marshall: My children did take advantage of the research opportunities here. I was impressed by how motivated they were by their research projects.

A&S Perspectives: What sort of research were they involved in?

Marshall: My son was invited to participate in the NASA Space Grant Program after his freshman year and ended up doing geophysics research. He started seeing how what he was learning in classes applied to his research. He eventually went to Antarctica as part of a research team. My daughter, who was very involved in African music, created her own African Studies major and then helped develop the African Studies curriculum in the Program on Africa.


Don Marshall

Chernicoff: My younger son is looking into research opportunities right now. My older son, who is interested in journalism, began writing for The Daily when he transferred here. Now he has articles in there virtually every day. And with the advent of RainyDawg radio, the new online student radio station (rainydawg.com), he and two buddies have their own show every Tuesday night from 5-7 pm.

A&S Perspectives: Have they attracted many listeners?

Chernicoff: They have the station’s most popular show—I might as well brag a little—which means they have 50 people listening.

A&S Perspectives: Do you have advice for other faculty whose children are considering the UW?

Baker: I think the quality of the UW experience depends a lot on the kid. If they’re outgoing enough to be able to make connections, this is a great place because of the academic resources. My daughter, who went to a small school, had taken every course offered in her department by her senior year. She hit the ceiling. In that sense, the UW has a lot more to offer. But it can be a lonely place.

Chernicoff: My kids are so different from one another. For the range of people that they are, to be here and be content and productive in their own very different ways, says a lot about the breadth of the University and the opportunities here. Also, this place has been their second home. They were born on this campus and attended day care right across the street from campus. They spent many hours with my wife (a divisional dean in the College of Arts and Sciences) and me in our offices. Like many faculty children, they grew up on this campus. And that makes the University a really comfortable place for them.