But how does masculinity manifest itself among young men who have pledged sexual abstinence before marriage? How do they handle sexual temptation, and what sorts of challenges crop up once they’re married?

“Sexual purity and pledging abstinence are most commonly thought of as feminine, something girls and young women promise before marriage,” said Sarah Diefendorf, a sociology graduate student at the ÌìÃÀÓ°ÊÓ´«Ã½. “But I wanted to look at this from the men’s point of view.”

Studying a group of 15 young evangelical Christian men, Diefendorf learned that support groups and open discussions about sex with trusted companions were key in helping the men during their pre-marital years. But once married, they faced trouble. Instructed by the church to keep problems “in the dark” after marriage, the men reported feeling like they couldn’t discuss sex with their friends and didn’t know how to comfortably broach the subject with their wives. The newly wedded men also expressed surprise that sexual temptations continued to taunt them.

Diefendorf will present her findings Aug. 17 at the of the American Sociological Association in San Francisco.

At the start of her study, in 2008, the men were in their late teens and early 20s and part of a support group for young men who had pledged to remain virgins until marriage. The group was affiliated with a nondenominational evangelical megachurch in the southwest United States that had about 14,000 attendees at Sunday services.

Over the course of a year, Diefendorf attended their meetings, and conducted one-on-one interviews and focus-group meetings with the men.

The men talked about sex as both “sacred” – a gift from God meant for the marriage bed – and “beastly” if it occurs outside of marriage.

“To maintain this gift from God, they believe that they must control sex before marriage,” Diefendorf said. The support group is one way for the young men to explore their sexual urges, she said. Many of them opened up to struggles with pornography and masturbation, which some considered as “destructive” and a threat to their commitment to abstinence.

“People think that evangelical support groups are just about suppressing men’s natural urges, but really they are caring, supportive and safe space that allow men to have a remarkably open and frank discussion about sexual desire,” Diefendorf said.

Besides the support group, the men sought out accountability partners to help control their behavior. One of them, for instance, had an accountability partner who would text-message him each night, “Are you behaving?” Some of them used software to track which websites they visited, and shared the results with the partner.

A few years later, in 2011 and 2012, Diefendorf followed up with the men. Fourteen of them were married and she wanted to find out how the men’s views of sex and masculinity had changed since marriage.

During a focus-group meeting in one of their homes, it soon became clear that as taboo as sexual activity was before marriage, it was now taboo to talk about sex as it was seen as disrespecting their wives.

“After marriage, the church culture assumes that couples become each other’s support, regardless of the issue at hand,” Diefendorf said. “There’s little support in figuring out sexuality in married life, and these men don’t know how to talk to their wives about it.”

As one of the men put it: “For me to come home from work and say, ‘hey, did you like it last time?’ I mean that would be – that would be such a weird question for me to ask.”

The newlyweds also revealed they continue to think of sex in terms of control, and how the so-called beastly elements of sex – temptations by pornography and extramarital affairs – do not disappear with the transition to married life.

“Before you get married the biggest thing you struggle with, usually, is premarital sex,” one of the men told Diefendorf. “But once you are married, you can’t be tempted by that anymore, so you get attacked by completely different things…Essentially Satan has to find a new angle to attack on.”

They wished for more guidance from the church, and someone in the group said he’d cheer if his pastor decided to talk more about sex.

“While the whole point of these support groups is to honor sex in marriage, these men have gotten so used to thinking about sex as something negative that they bring those concerns with them to the marriage bed,” Deifendorf said. “Once they’re married, these men struggle to manage those concerns in the absence of the supportive community they once benefited from.”

She hopes that her study leads to more positive discussions of sex and how it is healthy, especially within the context of abstinence-only sex education.

“There’s an obsession with virginity in this country,” Diefendorf said. “And we forget to have informative, successful conversations on sex.”

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For more information, contact Diefendorf at sdief@uw.edu.

Note: Molly McElroy, the author of this release, recently left the UW news office for another position on campus.

Holl, who earned a bachelor of arts in architecture from the UW in 1971, leads Steven Holl Architects in New York City. He has created museum, gallery, civic, academic, residential and multi-use buildings all over the world. Native to the Pacific Northwest, his local works include Chapel of St. Ignatius at Seattle University, a in Bremerton, and the Bellevue Arts Museum.

His design philosophy, according to the awards’ , combines the “experience” of space – its color and light – with the local history and culture of each construction site.

The were announced July 16 and will be recognized in a ceremony October 15 in Tokyo, Japan.

Holl grew up in Bremerton, Wash., where his first architectural designs included a three-story treehouse and an underground clubhouse. Other early influences of his work include UW professors of architecture, art and philosophy, Holl said in a in Columns, UW’s alumni magazine, when he received the university’s recognition.

“I’m doubly grateful for this award,” he said in a announcing his latest honor, “because architecture is part of painting, sculpture, and music, and with this award, the Japan Art Association recognizes all of the arts. Second, because my first chances as an architect and my first publication invitations came from Japan, and my first substantial construction was in Fukuoka, Japan, in 1989, so I’m very grateful to come back to Japan for this important award.”

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Infants can tell the difference between sounds of all languages until about 8 months of age when their brains start to focus only on the sounds they hear around them. It’s been unclear how this transition occurs, but social interactions and caregivers’ use of exaggerated “parentese” style of speech seem to help.

ÌìÃÀÓ°ÊÓ´«Ã½ research in 7- and 11-month-old infants shows that speech sounds stimulate areas of the brain that coordinate and plan motor movements for speech.

The , published July 14 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests that baby brains start laying down the groundwork of how to form words long before they actually begin to speak, and this may affect the developmental transition.

“Most babies babble by 7 months, but don’t utter their first words until after their first birthdays,” said lead author , who is the co-director of the UW’s . “Finding activation in motor areas of the brain when infants are simply listening is significant, because it means the baby brain is engaged in trying to talk back right from the start and suggests that 7-month-olds’ brains are already trying to figure out how to make the right movements that will produce words.”

Kuhl and her research team believe this practice at motor planning contributes to the transition when infants become more sensitive to their native language.

The results emphasize the importance of talking to kids during social interactions even if they aren’t talking back yet.

“Hearing us talk exercises the action areas of infants’ brains, going beyond what we thought happens when we talk to them,” Kuhl said. “Infants’ brains are preparing them to act on the world by practicing how to speak before they actually say a word.”

In the experiment, infants sat in a brain scanner that measures brain activation through a noninvasive technique called . Nicknamed MEG, the brain scanner resembles an egg-shaped vintage hair dryer and is completely safe for infants. The Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences was the first in the world to use such a tool to study babies while they engaged in a task.

Here’s a video of one the babies in the experiment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFJNTaPvXpk&feature=youtu.be

The babies, 57 7- and 11- or 12-month-olds, each listened to a series of native and foreign language syllables such as “da” and “ta” as researchers recorded brain responses. Listen to what they heard in English:

and in Spanish:

The researchers observed brain activity in an auditory area of the brain called the superior temporal gyrus, as well as in Broca’s area and the cerebellum, cortical regions responsible for planning the motor movements required for producing speech.

This pattern of brain activation occurred for sounds in the 7-month-olds’ native language (English) as well as in a non-native language (Spanish), showing that at this early age infants are responding to all speech sounds, whether or not they have heard the sounds before.

In the older infants, brain activation was different. By 11-12 months, infants’ brains increase motor activation to the non-native speech sounds relative to native speech, which the researchers interpret as showing that it takes more effort for the baby brain to predict which movements create non-native speech. This reflects an effect of experience between 7 and 11 months, and suggests that activation in motor brain areas is contributing to the transition in early speech perception.

The study has social implications, suggesting that the slow and exaggerated parentese speech – “Hiiiii! How are youuuuu?” – may actually prompt infants to try to synthesize utterances themselves and imitate what they heard, uttering something like “Ahhh bah bah baaah.”

“Parentese is very exaggerated, and when infants hear it, their brains may find it easier to model the motor movements necessary to speak,” Kuhl said.

Co-authors Rey Ramirez, Alexis Bosseler, Jo-Fu Lotus Lin and Toshiaki Imada are all with UW’s Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences.

The National Science Foundation Science of Learning Program grant to the UW’s funded the study.

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 For more information, contact Kuhl at 206-685-1921 or pkkuhl@uw.edu.

These 49 Huskies from eight states are part of the inaugural group of students in the UW’s first online bachelor’s degree completion program. in spring 2013, the degree is meant to prepare people for working in child care centers, preschools and other early education services. (The university has since announced a second online bachelor’s completion degree, in .)

University administrators hope the online bachelor’s degree completion programs will provide greater access to higher education to students who need a flexible approach to pursuing their education.

UW’s Early Childhood and Family Studies program is offered by the with support from .

“With this program we have reconciled a long-standing issue of a split of knowledge and practice in the field of early childhood teacher preparation. We hope the degree helps address the in early education,” said , director of the online program and an associate professor of educational psychology in the UW .

“Although I have never met one of them in person, I can honestly say that I am getting to know these online students so much better than I thought I would,” Joseph added.

The first cohort of students – 48 women and one man – hail from all over the country: Virginia, North Carolina, Texas, Colorado, California, Oregon, Hawaii and Washington.

Linked virtually to campus, one may wonder about the lives of these students. Why did they decide to pursue the degree, what do they think about learning online, and how do they fit the program around their other responsibilities?

Jeni Zaffram, 35, has been taking college classes in early education since 2005 and runs a licensed child care business from her home in Sultan, Wash. She began Kiddie Depot 13 years ago so she could be at home to raise her children – she has a 14-year-old son and 11-year-old daughter. “I felt like I could make a difference, and I always knew I would work with children,” she said.

Her 12-hour days start early so she can work on classwork before parents start dropping off their kids – Zaffram has two enrolled full-time and the rest part-time. She wedges in more homework in the evenings and weekends.

“I see it, learn it, and do it,” Zaffram said of how she integrates what she’s learning from the UW online program with her job. “I am able to use what I am learning immediately.”

The Zaffram takes as part of UW’s early education degree are taught online by . Students set their own pace by completing assignments on their own schedules, and choosing either full-time or part-time enrollment.

All the coursework is online, delivered through materials such as instructor videos, readings, narrated PowerPoint presentations and resource videos. They submit assignments – papers, presentations, videos – online, and students participate in online discussion forums as part of their grade.

In one type of assignment, students film themselves demonstrating what they’ve learned, such as following a child’s lead, positive reinforcement of behavior and teaching new words. They use the program “Coaching Companion” to upload and discuss the videos online with their teacher and other students.

Zaffram said the videos allow her to “see the big picture and find out what I miss during the moment.”

Another student, Anita McHarg, 60, had a similar view. “The videotaping we do with specific goals to cover has been a real eye-opener for interacting with children and seeing what I miss and how I sound,” said McHarg, who is the lead teacher in the toddler room at the Shyne School in Woodinville, Wash.

“Each class offers new information that I am able to incorporate into what I already know and do,” McHarg added. “Quite a lot of what we are learning I do already, it just needs some tweaking like rearranging an area of the class, adding in a small-group activity each day and reading stories with a focus on novel words.”

During breaks at work and on weekends, McHarg works on the early education degree. “It can feel overwhelming at times, but I love learning and this is my passion. I feel focused and energized by it – most of the time,” she said.

Miho Wright, director of St. Mike’s Tikes Early Learning Center in Olympia, Wash., was excited to enroll in the UW program because it lets her finish her degree online while still working. “Online courses may sound as if we are just learning through the computer screen,” she said. “But the program requires many service-learning hours working directly with children, which I think is crucial for our success as students.”

Her child care center is currently in the rating process through Washington State . Since the UW program is designed to align with state quality standards for early education, “I can share new information and knowledge I gain through this program with the staff members in my center,” Wright said.

All three students are using the degree to improve their careers. Zaffram, for instance, wants to improve her work-life balance by not having a daycare center in her home. “I feel that a degree will help get me a position that I will be proud of that includes working with children. Without a degree, finding a position of teaching is difficult to come by,” she said.

McHarg hopes to have new opportunities, such as working with adults or in public school and pursuing roles in school administration. And Wright hopes the degree will improve her ability to support children and their families.

“Working with young children and families is one of the most important fields in society,” Wright said. “Life experiences during the early years make such a great impact not only on the person, but also on society.”

Ìý###

These findings, published June 2 in , are the first to document the national cumulative prevalence of child maltreatment based on cases confirmed by child protective services.

Previous estimates indicated one in 100 children experience maltreatment, but those numbers relied on annual estimates of confirmed cases which do not give insight into how many children will ever experience maltreatment.

“Our study shows that child maltreatment is much more common than previously thought,” said co-author , an assistant professor of sociology at the ÌìÃÀÓ°ÊÓ´«Ã½.

The new study used data from the , which includes information on all U.S. children with a confirmed report of maltreatment. Lee and her co-authors only included reports of maltreatment that had been substantiated or indicated with evidence and confirmed by child protective services.

The researchers did an analysis for the cumulative prevalence of childhood maltreatment, which takes into account that the effects of neglect and abuse linger long after maltreatment ends.

“For example, if a child who is 9 years old in 2014 experienced maltreatment at age 4, the child is still dealing with the consequences of that maltreatment even if the case is not included in the current year’s counts,” Lee said.

Analysis of data between 2004 and 2011 showed that more than 5.6 million children had experienced or were recovering from maltreatment during this time period. Almost 80 percent of these cases were of neglect, not abuse.

The numbers were more sobering for black and Native American children, with one in five black children and one in seven Native American children experiencing maltreatment or its effects during the time period studied.

An expert in health disparities, Lee considers the findings to be another example of how social inequalities – such as incarceration and foster care – affect some populations more than others.

“This is about larger inequalities that impact African-American and other racial and ethnic minority families,” Lee said. “If childhood maltreatment is linked to economic inequality, we need to think more about contextual inequality, such as providing adequate housing and child care to lessen the strain on parents.”

She and her collaborators hope that the study will provide insight into the origins of poorer health during adulthood, as well as guidance for public health monitoring and investments.

“Maltreatment is on the scale of other major public health concerns that affect child health and well-being,” first author said in a . Wildeman is an associate professor of sociology at Yale University.

“Because child maltreatment is also a risk factor for poor mental and physical health outcomes throughout life, the results of this study provide valuable epidemiologic information,” he said.

Other co-authors are Natalia Emanuel and John M. Leventhal, both at Yale; Emily Putnam-Hornstein at the University of Southern California and the University of California at Berkeley; and Jane Waldfogel at Columbia University.

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For more information, contact Lee at 206-543-4572 or hedylee@uw.edu.

Now their institute is doing even more to share its scientific findings on early learning. The UW group is offering a free to showcase the latest in how young children learn – and what their caregivers can do to help kids be ready to start school.

“We want parents, teachers, policymakers and others to know that everyday moments are special moments,” said , director of outreach and education at the institute. “We give practical tips based on how our research shows young children learn and develop.”

The resources are one aspect of the newly launched , funded in part by the Bezos Family Foundation. The project will use brain imaging, genetics, behavior development and more to discover how and when children learn as a way to gain insight on how to prepare them for school and boost their achievement.

The first four “” which are also funded by , were posted in May. The goal, Lytle said, is to “give every child the best start in life and to create a generation of lifelong learners.” To help distribute the tools, Lytle and her colleagues have partnered with local and national groups, including , and .

“Our partners help give context to the research findings, since they know their particular audience,” Lytle said. “We know that the information a parent needs might be different than how a Head Start teacher might think about the same research.”

Most of the online modules last about 20 minutes. Through text, audio, video, photos, graphs and other visuals, researchers and caregivers in the videos demonstrate simple ways to insert evidence-based strategies for boosting children’s learning and social and emotional development into daily playtime.

For instance, in one video in the “The Importance of Early Interactions” module, a mother uses hand movements to act out lyrics while singing “Wheels on the Bus” with her son. Another video shows a father encouraging his child’s language development by joining in when the child points at an object and they say the word for it together.

“We want to show that the mother, for example, is engaging her son by singing and using hand motions and by being attentive to his interests,” Lytle explained. “And the father followed his son’s lead and imitated his actions and vocalizations to reinforce what his young son said.”

In another video, Meltzoff and actor Alan Alda show a little girl how to use unfamiliar objects. The two adults demonstrate how to use the items, such as flattening a collapsible cup, and then the toddler takes her own turn. The exchange shows how children quickly learn through example, relying on demonstration and eye contact rather than words to make the instructions clear.

The clip is part of the module “The Power of Learning through Imitation” and is taken from an episode of , which Alda hosts.

“Babies are like sponges,” Meltzoff said in the video. “Adults in front of them just behave and the baby watches wide-eyed and does what they do.”

Lytle and the rest of the UW team will post more training modules in coming months on topics such as language development and children’s emotional understanding. She plans to ultimately have 50 to 60 modules available over the next five years and will update the resources as necessary to reflect the latest scientific findings.

“These online training modules allow us to communicate the latest science of child development in a new and exciting way,” said Kuhl, who’s also a UW professor of speech and hearing sciences. “Anyone who is interested can learn the latest about early brain development, and they can do it at 10 o’clock at night after the kids are in bed. We are excited to reach more early learning providers and families through the modules.”

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 For more information, contact Lytle at 206-685-4326 or sarahr28@uw.edu.

In a , published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, PTSD patients allowed to choose between therapies ended up costing about $1,622 less on average per patient per year compared with patients who were assigned treatment. Among patients not given a choice, treatment with prolonged exposure psychotherapy cost less than sertraline.

“This is one of the first studies to look at the cost of providing mental health care and comparing different treatments for PTSD,” said , co-author of the study and director of the ÌìÃÀÓ°ÊÓ´«Ã½’s . “It has tremendous implications for how large health care systems such as the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs proceed with treating PTSD.”

The National Institute of Mental Health funded the study, with additional funding from the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy.

“In evaluating how well a treatment works, we seldom pay attention to the role of a patient’s preference, although it could be particularly important in mental health treatments,” Zoellner said. “Trauma survivors with PTSD often have strong opinions about wanting to talk about the trauma or not in therapy, some believing they really need to talk about it to heal and others really wanting to avoid talking about it. They may experience greater relief when they receive the treatment that they prefer.”

Since randomized clinical trials – the gold-standard in research – don’t accommodate patients’ preferences, Zoellner and her research team used a study design called a “doubly randomized preference trial” to investigate whether giving patients a choice affects their treatment outcomes.

“Most clinical studies try to answer which treatment works best but do not factor in how giving patients choices could affect their health,” said , lead author and an assistant professor of pharmacy at Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona, Calif. “With this study design we could isolate the effects of this patient choice and see if it is cost-effective.”

The 200 participants – all diagnosed with PTSD and aged 18 to 65 years – were assigned to a group that was allowed to select their own treatment or a group that had their treatment chosen for them.

They were then given 10 weeks of treatment with either the drug sertraline or counseling called “.” Sertraline, prescribed under the names Zoloft and Lustral, is an antidepressant manufactured by Pfizer, Inc., which supplied the drug for use in the study.

When study participants were given a choice, their treatment cost each year an average of $6,156 compared with $7,778 for those assigned a treatment – a difference of approximately $1,622 per patient per year.

Among the patients not given a choice of treatment, counseling with prolonged exposure therapy cost on average slightly less than pharmacotherapy with sertraline – $7,030 versus $8,650 per patient per year.

“If it isn’t possible to allow patients to choose, prolonged exposure therapy rather than the medication is a cost-effective treatment option,” Zoellner said.

The costs in 2012 U.S. dollars included the therapy, outpatient services, hospitalization, emergency department visits, pharmacy services and nonmedical services, as well as indirect costs such as losses in worker productivity.

Other co-authors of the paper are , who leads the research project with Zoellner and is a professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio; and Jason Doctor of the University of Southern California.

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For more information, contact Zoellner at 206-685-3126 or zoellner@uw.edu.

In a research paper being published in the June issue of , researchers affiliated with the ÌìÃÀÓ°ÊÓ´«Ã½’s School of Social Work describe how they tailored a parenting program known to improve communication in non-foster families for use in foster families.

“Every family has its own unique dynamics, such as different rules or expectations. When teens are placed into a foster home, they may experience this as a kind of cultural divide and many need help building a connection to their new caregivers,” said , lead author and associate research director for , which is a joint endeavor between UW, Washington state and private funders to take a research-based approach to improve child welfare practice and policy.

The program that Barkan and her colleagues developed is intended to guide foster families through exercises that will bring them closer together.

Many children enter the child welfare system due to neglect, Barkan said. Their biological parents may be consumed by substance abuse, mental health issues, tenuous housing situations and other challenges.

“Such a chaotic environment makes it hard for anyone to grow and thrive in. But taking kids out of their home – even if it is to protect them – can also be a traumatic experience,” Barkan said.

Foster parents have the potential to help children in the child welfare system process the trauma they’ve been through and to make them less vulnerable to risky behaviors, including substance abuse and violence, she said.

Much of the program – called “Connecting” – delves into helping caregivers see where their foster teen is coming from. Each of the 10 chapters has materials and suggested activities intended to help families bond, such as:

• Short videos of former foster youth describing their experiences in child welfare,
• Creating “brag boards” to share basic information like favorite color and what they’re proud of,
• Teens telling their caregivers about the people who matter most in their lives.

The self-administered program takes about 10-12 weeks to complete and is adapted from the UW-created program “,” which has been shown to improve communication within non-foster families and has been linked to lower adolescent use of alcohol and other drugs, violence and other risky behaviors.

When Barkan and her co-authors tested “Connecting” on a group of nine foster teens and their caregivers, they learned that watching the videos was a particularly helpful exercise. One family called it “a crack-open moment where they could talk about things they couldn’t in the year they had been together,” Barkan recalled.

For instance, in , a young man named Josh talks about how his mom gave him away when he was 6 and how he acted out because he missed her so much. , Jessica describes how she had been her “own boss” and had trouble adjusting to her foster parents’ rules.

“The videos help illustrate the unique challenges foster youth have when going into a care situation, such as new family dynamics and clashes,” Barkan said. After watching the videos, foster families talk about how the scenario is similar or different, so the caregiver knows where teens are coming from.

The researchers are now testing the program with more youth and caregivers, and hope to make it available to the public in a couple of years.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse funded the study. UW co-authors are Amy Salazar, Kara Estep, Caroline Eichenlaub and Kevin Haggerty, who is the principal investigator. Co-author Leah Mattos is at Children’s Administration, Washington State Department of Social and Health Services.

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For more information, contact Barkan at 206- 221-3124 or barkas@uw.edu.

NIDA grant # 1R34DA029722-02

A geographer and a biologist at the ÌìÃÀÓ°ÊÓ´«Ã½ have teamed up to examine the connections between consumers and goods that come from agriculture and forest production. They’ve created maps illustrating these connections and revealing how some regions of the world benefit more than others.

“We’re looking at how people fit into ecosystems through their use of crop and forest lands,” said Mollie Holmberg, a UW senior in . “We’re actually bound to landscapes that are far from us.”

Holmberg is working with , a UW assistant professor of geography. She used a devised by Bergmann to study how agricultural lands are globalized when their products are swept up into the circuits of a global economy. The technique takes into account products created by lands designated for agriculture, forestry and pasture, and documents how each product is used and supports other industries. Holmberg factored in personal consumption based on land product, and put it into a geographic information system, or GIS.

She presented the project to lawmakers last week during the Council on Undergraduate Research’s annual . Holmberg was one of 60 undergraduates – the only one from Washington state – to participate. The event is intended to give members of Congress a better understanding of the research and education programs funded by the U.S. government.

To Holmberg, that meant making her study of globalized connections between people and land relevant to the interests of congressional staffers who asked her about her work. For instance, she fielded one question about whether the same methods could be used to look at coal production in West Virginia (answer: “yes.”).

Others wanted to know how the United States fit into the global picture. “We tend to reap the ultimate benefits of our bioproduction – it starts here and the benefits end up here,” Holmberg said. “The U.S. is really striking in that it is consistent in using its land to support growth domestically.”

Other regions of the world show different patterns, according to the study.

“We’re seeing how some countries benefit more than others in the products they produce,” Holmberg said. The maps reveal that many of the benefactors live in North America and Western Europe.

Besides the poster presentation, Holmberg visited the offices of the senators from Washington state, Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, as well as Washington Rep. Suzan DelBene, who represents the district where Holmberg grew up. Staff members in the helped her with the meetings.

Holmberg encouraged the lawmakers to support undergraduate research by providing funds for paid research positions.

“I explained how undergraduates do a lot of high-level work that gets published in high-impact journals,” Holmberg said. “Students who do research graduate with skills that far exceed the level of training they received inside the classroom.”

Added Bergmann, “Supporting undergraduate research benefits not only the student but society, as well. We all benefit in many ways from the resulting knowledge.”

Read more about Holmberg’s project, “Understanding Patterns of Human Dependence on Agriculture and Forest Production in the Anthropocene,” on the UW Department of Geography .

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Last year 420 faculty, staff and students from the ÌìÃÀÓ°ÊÓ´«Ã½ turned to the for issues pertaining to career transitions, conflicts with colleagues, grades, student housing and more.

The three-person staff conducted 1,538 confidential in-person or phone meetings and traveled 1,848 miles to serve people on all the UW campuses as well as Harborview Medical Center.

These facts and figures are included in an annual report released by the UW Office of the Ombud detailing the scope of their work during 2013. The report, the first to be made public in decades, is (or view it as a ) and intended to provide an overview of who the office works with and approaches to solving problems.

“Many people think that the issues they have don’t rise to the level of the Ombud’s Office,” said Chuck Sloane, the UW ombud. “But people should come in and check because the earlier we’re involved the more options they have available.”

From faculty and staff nervous about retiring to researcher conflicts to student concerns over grades, and even regret over sending an emotionally-charged email – these are all problems the office helps with.

Sloane . He graduated from UW in 2000 with a bachelor’s in psychology and English. Then he earned a master’s in clinical psychology with an emphasis on marital counseling and post-traumatic stress disorder – both of which “come in handy” as the ombud, he said.

“As stressors increase, people don’t clearly see their goals and options or how to move forward and be their best professional selves,” Sloane said. “We serve the UW community by helping people be successful.”

Sloane hopes to expand the office’s capacity. He and his team are giving presentations for various UW departments to give the community a better sense of how the ombud’s services work.

“People come to us when something has popped up and they need help navigating a critical juncture in their career,” he said. “They’ve often exhausted their personal network, colleagues and other resources, and we provide an informed yet external perspective.”

In 2013, according to the annual report, 141 staff members, 134 students and 87 faculty sought services. The rest – 58 of the 420 total served – were “a hodgepodge of alumni, parents and anyone else with a relationship with the university,” Sloane said.

Frequent problems include:

• Faculty and staff concerned about their retirement. “We have an aging workforce, and we get a lot of questions about transitions,” Sloane said. “People have a passion for the university. They see it as their life’s work. They want to continue being involved after retirement. They also want to talk about their legacy, succession of their roles in their department, and finances during retirement.”
• Conflicts within research labs around campus. “People are there all the time, and maintaining professional boundaries can be a challenge,” Sloane said.
• Faculty dynamics – pressures and competitiveness among talented professionals.
• Students frequently talk with the ombud about anxiety over their futures. “The level of anxiety has jumped and jumped over the past decade as students face more uncertainty,” Sloane said.

Former UW President Charles E. Odegaard UW’s Ombudsman’s Office in 1968 as a way to address student groups concerned with university leadership. is a Scandinavian term for an appointed advocate for the public. To comply with gender-neutral state law, the office removed “man” from their title in 2013, and after briefly considering “Ombuds” ultimately dropped the “s” as well, on the advice of the UW Scandinavian department, to be more true to the language.

“At this point, we’re just trying to hold onto those remaining five letters,” Sloane joked.

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For more information, contact Sloane at 206-543-6028 or csloane@uw.edu.