Strengthening HCDE’s foundation for long-term resilience.
Overview
Before HCDE can fully realize its educational, research, and cultural goals, it must begin by strengthening its core foundation. This includes solidifying our shared organizational identity and narrative, securing our financial health and sustainability, caring for our people, and stewarding the physical and social infrastructure that makes collaboration and community possible.
This pillar is both a prerequisite and an ongoing commitment. It reflects the idea that a department that is operationally sound is a department that can lead.
HCDE already has significant strengths to build upon: a strong reputation for interdisciplinary, human-centered research and education; an engaged community of faculty, staff, students, alumni, and partners; and a long history of leadership in shaping the field. The Foundation pillar focuses on creating greater clarity, consistency, and shared understanding around who HCDE is, what it stands for, and how it supports its future.
Outcomes
We have a clear, shared identity that is consistently shared and reinforced internally and externally.
To lead effectively, HCDE needs a shared understanding of its identity, approach, and impact — one that faculty, staff, and students can recognize and articulate, and one that helps differentiate and position the department.
Strategies
- Co-create a clear, shared narrative about HCDE.
- Develop a strategic communications plan to reinforce HCDE’s identity and focus.
- Pilot annual themes as a lightweight mechanism for connecting research, teaching, and public impact.
- Embed HCDE’s shared identity across physical spaces, communications, events, and community experiences.
HCDE is widely recognized as a leading voice and valued contributor in human-centered research, education, and practice, within UW and across academic, industry, public, and nonprofit communities.
HCDE’s reputation grows when our expertise is visible, relevant, and connected to the people and organizations we serve. This includes strengthening internal visibility within UW and the College of Engineering, while also deepening relationships beyond campus.
Strategies
- Strengthen HCDE’s visibility and influence within UW, the College of Engineering, and the broader academic community.
- Strengthen relationships with industry, public sector, nonprofit, and community partners.
- Engage and recognize HCDE alumni as ambassadors for the department and field.
- Amplify HCDE faculty and research in public, professional, and academic conversations.
HCDE has diversified and sustainable funding resources that support long-term excellence in research, education, and community impact.
A resilient department needs the resources to sustain what matters and invest in what comes next. HCDE will strengthen philanthropic support, partnership-based support, and educational offerings that contribute to long-term sustainability.
Strategies
- Strengthen philanthropic and partnership-based support for HCDE.
- Sustain and strategically evolve educational programs that contribute to HCDE’s long-term financial sustainability.
Students, faculty, staff, and instructors across roles experience equitable access to the support, resources, and advancement opportunities needed to thrive at HCDE.
HCDE’s people are central to its success. This outcome focuses on ensuring that support, compensation, workload, and advancement opportunities are experienced more equitably across roles, while also strengthening how students participate in departmental decision-making and access support.
Strategies
- Ensure equitable access to compensation, resources, and career advancement opportunities across faculty and staff roles.
- Strengthen mechanisms for students to shape departmental decisions and ensure students have access to support and resources.
HCDE’s physical spaces, gatherings, and community practices support connection, intellectual exchange, and a strong sense of belonging across departmental life.
HCDE’s physical spaces, gatherings, and community practices support connection, intellectual exchange, and a strong sense of belonging across departmental life.
Community and belonging are not peripheral to HCDE’s mission — they are central to intellectual exchange, collaboration, and resilience. This outcome focuses on the spaces, events, and practices that bring people together across the department.
Strategies
- Increase participation in departmental gatherings that foster connection within and across HCDE programs.
- Activate and improve existing physical spaces and community events to support intentional and informal connections across the department.