Husky Catalyst Initiatives

The Office of Connected Learning’s Husky Catalyst Initiative is designed to merge students’ academic experiences with real-world professional skills that are required for career success. This initiative offers important ways for students to become involved in high-impact practices that are centered around social justice, research, or workforce development. Participants will engage in equity-centered skill development, project-based learning and micro-credentialing.

Husky Catalyst Student Opportunities

Digital Scholars

Digital Scholars join a supportive community cohort and gain digital skills that employers are looking for! These skills include digital marketing, data analytics, social media, and data visualization. Applications open in Winter.

Global Scholars Program

The Global Scholars Program brings together UW Bothell students from diverse backgrounds, particularly first-generation college students, to think through global issues and explore diversity, difference, and identity as central to all global engagements.

NextGen student tutors two children in the grass at their school.

NextGen Civic Leader Corps

A tri-campus initiative across the University of Washington designed to inspire undergraduate students to consider careers in government, nonprofit, and social venture organizations.

group photo of the Latino Leadership Initiative

Latino Leadership Initiative (LLI) Program

Latino Leadership Initiative program and Latino Education and Training Institute (LETI) provide a cohort style program for Latino/a/x students to explore community leadership, gain valuable networking, and civic engagement experience.

More about Husky Catalyst

Many UW Bothell students are currently unable to engage in these key professional development experiences during their course of study, so participating in Husky Catalyst Initiative opportunities will allow them to augment their degree with skills critical to employers. The Husky Catalyst Initiative will:

Prepare students for engaging in professional careers by providing opportunities to explore career pathways, develop career readiness skills, and engage in practices that provide experience for careers in technology and engineering.
Empower students to develop a strong network of people and campus resources as it relates to their career exploration and discernment. This network includes faculty, staff, peers, alumni, and community and industry partners.

As students and faculty need a dedicated location for these efforts, UW Bothell has upgraded the Collaboratory in Discovery Hall to provide a centralized space for connected learning opportunities. The renovated Collaboratory will serve as the first of several hubs for student project work guided by faculty and industry/community partners.

Connected learning projects are organized along meta-majors: Arts & Media; Business & Policy; Education & Society; Health & Natural Sciences; Technology & Engineering. These clusters allow staff to match undergraduate students with appropriate faculty mentors in order to undertake campus and community-based projects.

WSECU Initiative

WSECU has provided $50,000 per year for three years to fund three critical connected learning experiences for Husky Catalyst students, including:

Internships

Many first-generation students cannot participate in career-connected unpaid internships because they may be responsible for providing income for their household. These funds will be used to provide stipends to students so they can participate in unpaid internships connected to their project work that would otherwise be unavailable to them.

Student communities

These funds will be used to provide stipends to faculty and students to build learning communities and undertake projects focusing on career development and social justice.

Credentialing

These funds will be used for the staff support and faculty stipends necessary for the Office of Connected Learning to create key micro-credentialing opportunities for students to gain critical skills and competencies.

Developing and implementing the Husky Catalyst Initiative enables UW Bothell to institutionalize support for first generation students as the campus moves toward national recognition as a First-Gen Forward Institution.

Husky Catalyst Funded Projects

2021: WSECU gift, $50,000 for three years to focus on internships, student communities, and credentialing.