Elevating Community

Founders Hall amplifies our efforts to foster collaboration and community at the Foster School

Perspectives
By Frank Hodge November 23, 2022

In September, we officially opened Founders Hall, the Foster School’s stunning new building, with an all-day community celebration. It was an event well worth celebrating—because getting there was not easy. A global pandemic shut down the world just as we were about to begin construction. We weathered the unexpected bankruptcy of our mass timber supplier, a prolonged shutdown of concrete delivery in Seattle due to a strike, and numerous supply chain issues.

Collaborating closely with our UW partners, LMN Architects and Hoffman Construction, we found a way and opened just in time for the academic year. Founders Hall was 100% privately funded by so many of you who gave generously, none more so than a consortium of leaders we call the “Founders” of Founders Hall.

When you read our interactive feature, you will see why we’re so thrilled with Founders Hall. It is a marvel of sustainable design that was built with great intentionality towards creating a welcoming and inclusive space, one that invites people in and encourages them to stay. One that builds and nurtures community.

Tim Griffith photo

You may have noticed that we talk a lot about community at the Foster School. Who is the Foster community, exactly? This is us, by the numbers:

  • 3,388 students enrolled in degree programs, including 2,086 undergraduates, 895 MBAs, 329 specialty masters and 78 PhDs—plus another 625 in minor and certificate programs and 1,500 in Executive Education programs
  • 136 faculty, including 92 tenure-track professors and 44 teaching professors
  • 206 staff, serving every program, center and academic department
  • 60,028 alumni, residing in 76 countries (though 40,946 live in Washington state and 28,460 in King County)
  • 3,078 individual donors (over the past year)
  • 195 philanthropic corporate partners, plus hundreds more that support experiential learning and provide executives to coach, advise and mentor students, serve on advisory boards, judge competitions, lecture in classes and much more.

Across Foster Business online, you’ll discover some of the myriad collaborations and contributions by members of the greater Foster community who are striving to be better together, better tomorrow.

Come visit! Stroll through Founders Hall, have a coffee at Orin’s Cafe, sit by the Jiambalvo Hearth, and feel the energy that is the Foster spirit. A spirit that embodies our guiding purpose:

Together…
           We Foster Leaders
           We Foster Insights
           We Foster Progress
                   …To Better Humanity

Frank Hodge Dean Foster School of Business

Frank Hodge is the Orin and Janet Smith Dean of the Foster School of Business. He's also a professor of accounting, past chair of the Department of Accounting and former UW Faculty Athletics Representative to the Pac-12 and NCAA.

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