UW Tacoma welcomes new chancellor

Debra Friedman will begin work as the chancellor of the University of Washington Tacoma just after the 4th of July holiday. She will be UW Tacoma's fourth chancellor, following retiring Chancellor Patricia Spakes, who guided the university for six years.

Friedman comes to Tacoma from Phoenix, Ariz., where she was vice president of Arizona State University and chief administrator of its downtown Phoenix campus, which serves more than 8,000 students. Simultaneously, she served as dean of the College of Public Programs, which anchored the Phoenix campus. Her academic rank was professor of public affairs.

No stranger to the Puget Sound area, Friedman was born and raised in Seattle. She earned master's and doctoral degrees in sociology from the University of Washington in Seattle. She later worked at the UW from 1994 to 2005 in administrative positions, including assistant dean and associate dean of Undergraduate Education, associate provost for academic planning and director of special projects in development and alumni relations.

Friedman said her entire adult life has been devoted to higher education. “We have a precious opportunity and a privilege, when students cross our threshold, to transform their lives through education,” she said. “You can profoundly change the trajectory of an individual person — especially a student whose parents did not go to college — through higher education.”

UW Tacoma enjoys some huge advantages, including its location and its relationship to the community, Friedman noted.

“Tacoma is reinventing itself, both in terms of economic development and identity. And we are partnered with our city,” she said. “To be in this community at this time and to be important to its future — that’s a very special opportunity.”

As dean of the ASU College of Public Programs, Friedman led the relocation of the college to the new downtown campus in 2008. She is credited with refining its vision and strategic plan and securing new funds for the college. She mobilized a community advisory board of influential and highly visible leaders. The college has more than 700 ongoing community partners in public, nonprofit and private sectors, where students intern and faculty members advance research relationships. Under her leadership, the college achieved the highest student retention rate at ASU, had the most diverse undergraduate student body, and created a vibrant undergraduate research program. Two of the college’s four schools have achieved high national rankings.