Honors’ Global Challenges Series
Interdisciplinary Ways of Thinking About the Complexities of our World
Welcome to Honors’ annual event series featuring interdisciplinary discussions on complicated topics.
The Honors Program brings curious, nimble learners into the community at UW. People who are excited to learn across many fields and to combine deep inquiry with the practice of examining ideas and information from multiple perspectives. People who ask great questions and value difference. Both within and beyond the classroom, Honors students think together about issues like poverty, human rights, and climate change. College is more than a means to a degree: it’s a launchpad into a lifetime of opportunities to investigate and offer solutions to profound human problems.
The University of Washington is committed to deep interdisciplinary discussions about big, complicated issues. The Honors Program is proud to be a vibrant center of collaborative thinking at this Top-10 public research institution. Each year, we convene a public “Global Challenges” event featuring fast-paced conversations between thought leaders who are working on these issues from different disciplines. This event is a joint effort between students, faculty, staff, and alumni, and is our gift to members of the broader community.
The Role of Public Research Universities, 2024

On Nov. 13, 2024, Joseph Janes (evolution and cultural impacts of information sources), Megan McCloskey (international human rights law and disability rights) and Ed Taylor (leadership, social justice and critical race theory in education) discussed the many purposes of public research universities like the University of Washington in our world today with moderator, Jaya Field.
Click Here to read about the event and Click Here for the videorecording.
GLOBAL CHALLENGES/INTERDISCIPLINARY THINKING events are supported by gifts to The Friends of Honors fund. Thanks, Friends, for contributing to the health and learning of our community!
Global Challenges Archives
Explore video and audio archives of our past Global Challenges talks, still relevant as our world’s biggest issues continue to evolve.
Ways of Knowing, 2023

Different disciplines, cultures, and individuals have distinct approaches to gathering information, interpreting it, and forming beliefs. This begs the question: “How do we know things and where else should we be looking for answers?” On November 9, 2023, Samantha-Lynn Martinez, Polly Olsen, Tony Lucero, and Katie Davis explored this topic with the help of Honors students and input from our broader community.
Click this link for an overview of the event, a video recording, and more!
The Power of Place and Care, 2022

Hosted in a hybrid format, Martine Pierre-Louis, LaShawnDa Pittman, Megan Ybarra and Stephanie Smallwood explored the causal factors of displacement and how we can work together to address those challenges. The conversation and Q&A were moderated by Honors student leaders Brandon Wu and Shannon Hong.
Click this link for more details and a recording of the event.
Youth Political Engagements Constructing Our World, 2021

Ben Danielson, Alexis Harris, and Dean Spade discussed recent events and opportunities in youth-led political activism in our “Post 2020 World.” The conversation was moderated by alumna and disability rights activist, Christine Lew, centering perspectives from public health, legal systems and mutual aid, poverty, and criminal justice institutions.
Click this link for more details and a recording of the event.
Communicating About Crises Across a Divided Public, 2020

Jeanette Bushnell, Clarence Spigner and Michelle Koutnik brought perspectives from glaciology, indigenous philosophy, public health, and so much more to this community conversation about the concept of “crisis,” how activism and academia can work in tandem and also hold each other accountable.
Click this link for more details and a recording of the event.
Technology Ethics and Social Change, 2019

Society is scrambling to understand and govern paradigm-changing technologies like big data and artificial intelligence on our identities, systems, health and rights. Together we explored what’s happening at the intersections of “ethical” social change and technology with Anna Lauren Hoffmann (UW iSchool), Ece Kamar (Microsoft Research) and Shankar Narayan (ACLU: Technology and Liberty Project).
Click this link for more details and a recording of the event.
The Question of Rights, 2018

Tom Ikeda (Founder/Director of Densho), Megan Ming-Francis (Political Science), and Angélica Cházaro (Law) explored the intersections between historical Japanese-American experiences and current systems and political decisions to disenfranchise/displace and dehumanize.
Click this link for more details and a recording of the event.
Nationalism, News, and the Power of Culture, 2017

Kate Starbird (Human-Centered Engineering and Informatics), Randy Engstrom (Public Servant in Arts and Youth Advocacy), and Reşat Kasaba (International Studies) held a dynamic conversation that helped to broaden perspectives on how to remedy or at least slow the progress of civic discord.
Click this link for more details and a recording of the event.
Talking About Climate Change, 2016

Jean Dennison (Anthropology/Colonialism), David Battisti (Atmospheric Sciences) and Hanson Hossein (Communication Leadership) discussed why it is so hard for those most invested in the way things are to talk about, much less agree about, the science and social impacts of climate change.
Hossein made the point: “Our solution is storytelling…If you can come up with a really powerful narrative and tell stories in an effective way, you transcend some of the challenges we have right now. If you can find a narrative that both groups or identities can agree upon, then you can start agreeing upon what path you can take to make that change.”
Click this link for more details and a recording of the event.
Health and Poverty, 2015

Our first Global Challenges event, hosted in November of 2015, brought together Steve Gloyd, Chandan Reddy and LaShawnDa Pittman for conversation with moderator and Honors Program Director, Vicky Lawson on the relationship between poverty and health access and outcomes. There was no video recording in our first year of Global Challenges events.