Ross Furbush ’15, featured in Out Sports magazine
July 1, 2020
Ross Furbush ’15, featured in Out Sports magazine
We caught up recently with UW alum Ross Furbush (biology w/Interdisciplinary Honors, 2015) after seeing his fantastic coming out story featured in Out Sports magazine’s digital edition.
Ross says he is absolutely interested in connecting with students and alumni who are coming to grips with their sense of possibility, responsibility, and identity. He says he’s especially fond of the Honors community, which he credits for luring him into the University of Washington (despite being a 5th-generation Husky) by promising an intimate, liberal-arts style core education in a world-class public research institution.
Now living and working as an analyst in Washington, D.C., Ross says he’s still great friends with the people he met in Honors’ residence hall and classes. “Those classes,” he said, “were so cool and unexpected as ways to fulfill requirements. A lot of my friends fulfilled their English requirement in English 130, but I took a class on Morocco with Frances McCue and got to write about lions! I took an Honors class on immigration at a time when I wasn’t super awake and a classmate from an undocumented family really transformed my world view.”
Ross still works with UW Bothell and Honors professor, Ursula Valdez, whose study-abroad program in Peru inspired him to stay involved in her community-led rainforest conservation efforts as a staffer of the Amazon-based nonprofit, CECCOT. He says his greatest regret from college was skipping Honors’ graduation ceremony to go salmon fishing with friends.
We’re excited to introduce Ross to students and alumni at future events. Meanwhile, please do yourself a favor and read his lovely piece of reflective writing on his own journey, including many examples of the power and importance of collaborating across perceived differences to live an authentic life and to create a more beautiful and equitable world.