BY ANN MESCHER

The following is a guest post by Ann Mescher, associate professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Washington, Seattle. 

Please join this urgent request from faculty members and students at the University of Washington. If you agree, please add your name to our petition linked below, and forward to your colleagues, family and friends, no matter where they are in the world.

On Thursday June 9 we wish to speak strongly to the UW Board of Regents against increasing bond debt for a (second) new Computer Science and Engineering building (CSE II) at the expense of university students, teaching assistants and faculty members across the institution.

With only a fraction of the funds needed for this building, the UW Capital Projects and Planning Office selected a site requiring demolition of a building on the national historic register, removal of 44 trees including 24 exceptional trees, and a building plan that obscures reasonable entrance to three other academic departments in the UW College of Engineering.

UW teaching assistants are protesting against cuts, enrollments for the arts and sciences are in decline, and a new biology facility will be built on the backs of our UW students and their tuition dollars. Please add your name and strengthen our protest against even greater bond debt and a pathway to destruction of a beautiful campus.

Stop rising bond debt and destruction of the beautiful University of Washington campus.