Fran and Yu Laoshi

Dear Reader,

Thank you for visiting the Husky Presidential Ambassadors Leadership Institute blog! We hope you will get a glimpse of our adventures, learning and reflections from our time in Beijing together. This program was built on a desire for a more unified and globally engaged campus environment and on the belief that through cross-cultural leadership studies, undergraduates will learn to think and connect across boundaries, enhancing all students’ Husky Experience. We hope that our student participants have formed meaningful friendships across the globe, that our incoming first year students feel more prepared to begin their undergraduate education, and that all of us have accelerated our leadership development journeys.

We’d like to extend an enormous thank you to the numerous campus and community partners who made this experience possible: First Year Programs, Office of Global Affairs, UW Regional Advancement, Unite UW, Asian Languages & Literature, Husky Leadership Initiative, Tsinghua University, GIX, China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Resources, China Boeing, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s China office, UW alumni in Beijing (Ian Chang, Sydnie Kang, Su Cheng Harris Simpson, Jingjing Chen, Tommy Yang, Andy Wang, Jay Wang, Tommy Geng, Xia Xiao, Frank Li, Andrew Choy, Qi Zhou, Menglei Lu, Jenny Li) and guest presenters Professor Steve Harrell, Professor Xiao-ping Chen, Dan Zhu, Lara Littlefield, Brian Gao, Supo Techagumthorn, Allie Jones, Stacey Brooke, Professor Xin Feng, Directors Li Qiankuan and Xiao Guiyun, Professor Wang Changxi, Professor Wang Yicheng, Ian Chang and Kathleen Walsh. Thank you also to Nani Vishwanath who put this blog together!

We’d like to close by reminding all the HPA Leadership Institute participants of these words of inspiration as you embark upon and continue along your Husky experience:

世界是你们的，也是我们的，但是归根结底是你们的。你们青年人朝气蓬勃，正在兴旺时期，好像早晨八、九点钟的太阳。希望寄托在你们身上。

“The world is yours, as well as ours, but in the last analysis, it is yours. You young people, full of vigor and vitality, are in the bloom of life, like the sun at eight or nine in the morning. Our hope is placed on you.”

-Chairman Mao

Sincerely,

Fran and Liping