CENTER for WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT

The Center for Workforce Development (CWD) at the University of Washington focuses on diversity through research, evaluations, and programmatic initiatives in higher education and the workforce. CWD meets the challenges of the emerging workforce: recruitment, retention, and advancement of women and underrepresented minorities.

"Sans diversity, we limit the set of life experiences that are applied, and as a result, we pay an opportunity cost- a cost in products not built, in designs not considered, in constraints not understood, in processes not invented."

William A. Wulf, President, National Academy of Engineering

"There is a quiet crisis building in the United States- a crisis that could jeopardise the nation's pre-eminence and well-being. The crisis has been mounting gradually, but inexorably over several decades. If permitted to continue unmitigated, it could reverse the global leadership Americans currently enjoy. The crisis stems from the gap between the nation's growing need for scientists, engineers, and other technically skilled workers, and its production of them....We ignore this gap at our peril. Closing it will require a national commitment to develop more of the talent of all our citizens, especially the underrepresented majority..."

Shirley Ann Jackson, President, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute