Martha Chan grew up near Mill Creek. She’s a 2007 graduate of Snohomish High School. These days, the University of Washington campus is close to her heart.
“This is my home,” she said. “Our relationship really started here.”
Chan, 25, not only met her future husband at the university, she and Justin Tran were married Aug. 2 in Sylvan Grove on the UW campus. The picturesque grove is the site of four Ionic columns that were part of the university’s original 1861 building in downtown Seattle.
Today, as thousands of UW students begin fall classes, Chan and Tran remember their own first days on the Seattle campus. They have come full circle. Through her work, Chan now helps the student body’s newest members find success as Huskies.
Chan, who graduated from the UW in 2011, is program manager for First Year Programs, part of Undergraduate Academic Affairs at the university. She is in the midst of Dawg Daze, a campus welcome program that began Sept. 18 and ends Sunday.
“It’s for all incoming students,” said Chan, who graduated with two majors, public health and law, society and justice. Dawg Daze, which Chan described as the nation’s largest college welcome week, offers more than 220 programs — concerts, academic events, “and all kinds of things in between,” she said.
Just as he did on the day they met, Tran helped with this year’s Dawg Daze fun, although he is now contracting at Microsoft as a design verification engineer. A graduate of Lindbergh High School in Renton, Tran was a year ahead of Chan at UW, where in 2012 he earned a master’s degree in electrical engineering.
On Monday night, the 26-year-old Tran joined his wife to help with a popular Dawg Daze event, late-night shopping at Fred Meyer. Buses picked up first-year students on campus, and took them to buy school and dorm room supplies at the Fred Meyer store in Ballard. The annual shopping night includes music, free food and other amenities for students.
On a campus with more than 43,000 students, it was Dawg Daze 2010 that first brought the couple together. Chan was still an undergraduate, but had a campus job. She was helping coordinate new-student activities. Tran was one of more than 100 Dawg Daze student volunteers.
Tran tagged along with friends who were volunteering for the 2010 shopping night. “It started raining that evening,” he recalled. He noticed Chan, who was waiting with students to board buses near a flagpole at Memorial Way on campus. “I kind of knew her from mutual friends. I saw her with an umbrella, and decided to go over and talk, and stand there with the umbrella.”
They chatted that night about a shared interest in running. They were both training for the Dawg Dash, an annual run that starts on the UW campus. “It was the first time someone was talking with me about something I love,” Chan said.
After the 2010 shopping night, they made plans to go running together. “We’ve kind of made Dawg Dash our annual thing,” Chan said.
Tran said his wife-to-be spelled out her love for him using photos of places on campus. A picture of one of the Sylvan Grove columns stood for the letter “I.”
Home is now in the University District. Chan can walk to work, while her husband commutes by bus to the Eastside.
The university’s First Year Programs cover more than Dawg Daze. Chan said more than half of incoming students sign up for First-year Interest Groups, or FIGs. Students in the small groups share class schedules. “By creating smaller communities, the FIG program makes the UW seem smaller,” she said.
Orientation sessions, outdoor activities and day trips around Seattle are also offered through First Year Programs.
“There’s a lot of research around the first 10 weeks. It’s a prime time to get students connected so they’re more likely to persist,” Chan said.
The UW’s size can be overwhelming. This year’s first-year class on the Seattle campus alone is about 6,400 students, according to Victor Balta, the UW’s director of news and information. That includes at least 464 from Snohomish County, he said. At UW Bothell, which has a total enrollment of more than 4,000, there are 1,608 new Huskies starting classes today, 633 of them first-year students, 756 transfer students and 219 graduate students.
Chan remembers her first day at the UW. “I remember a bunch of food vendors in Red Square. I had a bagel and a cup of coffee before Chem 142. It seems like a long time ago,” she said.
With Dawg Daze, “I’ve seen lots of first days,” she added. “I love it.”
Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460; jmuhlstein@heraldnet.com.
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