Social Sciences Division

Since 1955, UW undergraduates have learned about lawmaking by devoting winter quarter to working full time in Olympia for members of the Washington State House of Representatives or Senate.

The UW has a major initiative in the works to expand online learning exponentially over the next five years.

Black Cultural Studies students combined traditional coursework with community projects through a winter quarter collaboration with the Northwest African American Museum.

International human rights champion and Spanish jurist Baltasar Garzon will join the UW Center for Human Rights, housed in the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, where, in the short term, he will focus on contributing to the Center's History, Memory and Justice Project in El Salvador.

A UW anthropology student investigated how remembrance photography helps grieving parents, and how the practice's resurgence could signal a change in the way death and dying are dealt with in our society.

UW History Professor Jordanna Bailkin discusses her new book "The Afterlife of Empire."

Genevieve (Gennie) Gebhart, a senior Honors student majoring in international studies and economics, was recently selected as a 2013-14 Luce Scholar. A graduate of Mercer Island High School, Gebhart is one of 18 students nationwide to receive this scholarship this year.

A&S alumni and siblings Gary and Carver Gayton have led extraordinary lives, following in the footsteps of their great grandfather Lewis Clarke, who escaped slavery to become a well-known abolitionist.

Jim Riswold (1983), whose hugely popular ad campaigns for Nike and other top clients featured household names like Michael Jordan and Bugs Bunny, was recently inducted into advertising's Creative Hall of Fame.

Martha Gonzalez and her band Quetzal won a 2013 Grammy for their album Imaginaries. Her work as a recording artist is intertwined with her academic work as a PhD candidate in Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies.

It began as a modest resource to address students' frequently asked questions, but Professor Quintard Taylor's BlackPast.org website now attracts 2.8 million visitors a year with its trusted information about African American history.

In an op-ed piece, Victor Menaldo, assistant professor of political science, and co-author consider the possibilities for democracy in the Middle East after the Arab Spring.

So do aphrodisiacs really work? Pepper Schwartz, professor of sociology, says the power of pheromones and aphrodisiacs lack the scientific proof to make a believer out of her.

President Obama's call for universal preschool in his State of the Union address underlines a national shift in thinking about early childhood education. Andrew Meltzoff, co-director of the Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences. is quoted..

Research from the Department of Psychology shows territorial song sparrows use increasingly threatening signals to ward off trespassing rivals.