What does Academic Strategy & Affairs do?
Welcome to Academic Strategy & Affairs, where we’re dedicated to enhancing student and faculty success through innovative programs and services and collaborative efforts across the University.
Academic Strategy & Affairs’ main responsibilities include:
- Overseeing Enrollment Management and modernizing processes in admissions, financial aid, registration, transcription, and visa processing.
- Providing centralized support for effective teaching practices and learning technologies that support classroom-based and online instruction.
- Guiding strategic efforts on behalf of the UW – provost priority initiatives, UW involvement in regional and national bodies, and University accreditation.
This work includes promoting collaboration with colleagues across the University to catalyze and organize efforts. In addition, ASA contributes to advancement efforts that support student access and success.
Teaching, Learning and Technology
Three units in ASA ignite teaching excellence across modalities on all three campuses with resources, training, tools, support, and improvement initiatives. From state-of-the-art classroom technologies to evidence-based pedagogy, we’re shaping the future of education.
These three units are
Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL): responsible for creating programs and resources that promote teaching excellence among faculty, post-docs, graduate students and staff in instructional roles.
Academic Technologies: responsible for the design and integration of classroom technologies, providing support for instructional technologies, and managing event venues.
Strategic Initiatives: responsible for supporting provost- and vice provost-level UW-wide initiatives focused on improving instructional quality and access.
- Supported adoption of the Core Elements of Effective Teaching, approved by the Faculty Senate in 2025, providing related resources, workshops, and guidance for incorporating them into teaching and review processes.
- Creating new resources and support structures to make UW’s course content accessible for students, such as Teaching@UW’s making course materials accessible guidance, Learning Technologies’ on-demand support through help@uw.edu, and UW-wide communications and toolkits.
- Opened a fourth location for the Student Technology Loan Program (STLP) in Odegaard Undergraduate Library, providing same-day checkout of laptops, tablets, and other technology students need. As a free service open to all students at the University of Washington in Seattle, the Student Technology Loan Program (STLP) provides equal access to essential academic technology tools.
Strategic Efforts & Initiatives
As stewards of progress, ASA champions student access, instructional quality, and curricular innovations. Three units collaborate across diverse groups to direct a portfolio of initiatives and special projects on behalf of the provost and president, establishing partnerships and developing teams.
Types of initiatives ASA leads or plays a central role in:
- Student access, student success, and student experience-related efforts
- Instructional quality and instructional support-related efforts
- Curricular and academic innovations or evolutions-related efforts
- Faculty governance led work regarding policy or guidelines-related efforts
- Academic technology-related efforts to ensure tools meet academic needs
- Continuous improvements and modernization of operations and services
Three units in ASA support strategic efforts
Strategic Initiatives: responsible for managing and supporting provost- and vice provost-led initiatives and efforts, ensuring results and promoting change.
Accreditation: responsible for ensuring the UW is successfully recognized for its performance, integrity and quality by regional accreditor, the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities (NWCCU).
ASA Information Services: responsible for developing and implementing IT services and workflows to create efficiency and modernize business processes.
- Launched the discovery phase of Student Systems Transformation (SIS modernization).
- Led the UW response to new ADA rules around the accessibility of digital course content, as part of the UW’s Digital Accessibility initiative.
- Worked with campus leaders and data experts to explore issues of capacity, increase capacity, and shift enrollment patterns.
- Piloted Five for Flourishing classroom interventions to improve students’ belonging and well-being.
- Developed tri-campus processes and support for processing student residency.