Todd Mildon

 

Good evening.  I feel deeply honored to be here with you tonight at this great community event.  Thank you for inviting me.

 

My name is Todd Mildon and I am the Registrar of the University of Washington.

 

Few people know what a registrar is.  My wife Adrienne (who is with us here tonight) tells me that when she mentions my title to folks, she mostly gets blank stares back.  I can see why.  It’s a strange word, “registrar.”  Not very descriptive, like “teacher,” or widely used, like “vice president.”

 

Back when I first became the UW registrar, I thought things would be different.  On the day I first told my family about my new job, I came home to find my four young daughters dancing joyfully around the house.  I asked what they were so happy about.  They said “Your new job, Papa!  We’re going to tell all of our friends!”  [Wow!]  I really felt like I’d made it.  Sadly, that feeling faded somewhat a moment later when my youngest daughter ran up to me and exclaimed in wonder: “We didn’t even know you were RUNNING for president of the United States!”

 

So, since we’re not presidents or teachers, what ARE registrars?

 

Among other things, we are the people who keep – forever – a precise academic history for every student admitted to our University.  We record every class that each student takes for credit, and every degree earned.  We have done this for every student who has ever attended the University of Washington since the day of its founding.

 

We protect this history against time, against institutional and individual forgetfulness, against question and detraction.

 

We do all of this work so that our students can prove their academic accomplishments as they proceed on to further study or employment throughout their lives.  We do it so our students will be recognized and respected for the work they have done.

 

So now you know what a registrar is:  The registrar is the memory of the University.  My staff and I are the memory of our students’ accomplishments.

 

And so, we were thrilled to be called upon – in February of 2007 – to help remember our Japanese American students of 1941-1942.

 

For months, down in the basement of Schmitz Hall, we searched for these students among hundreds of thousands of old academic records.  As we worked, our act of finding and remembering grew into something more.  By remembering what these students had ACCOMPLISHED during their days on campus so long ago, we were also reminded again and again of what they had LOST.  We saw an opportunity – indeed a duty – to rise above the strictest confines of our daily jobs and to serve justice.  It became our sacred mission, along with the other members of the Long Journey Home Committee, to call these students back home to campus.  We knew we had to honor them, and to help – in some small way – to redress the loss and injustice they had endured.  We were called to serve the highest ideals of the University.

 

I believe that one of our first duties as citizens, leaders, and human beings, is to search every day for ways to serve justice.  As my staff showed, we can find those opportunities in our daily work.  I applaud them for the passion, energy, and creativity they showed in their service to justice.

 

We must also always be ready to NOTICE and to heartily encourage others in their efforts – both large and small – to serve justice, human rights and decency.

 

I see that service to decency in the way my grandmother June supported and encouraged her Japanese American public schoolmates in 1942.  She was pressed by many people all around her to turn her back on her friends, but she did not turn her back.  Thank you, Grandma June.

 

I see that service to justice and decency in the actions of former UW Registrar Irvin Hoff.  In 1942, Registrar Hoff also contributed to a special ceremony for Japanese American UW students.  In June of that year, along with Deans Edward Lauer and Howard Preston, he traveled to Camp Harmony in Puyallup.  He helped hold Commencement exercises for the UW students there who had been unjustly removed from campus and were unable to attend the main Commencement ceremony.  Because of his service to basic justice, I am proud to take my place in the line of registrars following Irvin Hoff.  Thank you, Registrar Hoff.

 

I clearly see that same honorable service in the stated JACL mission to “secure and maintain the human and civil rights of Americans of Japanese ancestry and others victimized by injustice.”  Thank you, Japanese American Citizens League, for your service to justice.  And thank you for encouraging the University of Washington tonight in that same great humane struggle.