AAPI Thrive Home

About the AAPI THRIVE Project

History

UW Tacoma was awarded a $2 million-dollar AANAPISI (Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander Student Serving Institution) grant from the U.S. Department of Education to fund a campus-wide "AAPI THRIVE (Tacoma Husky Retention and Inclusive Vision of Excellence) Project” across five years from 2022-2027. The AANAPISI program was designed to increase institutional capacity to serve and improve culturally responsive programming for Asian American, Native American Pacific Islanders, and individuals from low-income backgrounds. UW Tacoma has been an AANAPISI-eligible institution since 2017. This five-year award was the first to designate our campus as a federally funded Minority Serving Institution (MSI). UW Tacoma is also the first of the three UW campuses to receive this award and became a member of a network of AANAPISIs across the nation.

Notice of Discontinuation

In September of 2025, the U.S. Department of Education ended several national grant programs for Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) nationwide, including funding for AAPI THRIVE. This change means that the grant which helped establish and sustain AAPI THRIVE will not continue. At the same time, the Department has approved an extension so that we may continue to use the funds we already received through September 2026. This will allow UW Tacoma to close out core grant activities between now and September of next year. For more information please write aapithrive@uw.edu