Full circle

Following a successful career as a methods analyst with Boeing, David Patterson (’76 fine arts) returned to his childhood hometown of Pullman and the community that fostered his lifelong love of creating art. A prolific pastel painter and photographer, he was first inspired by his mother Maxine (Weeks) Patterson (’46 fine arts). She specialized in […]

Keynote for incoming students: “You belong!”

In her faculty address at the Pullman Convocation ceremony, Melissa Parkhurst took the opportunity to not only welcome incoming students—freshmen, transfers, as well as sophomores who spent their first year online—but to bring greater recognition of the many ways WSU and the Coug family is here to support and help them in their journeys. “It […]

National distinction for instrumental performance

Chris Dickey, assistant professor of tuba and euphonium in the WSU School of Music, received third place in the 2021 American Prize in Instrumental Performance in the professional division. For the competition, Dickey chose recordings that he says demonstrate the tuba’s melodic versatility and virtuosity. His renditions of James Stabile’s Sonata for Tuba and Piano, […]

The notorious “Tacoma Method”

On a miserably cold November day in 1885, a mob of 500 White businessmen, police, and political leaders stormed Tacoma’s Chinatown, determined to immediately force out the residents. “This so-called, and notorious, ‘Tacoma Method’ was lauded by Tacomans and other city leaders as a lawful and orderly way to expel the Chinese population from town,” […]

$1.12M grant to help increase math teacher diversity

William Hall, assistant professor of mathematics, knows the tremendous impact high school math teachers can have on how students learn to think and reason quantitatively, and that includes matters of civics, social justice, and fairness. “It is not always clear that you can be passionate about those ideas and use a career in teaching high […]

Book review: Warrior Generation

“For lower-class young men,” in Victorian Britain, Richard Fulton (’75 PhD English) writes, “life was pretty much black and white. There were survivors and there were losers.” Life was a struggle with sickness, the weather, other boys, parents, teachers, policemen, bosses, and simply getting something to eat. Tough guys prevailed. And, Fulton notes, they were […]

Testing arrest deferrals, early release amid the pandemic

Sociology professor Jennifer Sherman studies rural jails in eastern Washington. Together with fellow WSU sociologists Jennifer Schwartz and Clay Mosher, she investigates why rural jail populations are on the rise despite declines in urban and suburban jails. “Our research began before the pandemic hit, so we did our best to adapt and used COVID as […]

A safe keeping place

The path to reconcile relationships with Indigenous communities needs a modern digital platform. Free, open source, and available as a mobile app, Mukurtu, a content management system created and maintained by the Center for Digital Scholarship and Curation (CDSC) at Washington State University, intends to be that platform.

Research and innovation highlights

As COVID-19 swept the nation in March 2020, faculty with ongoing studies were required to put them on hold or pivot to make the research relevant to the pandemic. “Science and teamwork are our best hope for a way forward,” said WSU President Kirk Schulz in October 2020. “I am incredibly proud of our faculty […]