Professor Julie Kmec to chair sociology department
An expert in work organizations and workplace diversity, Professor Julie Kmec will serve as chair of the Department of Sociology at Washington State University, effective August 15, 2021.
Faculty
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 […]
Pivoting academics during the pandemic
Ten minutes before the official start time, Paul Buckley posts the first note in the chat box. “Happy Friday, everyone!” Today’s topics are already listed on the screen: properties of gases, gas pressure and units, and gas laws. As the clock ticks on, more and more Washington State University students log in via Zoom on […]
Data analysis correlates local politics and LGBTQ+ student stress
Students who identify as LGBTQ+ in Washington state school districts with conservative voting records reported experiencing more bullying than their peers in more politically liberal areas, according to a new study from the Department of Psychology. “To my knowledge, nobody has really looked at this connection between a school district’s political attitudes and the experiences […]
Ask Dr. Universe: How do mountains form?
When you walk around on land, you are walking on top of Earth’s rocky crust. Below the crust is another thick layer of rock. These layers form Earth’s tectonic plates and when those plates collide with each other, they often form mountains. To find out about how mountains form, I visited my friend Julie Menard, a […]
Improving WARNS, a K-12 at-risk assessment tool
An interdisciplinary team of Washington State University researchers received a $1.4 million grant from the Institute of Education Sciences to refine and expand the Washington Assessment of the Risks and Needs of Students program (WARNS), an assessment that helps address truancy in K-12 schools. Developed in 2008, the program uses evidence-driven procedures to track and […]
Sociologist’s new book examines changing rural economics
Even before COVID-19 prompted thousands of city-dwellers to seek new lifestyles in the country, sociology professor Jennifer Sherman had been researching and writing about a remote place she calls “Paradise Valley,” where efforts to revitalize the local economy with an influx of restaurants, cafes, hotels, and souvenir shops dramatically changed the community. Her new book, […]
Dr. Universe: How do trees give us air to breathe?
Our planet is home to all kinds of different plants, and they help make a lot of the oxygen we breathe. To find out how plants make oxygen, I asked my friend Balasaheb Sonawane, a scientist at WSU who researches photosynthesis, or the ways plants use energy from the sun and make oxygen. He said that […]
Novel study of high-potency cannabis shows memory effects
Even before the pandemic made Zoom ubiquitous, WSU researchers were using the video conferencing app to research a type of cannabis that is understudied: the kind people actually use. “Because of federal restrictions to researchers, it was just not possible to study the acute effects of these high-potency products,” said Carrie Cuttler, WSU psychologist and