History

Foley Fellows to share research across the state

Five WSU College of Arts and Sciences faculty will be speaking around the state about their research in a new partnership between the Thomas S. Foley Institute of Public Policy and Public Service and Humanities Washington, a nonprofit that aims to foster thoughtful conversation and critical thinking. For the next two years, WSU’s “Foley Fellows” will be among […]

CAS faculty initiatives to enhance future undergraduate education

Five College of Arts and Sciences faculty members have been selected to receive funding from the Samuel H. and Patricia W. Smith Teaching and Learning Endowment for four projects that will enhance undergraduate teaching and learning. College of Arts and Sciences recipients of the 2018‑19 competitive grants and their projects are:

Undergraduate Symposium highlights research and art

Students highlighted their semester course projects, research, and art as part of the fall Undergraduate Research Symposium and Art Exhibition at WSU Tri-Cities. “The symposium and art exhibition provides our students with an excellent opportunity to practice communicating their research and course projects, which is an essential skill for when they go out into the […]

Library instruction increases student educational success

Clif Stratton knows the difference library instruction makes for his students. For more than five years, he has brought students in his “Roots of Contemporary Issues” class to Terrell Library to meet with Corey Johnson, WSU’s instruction and assessment librarian. Johnson teaches the students how to find suitable primary and secondary sources for their research […]

English, history alumni making a difference in K-12 education

Damien Pattenaude went back to his old school in Renton when there was a need. Now he wants to see even more kids return to Renton classrooms as teachers, just as he did. It has become an even more urgent concern for Pattenaude (English ’99, education ’05 MA, ’16 EdD) now that he is superintendent […]

Undergraduate students’ research opens doors to the future

Alyssa Sperry’s research for her University Scholars Honors thesis on the history of salt in Jamaica earned her the Library Research Excellence Award for 2018. It also changed her life. The library research award is designed to recognize students who excel in using the library and its rich resources. Sperry, who graduated from WSU Vancouver in […]

History professor emerita teaching in Kazakhstan on Fulbright Fellowship

Marina Tolmacheva, WSU professor emerita of history and an expert in Islamic and world history, has been awarded a four-month Fulbright Fellowship to teach and consult on academic development at KIMEP University in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Tolmacheva recently began teaching courses on Central Asian history in the context of world history to graduate and undergraduate students […]

WSM review: Bringing Water to the Idaho Desert

Growing up on a farm near Inkom, Idaho, the young Hugh Lovin (’56 MA history) would engineer ways to divert water to the crops he produced for his livestock. Later in life, after years of writing histories of labor, Lovin turned his attention again to irrigation. In a number of articles, collected for the first […]

Long journey of WSU’s newest student regent

Jordan Frost was a sophomore at Kent-Meridian High School when a teacher, Andrea McCormick, handed him a packet of materials to run for student body president. She already had filled them out. “You just need to sign your name,” she said. Later, she gave him a Washington State University hoodie, “which was really the first […]

Historic find is subject of new documentary

Recent discoveries by a WSU history professor and his students may hold the key to an ongoing American West conflict. After nearly 10 years of research, Professor Orlan Svingen, along with students and colleagues in the WSU public history field schools, unearthed an official U.S. government document from 1870 and several supporting records that shed […]