“Oooh, horsies,” Dru Holley’s 7-year-old daughter, Andrea, exclaimed at a Juneteenth festival in 2018.
Those words that so many parents have heard for generations sparked Holley’s first feature-length documentary, “Buffalo Soldiers: A War on Two Fronts,” airing for the first time Monday on PBS.
The documentary explores the roles the members of six all-Black cavalry and infantry regiments, known as Buffalo Soldiers, played in conflicts in the American West and abroad following the Civil War.
Booth
The documentary features Washington State University historian Ryan Booth, who studies the United States Indian Scouts. The scouts were Indigenous men acting as guides for the U.S. Army in the Indian Wars of the late 1800s.
In 2018, Holley’s daughter had spotted The Buffalo Soldiers of Seattle, a living history group that honors the regiments.
Clif Stratton has been named the inaugural WSU Pullman vice chancellor for academic engagement, effective July 16.
As vice chancellor, Stratton will focus on undergraduate education and student success for the flagship campus to promote a seamless approach to student success inside and outside the classroom. In this capacity, he will partner with the academic colleges, the Provost’s office, and Student Affairs to support the needs of Pullman students.
“I am delighted to have Clif join the WSU Pullman Chancellor’s Office,” said Chancellor Elizabeth Chilton. “He will serve as a critical partner as we continue to support the academic success of our students. His collaborative approach to problem-solving, as well as his deep knowledge of undergraduate education, makes Clif an excellent addition to our leadership team.”
Stratton joined WSU in 2010 as a visiting instructor, and currently serves as a career-track associate professor in the Department of History and director of WSU’s system-wide general education program (UCORE). Stratton led the collaborative launch of Core to Career — a cohort-based fellowship program designed to assist faculty in helping students, no matter their intended major, recognize why career readiness is an essential marker of a college graduate, and provide clear correlations between their coursework and career competencies.
“What I love most about WSU faculty and staff is their sincere desire to support students in their academic endeavors,” said Stratton. “Curiosity, collaboration, and sense of belonging are hallmarks of this approach and are what makes WSU a special place. I am more than excited to work with Pullman campus and system partners to foster and grow these efforts in the coming years.”
Four WSU CAS undergraduates recently received the Benjamin A. Gilman Scholarship toward study abroad programs of their choice. Cougs will use the funding to study in Taiwan, Italy, Kenya, and Japan.
“The Gilman scholarship is a federally funded initiative and the top study abroad award in higher education,” said Tiffany Prizzi, senior advisor in International Programs-Global Learning. “Besides looking great on a resume, this award is an open door to international opportunities and consideration for post-graduate awards, such as the Fulbright and Rhodes scholarships.
Students receiving the award, their year in school, their major, and their intended study abroad destination are Ryan Lewis, senior, Anthropology and Chinese, one semester in Taiwan; Ramiro Lopez-Guerra, junior, Social Sciences, one month in Florence, Italy; Darya Maysam, junior, Animal Sciences and Mathematics, 6 weeks in Kenya; and Jarely Aragon Ramirez, senior, Linguistics and Political Science, one semester in Nagasaki, Japan. All the students are from Washington state.
Proposals from 13 Washington State University faculty working independently or in groups have been awarded six Smith Teaching and Learning grants for 2023–24. Faculty will use the awards to address equity gaps in student performance and experiential learning to help meet employment criteria. The awards will also help faculty eliminate differences in student achievement across multi-section courses.
“The proposals we have chosen to support this year are very diverse and will have the potential to impact the education of thousands of WSU students in the future,” said William B. Davis, interim vice provost for academic engagement and student achievement. “We are pleased that many faculty applied for a Smith grant and that proposals had solid and creative ideas to benefit teaching and learning.”
Smith awards are funded by the Samuel H. and Patricia W. Smith Teaching and Learning Endowment, established in honor of retired WSU President Sam Smith in 2000. The grants are overseen by Davis.
The Smith is one of two types of Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access (IDEA) grants available each year to specifically advance teaching and learning. Criteria detailed in the Smith grant proposal change each year.
Awardees in the College of Arts and Sciences and their projects are:
Swindell
Samantha Swindell, associate dean and faculty in the Dept. of Psychology, will engage in a project titled, “College of Arts and Sciences’ Integrative Interest Clusters.” This award will support the creation of “interest clusters” that will help WSU students develop skills using a unique curricular framework, connecting thematically related courses into integrated learning experiences that foster a sense of community. Clusters will likewise provide faculty with the opportunity to engage in collaborative teaching arrangements with colleagues who share similar interests but bring different expertise and perspectives to the teaching/learning context.
Boyd
Ashley Boyd, from the Dept. of English, received a grant for a project titled, “Integrating Social Justice and Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies Across English Education.” Her co-applicants from English are Jeff Jones, Kate Watts, and Rachel Wolney. This project seeks to streamline social-justice content and pedagogies across the four required courses in WSU’s English teaching program. The award will support efforts to: ensure the success of all students, including those who are first-generation, students of color, and/or students who are differently-abled; and to establish coherence in instructors’ engagement with materials, texts, and teaching activities to cultivate teacher-candidates’ knowledge and application of IDEA.
JacobsSablan
Emily Sablan and Christy Jacobs, from the Dept. of Mathematics and Statistics, received the award for a project titled, “Improving STEM Pathways in Math 100.” The goal of this project is to redesign the MATH 100 (Basic Mathematics) course to reduce the C-/D/F/W rate. Instructors will create short lecture videos for students to watch before class, activities for students to work on during class time, and weekly “Canvas check-ins.”
McNair scholar Areli Orozco, a psychology and criminal justice double-major, is the recipient of a Governor’s Student Civic Leadership award from the Washington Campus Coalition for the Public Good (WCC). The award highlights student leaders for their work in civic engagement, community leadership, and social entrepreneurship.
“I was kind of shocked,” said Orozco, a first-year student at Washington State University who researches anxiety among first generation students that are people of color. “I thought the recognition was cool, but at the same time, I feel like there are other people who do a lot more.”
Ben Calabretta, director of the Center for Civic Engagement, says a large part of the reason why he nomintated Orozco for the award is her tendency to uplift and direct the spotlight onto those around her.
“Areli stood out because she has demonstrated her commitment to creating positive change through her engagement in the community and in the connections she’s made with other students,” he said. “She has truly made an impact on others during her time at WSU.”
