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2021 Showcase award winners announced

Faculty and staff winners of this year’s Showcase awards were announced today ahead of the week-long celebration of academic excellence.

Mary Wack.
Wack

Association for Faculty Women Samuel H. Smith Leadership Award

  • MARY F. WACK
    Office of the Provost
    Department of English
    College of Arts and Sciences
Nicolas Kiessling.
Kiessling

Emeritus Society Legacy of Excellence Award

  • NICOLAS K. KIESSLING
    Emeritus Professor
    Department of English
    College of Arts and Sciences
Melissa Parkhurst.
Parkhurst

Faculty Diversity Award

  • MELISSA PARKHURST
    School of Music
    College of Arts and Sciences

 

Greg Crouch.
Crouch

Sahlin Faculty Excellence Award – Leadership

  • GREG CROUCH
    Department of Chemistry
    College of Arts and Sciences

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WSU Insider

Ask Dr. Universe: Why do mirrors fog up when you breathe on them?

That’s a great observation. When you breathe out, you let a couple of different things into the air.

Not only do you breathe out carbon dioxide, but you also breathe out teeny tiny droplets of water. These water droplets are so small we can’t see them with our eyes.

Cigdem Capan.
Capan

My friend Cigdem Capan, a physics instructor at Washington State University, said one big factor that can help water move between these different states of matter is temperature.

When you breathe on a mirror, you are helping water move from a gas state to a liquid state. The surface of the mirror is a lot colder than the water vapor that comes from your warm human body. If you breathe on a mirror, you can easily feel that heat releasing into the air.

“If you are wearing eyeglasses and you are wearing a face mask, you can also see the glass fog up,” Capan said.

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Ask Dr. Universe

 

Thabiti Lewis explores history of Tulsa Massacre in new essay

Shock, horror, shame, disgust, sadness, inspiration, appreciation…

Thabiti Lewis.
Lewis

Thabiti Lewis’ essay on the 1921 Tulsa Massacre elicits a gamut of emotions throughout its 3,500 gripping words. The WSU Vancouver professor of English and associate vice chancellor for academic affairs co-authored the piece on an overlooked series of historic tragedies that he hopes can help spur change 100 years later.

“The story is sad, but I was also very much inspired by the resilience and fearlessness of the people (in Greenwood),” said Lewis. “Hopefully we’re all embarrassed and outraged. We also see that people let this happen. It’s important that we produce things like (this article) to let people know this history; to turn toward truth.”

Lewis said he felt it was important to shed light on Tulsa’s history, to start conversations and dialogue that can lead to real change in Oklahoma and throughout the country.

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WSU Insider

March 12-13: Annual Interdisciplinary Conference on Social JusticeAnnual Interdisciplinary Conference on Social Justice

The Washington State University Annual Interdisciplinary Conference on Social Justice (WSU SJCON) is an annual event sponsored by the College of Education, the Program in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and the departments of English and Sociology.

Social justice is perhaps most often associated with fostering fairness and equity in society. The term, however, is wide-reaching and applicable to a significant number of fields. Doing social justice work within the academic context can help instructors, students, and community members develop a proclivity for social change and an awareness of the ways injustices manifest in our daily lives. However, we acknowledge the importance of moving beyond noticing or theorizing social problems; social justice requires action.

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WSU Insider

 

Ask Dr. Universe, How do birds know where to migrate?

There are all kinds of different birds on our planet, and they migrate to different places.

Heather Watts.
Watts

My friend Heather Watts, a researcher at Washington State University, is really curious about bird migration and told me more about how birds know where to go.

Scientists think that some birds may know where to go because of a kind of program that’s built into a bird’s DNA. It’s sort of like being born with a set of directions they know how to use. This genetic information is passed down from bird grandparents to bird parents to the offspring.

“What we think a lot of birds do the very first time they migrate is use a program that tells them what direction to go and how far to go in that direction,” Watts said.

Different birds may migrate in different ways, but they will often migrate for similar reasons. While there are some unsolved mysteries around migration, one thing we do know is that migration is really important for helping birds find what they need to reproduce and survive.

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WSU Insider