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CAS in the Media Arts and Sciences Media Headlines

MLK Spirit Awards honor those making WSU a welcoming place

Several members of the College of Arts and Sciences were among 22 members of the broader Washington State University community honored with MLK Spirit Awards of 2023. The awards celebrate the life, legacy, and spirit of Martin Luther King Jr. by recognizing people who are dedicated to diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice (DEIJ) and continue King’s work in an extraordinary way.

Heim

Chioma Heim, academic advisor in the Department of Psychology and a member of the MLK Spirit Award selection committee, said the winners have done amazing work to make WSU and Washington state more welcoming places for everyone.

“They are contributing in ways that will have long-lasting impacts in our communities,” Heim said. “They deserve to be recognized and celebrated.”

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WSU Insider

Showcase award winners announced

Washington State University faculty and staff making outstanding contributions to the institution and beyond are being recognized as part of the 2023 Showcase awards.

The outstanding achievements of researchers, faculty members, staff, and leaders are recognized each year in the lead up to Showcase. The annual event is a weeklong celebration of academic excellence that includes research expositions as well as talks from distinguished university representatives, and many other activities.

Cheryl Schulz.
Schulz

This year’s Distinguished Faculty Address will be given by Cheryl Schultz from the School of Biological Sciences within the College of Arts and Sciences. Schultz, who is located on the WSU Vancouver campus, is a renowned conservation biologist specializing in species threatened by habitat loss, invasive species, and global climate change.

Additional Showcase award winners in CAS:

Innovation and Entrepreneurship Award – Danh Pham, School of Music, WSU Pullman

President’s Distinguished Teaching Award for Career-Track Faculty – Vanessa Cozza, English, WSU Tri-Cities; and Sophia Tegart, Music, WSU Pullman

Sahlin Eminent Faculty Award – Keri McCarthy, Music, WSU Pullman

Sahlin Faculty Excellence Awards – Maureen Schmitter-Edgecombe, Psychology, WSU Pullman

Emeritus Society Legacy of Excellence Award – Nicholas Lovrich, Politics, Philosophy, and Public Affairs, WSU Pullman

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WSU Insider 

New certificate program to combine engineering and humanities

From Thoreau’s cabin to Wharton’s mansions to Dreiser’s skyscrapers and Ann Petry’s streets, American literature brims with vivid depictions of built environments that strongly influence individual lives, communities, and culture.

Exploring these stories to understand ways architectural elements can shape daily life and society is at the heart of a new certificate program being developed by an interdisciplinary team of WSU faculty in architecture, engineering, and the humanities. Creation of the five-course series is funded by a recent curriculum innovation grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).

Donna Campbell.
Campbell

Dwelling in American Literature: An Experiential Program for Architects and Engineers “intends to bridge a significant disciplinary gap between engineering and the humanities for students and faculty at WSU and beyond,” said program co-developers Donna Campbell, professor of English, and Ayad Rahmani, professor of architecture in the School of Design and Construction.

Such transdisciplinary approaches to undergraduate education are vital to produce engineers and architects with a new level of innovation and social responsibility as well as humanists with a new appreciation for the tangible products of the world around them, the professors said.

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WSU Insider

Book Review: Arctic Explorers Trapped in a Frozen Hell

Empire of Ice and Stone: The Disastrous and Heroic Voyage of the Karluk, by Buddy Levy, WSU professor of English tells the terrifying story of a 1913 expedition gone wrong.

In 1913, the Karluk, flagship of the Canadian Arctic Expedition, became trapped in the Arctic ice. Over months of constant darkness, the old ship drifted away from land, carrying a party of explorers, engineers and Inuit hunters toward near-certain death. With every mile, the ice squeezed harder. And the walls of the ship began to crack.

“She creaked and groaned and, once or twice actually sobbed as the water oozed through her seams,” wrote the Karluk’s captain, Robert Bartlett. “There is nothing more human than a ship in ice pressure.”

Buddy Levy.
Levy

Buddy Levy’s Empire of Ice and Stone tells the story of the Karluk, the ice and the 25 people who were trapped between them. It is a sickening, terrifying tale, told in book form more than once before — a testament to the idiotic optimism with which white men first blundered across the Arctic and the sacrifices required to bring them home. Through it twists a single question: How do you prepare for hell?

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New York Times

WSU adds equity and justice designation to general education curriculum

The Washington State University Faculty Senate approved a new course designation on Oct. 6 called “Inquiry into Equity and Justice (EQJS)” that will expand the University Common Requirements (UCORE) general education curriculum for the first time in a decade.

The new UCORE designation, which will not impact UCORE credits necessary for graduation, goes into effect in fall 2023. Courses in EQJS will equip students with intellectual tools and social contexts necessary to critically examine power dynamics, and to recognize, question, and understand structural inequities and privileges, according to the UCORE website.

A set of EQJS courses will be determined over the coming months and, will also provide students vital intellectual foundations, tools, and literacies to assess and evaluate ideologies and narratives to ethically pursue inclusive and just societies.

Clif Stratton.
Stratton

“This is the first major change to UCORE requirements since they were put in place ten years ago, and the committee feels it represents a much-needed engagement with issues of utmost importance in today’s society,” said Clif Stratton, UCORE director and professor of history.

“It is critical to note that the addition of the EQJS designation to the inquiry set is credit neutral, meaning it adds no additional UCORE credit requirements to graduate,” said Stratton. Some colleges, however, such as the College of Veterinary Medicine and the College of Arts and Sciences, are planning to implement a college-level requirement that students complete courses in all UCORE inquiry designations. UCORE course requirements to graduate, then, could be determined on a college-by-college basis, as necessary.

“The UCORE committee thanks those colleges for their ongoing commitment to a broad educational experience at WSU,” he said.

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WSU Insider