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MLK Spirit Awards honor those making WSU a welcoming place

April 27, 2023 lauren.hoskins

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.

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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Few people seem to find real joy in JOMO

April 13, 2023 lauren.hoskins

Most people who ranked high in “joy of missing out” or JOMO also reported high levels of social anxiety in a recent Washington State University-led study.

The term JOMO has been popularized as a healthy enjoyment of solitude in almost direct opposition to the negative FOMO, the “fear of missing out” people may have when seeing others having fun experiences without them. In an analysis of two samples of adults, researchers found mixed results when it comes to JOMO with evidence that there is some anxiety behind the joy.

“In general, a lot of people like being connected,” said Chris Barry, a WSU psychology professor and lead author of the paper published in Telematics and Informatics Reports. “When trying to assess JOMO, we found that some people were enjoying missing out, not for the solitude or a Zen-like, calming experience of being able to regroup, but more to avoid social interaction.”

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Showcase award winners announced

March 29, 2023 lauren.hoskins

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.

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

Bisexuals use cannabis more frequently for coping, enhancement

January 23, 2023 adriana

Young people classified as bisexual not only use cannabis more frequently but also are more likely to use it to cope with mental health issues and for what researchers call experiential “enhancement.”

A recent study, titled “The Pot at the End of the Rainbow,” is one of the first to examine motives for cannabis use among sexual minorities quantitatively. Led by Washington State University psychologists, researchers analyzed survey data from nearly 4,700 university students from across the country. Of the participants, 23% were classified as bisexual after indicating that they were not exclusively attracted to one gender.

“The group classified as bisexual was more likely to report using cannabis to cope as well as for enhancement, which is a bit surprising,” said Kyle Schofield, a WSU Ph.D. candidate in psychology and first author on the study published in the journal Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research. “The coping motive was less surprising because we also saw that the group classified as bisexual reported higher levels of all the mental health problems that we looked at in the study.”

The bisexual group reported higher levels of cannabis use disorder, social anxiety, generalized anxiety, depression and suicidality than either the groups classified as exclusively “straight” or “gay”—findings that are in line with previous research.

Cuttler

For this study, Schofield worked with his advising professor Carrie Cuttler to analyze archival data from an Addictions Research Team survey, which combines participant pools from 10 universities across the U.S.

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CABRI Awards $40,000 in Fellowships to Ten Undergraduate Researchers

December 15, 2022 adriana

Cayman joins the Cayman Biomedical Research Institute (CABRI) in recognizing the ten undergraduate students who have been awarded fellowships by CABRI for the 2022-2023 academic year. The fellowship awards are given to talented undergraduates that are pursuing a research project of their own under the guidance of a faculty mentor.

Undergraduate fellowships are awarded by CABRI on a competitive basis each year to students who have been offered an unpaid research position. “These fellowships provide a valuable opportunity to undergraduates by allowing them to focus on gaining laboratory experience that builds their scientific talent,” said Kourtney Goode, Ph.D., Academic Relations Coordinator at Cayman.

CABRI funds expanded opportunities for emerging scientists and awards research grants to academic scientists that address basic science research objectives with the highest unmet needs.

The 2022 recipients include two students working with Ryan McLaughlin, an assistant professor of integrative physiology and neuroscience affiliated with the WSU Department of Psychology:

Addison Thompson, whose project is titled “Using Rodent Models to Interrogate Effects of Cannabis Use During Pregnancy on the Postpartum Phenotype’; and McKenna Spencer, whose project is titled “Cannabis Use in Females: Influence of Ovarian Hormones on Cannabis Vapor Self-Administration in Female Rats.”

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