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Tuba student wins at regionals, prepares for nationals

Matthew Tatz playing tuba
Tatz

Matthew Tatz, graduate student in tuba, won first place recently in the young artist brass division at the Northwest Regional Music Teachers National Association Competition.

He advances to the national competition in Baltimore on March 20.

“Matt has worked diligently over the past few months in preparation and will undoubtedly bring distinction to the School of Music and Washington State University,” said WSU clinical assistant professor of music Chris Dickey.

WSU News

Building a better microscope

Matt McCluskey
Matt McCluskey

A little more than 60 years after the invention of the first confocal microscope in 1955, two WSU researchers launched Klar Scientific, a company focused on finishing the final details of their own new and improved microscope that uses photoluminescence.

“Klar is German for clear,” said co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Matthew McCluskey, who is also a professor of physics and astronomy. “It’s like we are seeing things more clearly.”

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Daily Evergreen

How you perceive intelligence could affect your confidence

Joyce Ehrlinger
Joyce Ehrlinger

What do you think about your own intelligence? Can you make yourself smarter over time, or are you stuck with the smarts you were born with? Your answer could reflect a key personality trait — namely, self-confidence — and whether you might want to help yourself to a big slice of humble pie.

It turns out, if you view your brainpower as a fixed, innate capacity, you’re also more likely to be … overconfident. This was suggested in a recent three-part study led by Joyce Ehrlinger of Washington State University. It found that students with a so-called “fixed mind-set” were more likely to overestimate their performance on a test than those with a “growth mind-set” (a belief that intelligence can change over time).

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Ozy Magazine

Spokane judges have a new tool to decide whether the right people are in jail

Judges in Spokane County will soon have an easier time deciding whether to send people to jail before trial. The city and county court systems are rolling out a new risk assessment tool designed to free up space in the aging jail by making sure people aren’t held there simply because they’re too poor to pay a low-cost bond.

Zachary Hamilton
Hamilton

The tool called Spokane Assessment for Evaluation of Risk, or SAFER, was developed by Washington State University criminal justice professor Zach Hamilton, who looked at 13,000 Spokane County cases to determine which factors were correlated with greater risk.

“One of the hardest jobs we do as judges is making that release decision,” said Superior Court Judge Maryann Moreno. Looking at a defendant’s criminal history to try to figure out if they’ll show up to court can be “sort of like a Ouija board,” she said. “Having a risk score from the SAFER tool “allows me to make that decision much more confidently.”

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Spokesman-Review

Online psychology degree ranks among nation’s best

Washington State University recently was recognized for excellence in psychology education among colleges and universities nationwide.

Affordable Colleges Online (ACO) ranked WSU’s online degree program in psychology among the 12 “Best Online Psychology Degrees for 2016.” Only one other Pac-12 school made the list of 50 top programs among the thousands of colleges offering online psychology degrees.

Lee Daffin
Daffin

“I am especially proud of the ranking because it reinforces for our students that they are in one of the premier programs in the nation, getting a quality education at an affordable price,” said Lee Daffin, clinical assistant professor of psychology in the College of Arts and Sciences and the program’s director for WSU Global Campus.

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WSU News