Skip to main content Skip to navigation
CAS in the Media Arts and Sciences Media Headlines

Officers’ outside work linked to fatigue

Asking police officers if they’ve had enough sleep to safely perform their jobs is akin to asking drunks if they are capable of driving.

Bryan Vila
Bryan Vila

“People are lousy at self-assessing themselves,” said Bryan Vila, a professor with the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology and the Sleep Performance Research Center at WSU Spokane. “It turns out that the part of the brain affected by fatigue is also the self-assessment part.”

Vila tells officers who are chronically sleep-deprived and don’t get seven to eight hours of sleep each night, “you may be driving your patrol car while just as impaired as the last person you arrested for DUI.”

Find out more

Knoxville News Sentinel

Vancouver native crowned Miss Washington

A WSU social sciences student from Vancouver is on her way to the 2017 Miss America pageant.

Alicia Cooper
Alicia Cooper

Miss Clark County Alicia Cooper was crowned Miss Washington on Saturday after competing for the title against pageant representatives from other regions in the state.

Cooper, 21, plans to earn a bachelor’s degree in social science and a minor in psychology at WSU. » More …

Drug addiction: Dogma be damned

If the reaction one has to drugs is an issue worth considering, the reaction of the general public to drug addicts is of even greater significance. Public reactions often (sadly) determine public policy, regardless of whether logic and history support such decisions.

Arthur Blume
Arthur Blume

Arthur Blume, a professor at Washington State University in Vancouver and renowned psychologist in the field of addiction, wrote a book called Treating Drug Problems that is probably the best Drug Addiction and Treatment 101 course you can find. It’s not written for students of Addiction Science, nor for experts in the field. It is not a self-help book for those struggling to overcome addiction, and it’s not a guide for families of addicts.

It is a tool for just about anyone who wants an enlightened explanation of the nature of addiction, the biopsychological model as it applies to the topic (biology, environment, behavior as factors behind addiction), risk and protective factors, and theories behind recovery programs and relapse prevention.

Find out more

Los Angeles Post-Examiner

Tuba student places at international competition

Andrew Rink of Puyallup, Wash., a sophomore at Washington State University in music and computer science, recently placed third in live competition at the 2016 International Tuba-Euphonium Conference in Knoxville, Tenn.

Andrew-Rink-webHe was selected as one of 10 semifinalists from an international pool of applicants before advancing to the finals in the tuba competition.

“This event marks the first time a WSU tuba student has participated in and placed in such a prestigious competition,” said Chris Dickey, clinical assistant professor of music at WSU. “As Andrew’s private teacher, I am incredibly proud of him and his hard work.”

WSU News

What Explains the NRA’s Benghazi Ad?

The group’s first attack on Hillary Clinton seems inexplicable. But if you squint hard enough, maybe there’s a strategy here.

A strange new commercial hammers Hillary Clinton despite the fact that Republican Congressman Trey Gowdy recently found no evidence that Clinton was culpable.

Travis Ridout
Travis Ridout

“People ignore information,” says Travis Ridout, WSU professor of political science who studies campaign ads. “They ignore facts that are inconsistent with their beliefs. You could hit them over the head with all the evidence that Hillary Clinton was not involved, and it wouldn’t make a difference.”

 

Find out more

The New Republic