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Two faculty and two alumni win state arts grants

Two Washington State University faculty and two alumni are among 62 recipients, out of 603 applicants, of 2012 Grants for Artist Projects (GAP) of up to $1,500 from Artist Trust, a Washington state nonprofit arts organization.

The faculty awardees are Kevin Haas, professor of fine arts, and Christopher Arigo, assistant professor of English. Alumni winners are Lauren Greathouse (B.F.A. ’03; B.A. ’03, English) and Dane Youngren (B.F.A. ’11).

The goal of the funding is a repeated and consistent investment to support and encourage individual artists’ projects in all disciplines in order to enrich community life throughout Washington. » More …

Pulitzer grant funds coup coverage

By Phyllis Shier, College of Arts and Sciences

After navigating a coup and rebellion in West Africa with funding from a Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting grant, a Washington State University English professor will share his first-person account in an e-book for a Washington Post publication.

Creative writing professor Peter Chilson’s investigative journalism will be the basis for the e-book, to be released early in December by Foreign Policy magazine. Tentatively titled We Never Knew Exactly Where: Dispatches from a Borderland in Africa, the book addresses the turmoil in Mali over the last year and how those problems relate to the legacy of Africa’s colonial borders.

Peter Chilson with Tuareg nationalists
Peter Chilson with Tuareg nationalists at the Mentao Red Cross refugee camp in northern Burkina Faso.

Chilson received a grant from the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting to cover the crises from Mali and neighboring Burkina Faso for six weeks from mid-May to early June. The Pulitzer Center partners with worldwide media agencies to provide coverage on issues of global importance underreported in mainstream American media. Chilson was one of four writers to receive grants to cover borderland disputes around the world. » More …

WSU professor ready to help ‘decode’ pop culture

Buddy Levy
Buddy Levy

Television personality, author, and Washington State University clinical associate professor of English Buddy Levy will appear at all three days of Emerald City Comicon, the largest comic book and pop culture convention in the Pacific Northwest. The gathering will be March 1–3, 2013, at the Washington State Convention Center in Seattle.

Levy is a co-star of the hit television series “Brad Meltzer’s Decoded” on The History Channel. The show finds Levy and company traveling the globe in search of answers to longstanding mysteries and legends, including the Lincoln assassination, the D.B. Cooper skyjacking, UFOs, and secret societies.

Levy also is an established author and freelance journalist.

Also appearing at Comicon will be Sir Patrick Stewart (Capt. Jean-Luc Picard in “Star Trek: The Next Generation”), Billy Dee Williams (Lando Calrissian from “Star Wars” films), and Walter Koenig (Chekov from “Star Trek”).

Get tickets and more information at the Emerald City Comicon website.

Homeless women’s stories shared in book, video

Book cover

By Brenda Alling, WSU Vancouver

Homeless women’s stories as shared in a book by a Washington State University faculty member are featured in a two-part video to be broadcast on cable TV six times in the next two weeks.

The video, “Women Surviving Homelessness,” includes Desiree Hellegers, WSU Vancouver associate professor of English, and narrator-activists whose stories are featured in Hellegers’ 2011 book, No Room of her Own: Women’s Stories of Homelessness, Life, Death, and Resistance (Palgrave Macmillan). Hellegers is a founding co-director of the Center for Social and Environmental Justice at WSU Vancouver.

Her book is based on extended interviews with 15 women gathered over nearly 20 years. It illuminates the physical challenges of homelessness on bodies already compromised by health issues and harrowing conditions, including routine threats of sexual and physical violence. Continue story →

Alum accepts VP position at Langston

Raphael Moffett
Raphael Moffett

Raphael Moffett, the director of campus and community involvement at Trinity University and a Washington State University alumnus, recently accepted a position as the vice president for student affairs at Langston University. He will assume the position Wednesday, Aug. 29.

Moffett, a native of Lacey, graduated from WSU in 2002 with a degree in English education. He earned his master’s and doctorate degrees in educational leadership from Clark Atlanta University.

Prior to working at Trinity University, Moffett worked in residential life at Clark Atlanta University, as an adviser of African-American Student Affairs at Georgia State University, and as director of student life at Morehouse College.

After working in higher education for more than 10 years, Moffett still looks back on his time at WSU fondly and credits some of his success to the University. He told WSU News in an email, “I grew exponentially as a result of my WSU experience, ultimately learning how to be a responsible individual and productive citizen.”

Read more about Moffett and his new position in NewsOK.