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Nov. 5: Guest drummer, trumpeter highlight jazz festival

November 3, 2014

A visiting drummer and WSU trumpeter will perform with the WSU Jazz Big Band during a free, public concert at noon Wednesday, Nov. 5, in Bryan Hall on the Pullman campus. The concert is part of the daylong WSU Jazz Festival for area high school groups.

Drummer and composer Tom Morgan of Washburn University in Topeka, Kan., performs and records with numerous groups, including the Trilogy Big Band, a 17-piece jazz ensemble with two recently released CDs on the Sea Breeze Jazz recording label.

Trumpeter Brian Ploeger, a graduate teaching assistant in the WSU School of Music, toured internationally as a featured soloist with Maynard Ferguson’s Big Bop Nouveau Band and the Glenn Miller Orchestra. He has recorded with Michael Feinstein and Maynard Ferguson and has served on the music faculties at Spokane Falls Community College and Whitworth College in Spokane, Wash.

The performance by the WSU Jazz Big Band, under the direction of Regents Professor Greg Yasinitsky, will feature faculty members Dave Hagelganz, saxophone; Brian Ward, piano; Brad Ard, guitar; F. David Snider, bass; and David Jarvis, drums.

Donuts in the sky

October 28, 2014

If there were a black hole between the Earth and the moon, what would you see?

Donuts in the sky. That’s the easy answer, explains Dr. Universe.

The more difficult, and probably much more painful, answer depends on your view. You’d see a spot in the sky where light disappears as if going down the bathtub drain. You might see the oceans lift from the Earth and float away into space. You could see the black hole change from a point of nothingness to a color-shifting tiny orb. It would deepen from red to blue as it sucks everything into it, including you, stretching everything out like taffy on a medieval torture device.

What a black hole does it take a lot of stuff and put it into a small space. It’s like taking a gallon of milk and making it fit into a cup. Then making that cup fit into a tablespoon. Then doing that a billion times.

So what would we see if a black hole showed up between the moon and us?

“You would see rings,” says Michael Allen, a senior instructor of physics and astronomy at Washington State University. Ring inside of ring inside of ring, getting bigger and bigger. “Like multiple donuts. A bunch of donuts in the sky.”

The intrepid scientist is back. Dr. Universe is relentless in her pursuit of knowledge. Find out how to get your questions about the universe answered.

Oct. 16: President Carter part of U.S.-China relations gathering

October 17, 2014

WSU is among some 70 venues nationwide that simultaneously accessed a free, public, webcast conversation with former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, including the option to send in questions via email, during the annual CHINA Town Hall at 4 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 16, in College Hall 220.

The nationwide programming about China, offered by the National Committee on United States-China Relations, has been a featured event of the Asia Program at WSU for several years. The WSU Department of History is a co-sponsor this year.

Find out more in WSU News

Hanauer sees danger of rising economic inequality

September 30, 2014

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

Dickens could have written about the United States today. Some 46 million Americans – 15 percent of the population – live below the poverty level, including one in four American children.

Meanwhile, since 2008 the stock market’s value has doubled, CEO salaries are at record highs, and according to the Commerce Department the after-tax profit of corporations topped $1.7 trillion last year, the highest ever (in both absolute terms and as a percentage of GDP).

Nick Hanauer, a successful Seattle venture capitalist, civic activist and self-described plutocrat, is raising the alarm about the economics of ever-rising inequality. Hanauer argues that capitalist economies only function with a virtuous cycle: Rising consumer demand requires businesses to hire workers and raise productivity; productivity leads to higher worker incomes; higher worker income leads back to more consumer demand. Break any part, and the cycle collapses.

Hanauer will present this year’s Thomas S. Foley Distinguished Lecture, sponsored by the Foley Institute at Washington State University. On Thursday he will speak at 2 p.m. on WSU’s Pullman campus and at 7:30 p.m. in the Fox Theater in Spokane. Both are free and open to the public.

Sept. 17: Need for land ethic in environmental policy

September 17, 2014

Native American attorney Walter Echo-Hawk will discuss “The Need for an American Land Ethic” in a free, public presentation about environmental challenges at 4:30 p.m. Sept. 17 at 101 Kimbrough Hall on the WSU Pullman campus.

A tribal judge, author, activist, and law professor, Echo-Hawk will discuss the role of indigenous peoples in helping nations form environmental ethics, and will explore the need for an American land and sea ethic to address the global environmental crisis.

“Long known as a leading advocate for Native American rights, Walter Echo-Hawk is now exploring ways in which the unique perspectives of indigenous communities can be brought bear in solving environmental issues around the globe,” said Cornell Clayton, director of the Thomas S. Foley Institute for Public Policy and Public Service, event co-sponsor. “It is both a great honor and a great opportunity to welcome him at WSU where our students, faculty, and community can engage directly with him.”

More about Echo-Hawk’s talk