Passionate about plants and nearing graduation with a master’s in cultural anthropology, Amanda Thiel has traveled overseas for her research and educated elementary school children about botany. Thiel went to rural Guatemala in the summer of 2016 to research ethnobotany, the study of how people use plants in their region. During her two-month stay, she […]
When Justin Denney was still an aspiring, young sociologist, he strove to understand the dynamic forces that shape and perpetuate social inequality. Then, in graduate school, he came across the signal texts of renowned sociologist and Washington State University alumnus William Julius Wilson. “Those classic works illuminated a central tenet and contribution of sociological inquiry that […]
WSU created the William Julius Wilson Award for the Advancement of Social Justice in 2009 to recognize individuals who promote social inclusiveness and diversity in social policies and strive to reduce joblessness. Wilson received his doctorate in sociology from WSU in 1966 and is widely considered one of the nation’s most influential sociologists. He is […]
“The annual CHINA Town Hall aims to help people nationwide understand the challenges and opportunities of what has been characterized as the most important bilateral relationship of the twenty-first century,” said Lydia Gerber, clinical associate professor of history and director of the WSU Asia Program, the local event sponsor. As the top U.S. state exporter […]
Fall is here—and WSU sociology has seen some exciting changes. We begin this issue with a letter from new department chair Monica Kirkpatrick Johnson. She shares her goals for the department, including implementation of a new strategic plan.
Washington State University faculty members are passing on more than $250,000 in savings to WSU students this fall, using funds from five Affordable Learning Grants and another funded through Academic Outreach and Innovation to develop open-source classroom materials, or OERs. The University funded the grants over the summer, and the faculty members worked to develop […]
Themes of resilience from multiple regional and disciplinary perspectives will be explored as the WSU Asia Program’s “East Meets West” lecture series continues Sept. 19–Oct. 24 on the WSU Pullman campus. The 2017 series features seven lectures and one documentary film. All events are free and open to the public. “We chose the theme of […]
The Dominican boy had a leaf draped over his head, secured with a length of vine. Anthropologist Marsha Quinlan was intrigued. “I asked him, ‘Is that a hat?’” she recalls. “And he explained that, no, he woke up with a headache and the leaf makes your head feel better. And I thought that was so […]
“Fiction is a document of trouble,” says novelist James Thayer ’71. The trouble began for Thayer as a teenager reading Bram Stoker’s Dracula on his father’s wheat farm in Almira. “The narrator sees the Count leap to a window frame—and then crawl down the exterior of the castle wall like a lizard!” Thayer exclaims. “That […]
WSU researchers received a national award for designing a new survey method that is now used in censuses around the world. WSU Regents Professor Don Dillman and a team of former graduate students were honored with the Warren J. Mitofsky Innovators Award from the American Association for Public Opinion Research. The last award was granted […]