Western's Alumni Association hosted the first annual "Paint Bellingham Blue" event last night, as hundreds of Western Washington University students, alumni, employees and family members gathered in Downtown Bellingham to celebrate the beginning of the new academic year.
Welcoming Convocation for new students was held last night with a greeting in the PAC from President Sabah Randhawa, AS President Stephanie Cheng, and Theatre Professor Rich Brown, while Senior Vice President for Enrollment and Student Services Eileen Coughlin led the evening, The remarks inside the PAC were followed by fireworks and the traditional "corridor cheer" welcome from faculty, staff, and returning students.
All photos by Rhys Logan/Office of Communications and Marketing
The Western Gallery at Western Washington University will host the exhibition “Susan Point Past Present: Cultural Visions in New Media” Sept. 22 through Dec. 3; the exhibition will feature a series of speakers and workshops starting with Musqueam artist Debra Sparrow at 5 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 29.
Western's students completed their move-in process this past weekend with some help from student employees, staff, and President Randhawa.
The age-old cycle of tearful parents, eager students and thousands of trips to and from family station wagons once again repeated itself on campus, but the student body is once again settled in and ready to begin another rigorous school year.
Classes start on Wednesday.
A freakish mishap that defied all odds cost Western Washington University a national rowing championship in 2004. But it provided the catalyst that spurred the Vikings to crowns in each of the next seven years, a record that still stands for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division II.
Western's new President, Sabah Randhawa, addressed Western's faculty and staff this morning at the annual convocation that marks the official start of the new school year.
About 4,100 students will move into Western Washington University’s residence halls and apartments from Wednesday, Sept. 14 through Sunday, Sept. 18.
The first day of classes at Western is Wednesday, Sept. 21. Total enrollment is expected to be about 15,000, approximately the same as last year. The university has a new president, Sabah Randhawa, who began as Western’s 14th president on Aug. 1, 2016.
Western Washington University Associate Professor of Environmental Sciences Marco Hatch and two colleagues have been chosen to receive a new two-year $300,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for a pilot project designed to improve inclusion of STEM education and career pathways to underserved populations.
The grant is part of NSF’s new INCLUDES (Inclusion across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoverers in Engineering and Science) program, a comprehensive initiative to enhance U.S. leadership in science and engineering.
Nelly Trocmé Hewett will speak about the French Plateau Vivarais-Lignon and the village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, a place of safety and shelter for Jewish refugees during WWII, from 3-4:30 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 23 in Academic West 204 on the Western Washington University campus.
The presentation is free and open to the public.
About 4 light years away from our planet sits Proxima Centauri, the closest star to our solar system, and orbiting it is its just-discovered companion, a small Earth-like planet that, for now at least, holds the unassuming name of Proxima b.
At this distance, Proxima b is, in interstellar terms, a next-door neighbor even though a probe such as Voyager, if launched today, would take about 75,000 years to reach it.
![](https://westerntoday.wwu.edu/sites/westerntoday.wwu.edu/files/styles/medium/public/continuum.jpg?itok=6D-Uo3X5 ""Continuum" by Susan Point")
