Students are back and so is Western Welcome Week! Western Welcome Week is September 19-25, and is a week of fun, free, and engaging events to welcome all new and returning students. A wide array of new events and annual favorites are on this year’s schedule, including the Associated Students Fall Info Fair, New Student Convocation, Late Night social events, the Outdoor Movie, a weeklong Bike Fest, and a slate of WWU
After a limited viewing of exhibited work in spring of 2021, the Western Gallery on the campus of Western Washington University will fully re-open to the public on Oct. 7 with Anida Yoeu Ali’s exhibition and performance work, “The Red Chador: Genesis I.”
Western's Board of Trustees, along with President Sabah Randhawa, the university's provost, vice presidents, and university staff, took a tour of campus facilities yesterday in preparation for the coming school year. They were given informational tours of the new Alma Clark Glass residence hall, which will be open for new students at move-in in September; the WWU Steam Plant; the Interdisciplinary Science Building on south campus, which is under construction; and new campus lab spaces.
From flashy magazine covers guaranteeing a perfect ‘summer body’ to the endless sea of flawless photos on social media, the pressure to change our bodies is everywhere. For Anna Ciao, a Western associate professor of Psychology, the solution lies in intervening at the individual level where people can challenge assumptions about body image they didn’t even know they held.
The Delta variant now is responsible for most new cases of infection in Washington state, and a week of public health reversals from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention is sure to raise fresh health concerns.
With Western preparing to welcome students back in fall, many campus programs are exploring what their in-person activities will look like, and Western’s intramurals office is no different. For Lucy Caples, the university’s brand new intramural and youth sports-camp coordinator, the transition is an opportunity to welcome back students of all backgrounds and abilities to intramural sports.
Western Today sat down with Caples to discuss her path leading up to Western and what changes are on the horizon for the program.
Western Environmental Science student Madison Gard of Tucson, Arizona has been awarded a 2021 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Ernest F. Hollings Scholarship, which recognizes exceptional students in a broad range of STEM fields and provides awardees up to $9,500 in academic assistance for two years of study, plus a 10-week, full-time paid internship at a NOAA facility during the summer between their junior and senior years.
As travel restrictions ease and vaccines become increasingly available, Western professors are venturing out into the world to conduct research and engage with the global community. Professor of Secondary Education Karen McLean Dade recently visited the University of Cape Verde to present at a 21-day conference as the featured scholar-in-residence, with a focus on her 2020 article “A Dream of Dual Citizenship.”
Brian Burton, associate vice president for Academic Affairs and a professor of Management at Western Washington University, plans to retire on Aug. 31, 2022.
Nearly two years after their trip to Tunisia, three Western professors and their Tunisian counterparts have published the first of several journal articles exploring student journalist motivations for pursuing the craft.
