WWU faculty and staff embark on summer travels
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Western Washington University’s faculty and staff summer travels might make wish you had an extra ticket out of Bellingham.
Evan Thornberry of Huxley's Map Library spent a big chunk of his summer mountain biking from the West Coast of Scotland to Venice, Italy, taking time to stop for a photo (right) in front of the Zugspitze, Germany's highest peak.
Daniel Boxberger, a professor in the Anthropology Department, and Cheryl Danielsen, a program support supervisor in Print and Copy Services, completed the Coast to Coast walk across England this summer. The trek, from St. Bees to Robin Hood's Bay, covers roughly 192 miles and takes 14-or-so days to complete.
Marie Eaton, a professor at Fairhaven College of Interdisciplinary Studies, traveled to Kenya this summer with other faculty members, staff members and students from WWU. Read more about the trip at Eaton's blog: http://marie-kenya2009.blogspot.com/.
Max Barahona, an instructor in the Communications Department, and wife, Judith White, a Spanish instructor in the Modern Classical Languages Department, are spending most of their summer in Paris. Barahona and White are students at La Sorbonne in the Cours de Civilisation Francaise, improving their French and knowledge of French culture.
Lisa Megard, coordinator of programs and web communication in the Career Services Center, participated in the Whidbey Island Race Week in Oak Harbor from July 12 to 17. Megard raced on a 1Design 35/Carroll Marine 35-foot sailboat named “Extreme” with owner/boyfriend John Gerity and a crew of eight, all from the Whatcom County area. The annual regatta hosted 94 boats and over 500 racers from the Pacific Northwest and Canada for five days of racing, live music, friends and fun. This was Megard’s seventh year participating.
Karen Stout, associate professor in the Communication Department, is traveling with her husband and two children (20 months old and 5 weeks old), in an RV from Bellingham to Florida for five weeks. They are currently traveling through South Dakota on their second week. Stout said the trip was unexpected and that she had planned to stay in Bellingham for the summer with her daughter and newborn son. However, her mother-in-law became ill while visiting the new baby and had to fly home to continue medical treatment after a hospital stay in Bellingham. Stout and her husband decided to transport her in-laws' motor home back to Florida for them. They have made a trip of visiting family and sightseeing along the way.
Diane Johnson, associate professor of classical languages in the Modern and Classical Languages Department, participated in the Conventiculum Latinum, a 10-day Latin immersion program at the University of Kentucky at Lexington from July 6 to 15. The annual program, which had an attendance of 75 participants, gives graduate students, professors and Latin speakers alike a chance to gather and use their language skills actively. During her stay, Johnson also presented her paper on the 16th century Lutheran Humanist Martinus Crusius and his methods of teaching ancient Greek at Tubingen University in Germany.
Deb Currier, chair of the Theatre Arts Department, will take her second group of theatre students on a theatre history and culture tour to Italy and Greece for two weeks beginning Aug. 4. Currier and the students will be visiting such sites as the Theatre of Marcellus, the Collisseum, the Roman Forum, the Theater at Delphi and the first western civilization performance space, the Theater of Diopnysus at the Acropolis in Athens. Currier said she will have the honor of giving theatre history lectures at these historic sites. The students will have the rare experience of being in these revered spaces to learn first-hand about how theatre evolved from 500 B.C. to the middle ages.
Jennifer Karchmer, also an instructor in the Communication Department, is spending her summer as a volunteer for Canoe Island French Camp on the 48-acre island in the San Juans near Lopez and Shaw. The camp, which serves about 40 campers during the summer, offers French language instruction and French culture education amid a camp setting of swimming, archery, soccer, arts and crafts.
Rich Brown, an assistant professor of acting/movement in the Theatre Arts Department, will spend the month of August in Bucharest, Romania, to lead a two-week intensive class at the National Theatre of Romania.
Said Hassan, an adviser for the Office of Admissions, is planning a trip to East Africa in the next couple of months to visit family and relatives in Somalia and Kenya. Hassan came to the United States in 1995 from Somalia due to its civil war and has not been back since. With the current situation in Somalia unstable, Hassan is still contemplating a date for this trip.
Jeanne Gaffney, senior assistant director of Admissions, will travel with her extended family to the Paws Up Resort in Missoula, Mont., for an all-expenses-paid trip for 13 people on Sept. 21. Gaffney’s mother-in-law won the trip as a grand prize for an essay she wrote for a contest sponsored by Land’s End. The trip includes airfare, meals, lodging and four half-day adventures of their choosing.
