With COVID vaccines in the news on a daily basis, the average person is more familiar with the process of drug trials than ever. 

Months if not years of drug development. Thousands of people in trials for months more. FDA panels for approval, and even that was accelerated with federal funding and fast-tracking because of the pandemic. 

But what if you’re the only person in America with your disease? What hope would you have of finding a treatment? 

Western Today reached out to Amy Westmoreland, Western's new director of Multicultural Student Services, as she slowly but surely made her way across the country from Pennsylvania for her first day on campus on Nov. 1. We tracked Amy down somewhere outside of Fargo, North Dakota as she drove west towards that night's stop in Billings, Montana, and she filled us in on why she is so excited to get to campus, what she sees as the main challenges ahead, and the messages she has for the students she will be working with.

The official dedication of Western's first new residence hall in over 40 years was held on Thursday, Oct. 7 in the multipurpose room of Alma Clark Glass Hall. In December 2020, the WWU Board of Trustees approved the naming of this residence hall after the first Black student to attend Western Washington University (then called New Whatcom Normal School) in 1906.

When Rae Lynn Schwartz-DuPre, Western Professor of Communication Studies and Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies, pulled out the first Curious George book to read to her children, she found herself awestruck.