John All, director of Western Washington University’s Mountain Environments Research Institute, will lead an international team of students and researchers – including a pair of WWU graduate students, Colin Schmidt and Morgan Scott, and Biology Professor Eric DeChaine – on an expedition to Mount Everest and its neighboring peak, Lhotse, this spring to research the impact of global climate change on the Himalayas.
New York City artist Sarah Sze will be on the campus of Western Washington University on May 8 to dedicate her newest work, “Split Stone (Northwest),” as the piece joins the university’s acclaimed Outdoor Sculpture Collection, joining important works from such artists as Richard Serra, Isamu Noguchi, Anthony Caro, Donald Judd, Robert Morris, Beverly Pepper, Mark di Suvero and Do-ho Suh.
Western Washington University was named a top national producer for Fulbright Scholarship winners in the 2018-2019 school year, according to a just-released ranking from the Chronicle of Higher Education and the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.
Western produced five Fulbright winners in this same time period, placing it tied for third nationally among masters-granting institutions, and was again ranked highest in the Pacific Northwest.
Western Washington University’s Department of Modern and Classical Languages will host the Tournées French Film Festival every Monday and Wednesday from April 15 to May 1 in Viking Union 552, on Western’s campus.
Free and open to the public, this year’s festival has the theme of “Intersections: Race, Gender and Sexuality.” All films will include a brief pre and post-screening discussion led by Western faculty. With the exception of “I Am Not Your Negro,” all films will be in French with English subtitles.
In the second part of a Q&A that began with WWU scientists Doug Clark and John Rybczyk last week, Warren Cornwall, the faculty advisor for WWU's student-produced environmental magazine, The Planet, discusses the challenges of communicating about science in general and climate change in particular, and how the global conversation needs to shift for these communications strategies to bear more fruit.
When Larry Estrada arrived at Western Washington University in 1989 as assistant vice president for Diversity in the Student Affairs division, the university at that time offered only a very few courses and programs dealing with cultural and ethnic studies.
“There were language, anthropology and sociology courses that looked at some elements (of culture and ethnicity) but not necessarily examining both culture and ethnicity together,” says Estrada, who also served as director of the Multicultural Services Center, a precursor to the Ethnic Student Center.
In the first of a two-part Q&A, WWU's Doug Clark (Geology) and John Rybczyk (Environmental Science) talk about their research and how their fieldwork is increasingly tied to some aspect of climate change. Clark, a glacial geologist, witnesses firsthand the world's shrinking glaciers (see picture above from his ice coring work on BC's Mount Waddington).
Student-actors met Thursday evening, Jan. 30 in the Performing Arts Center to do a dress rehearsal of "The Imaginary Invalid," which opens tonight at the DUG Theater in the PAC. The run-through gave the actors, staff and faculty staff an opportunity to run through the entire play, which is a comedy written by Molière during the 17th century and provides commentary on the pseudo-science that ran rampant in the medical industry during that time.
Professors of English Christopher Wise and Kristiana Kahakauwila are currently taking 14 English students on a study abroad tour of Senegal for three weeks, including stays in Dakar, Saint Louis, and M’bour. Western Today caught up with Wise to find out more about the trip, how it coincides with his research, and what kind of experiences the students are having.
Western Today recently chatted with Laural Ballew, who just started her job at Western as the university's first executive director of American Indian/Alaska Native and First Nations Relations & Tribal Liaison to the President. Ballew most recently served as department chair of Tribal Governance and Business Management at Northwest Indian College, a program which she created. Ballew was hired following a national search, and she started at Western on Monday, Jan. 28.
