Christina Keppie has been named director of the Canadian-American Studies program at Western Washington University.

Keppie has been an associate professor of French and Linguistics in Western’s Modern and Classical Languages department since 2008. She is the first Canadian-American Studies director with a background in French studies. She succeeds director David Rossiter, who will return to his faculty position in Western’s Department of Environmental Studies.

Western Washington University’s Ralph Munro Institute for Civic Education will host the annual Munro Seminar on Oct. 23 and 24; this year’s theme is former Washington Secretary of State, WWU alumnus and former WWU trustee Ralph Munro’s legacy in international affairs.

Programs will highlight Munro’s role in stimulating trade between Washington and the Far East, and his humanitarian work in East Africa.

The keynote speaker will be David Bachman, professor of Political Science at the Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington.

Derek Moscato, assistant professor of Journalism at Western Washington University, will give a talk entitled “Pipelines and Prairie Protest: How Great Plains Environmentalists Win Hearts and Minds and Change the Media Narrative,” at Western Washington University from 4-5 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 17 in the Western Libraries Reading Room (Wilson Library 4th floor Central).

The event is free and open to the public.

Western Washington University Associate Professor of Psychology Jeff Carroll has secured a new funding stream from the CHDI Foundation to assist in his continuing research into the causes and potential treatments for Huntington’s disease, a fatal genetic degenerative brain disorder.