In the Media

For Melanie Reed, winning the Sequim Lavender Festival’s “A Shade of Purple” poster artwork competition is still surreal.

Reed, a Sequim artist and stay-at-home mother to a 10-month-old daughter, submitted three mixed media paintings for the competition but actually didn’t expect to win.

“When I saw a mock-up of a T-shirt, I thought, ‘Wow, that’s beautiful! Wait a second, that’s mine!” Reed said.

A Western Washington University student will discuss "Classical Mythology in the World of Harry Potter " at 4 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 8, in Wilson Reading Room, 4C, of the Western Libraries at WWU.
The free event is open to the public. General readers, fans of Greek mythology and especially those who love Harry Potter are welcome.

Western Washington University says it has received a record number of freshmen applications this year.

That lines up with trends at the University of Washington and Washington State University.

It appears that the secret about how great Bellingham and Western Washington University are is getting out.

Western is reporting that 9,631 freshmen applications were recieved this year, up by about 500 since last year, and the highest number of freshman applicants the University has ever received.

“Western’s reputation for academic quality and the university’s culture of collaborative learning are increasingly being recognized and appreciated by prospective students and their families,” said Western President Bruce Shepard. “The premier education offered to students at Western represents an enormously important investment in the future of Washington State.”

DEMOCRATS in Olympia are talking of taxes. There will be a time for that, and there should be, but it is not now.

Two things must be done first. One is to write a no-new-taxes budget that legislators can live with. In this budget they cannot cut school money protected by the state constitution. They should not cut higher education, which has been seriously damaged already. That leaves the other agencies, starting with Social and Health Services and moving on to Corrections, Licensing, and so on.

The tax proposal can offer to "buy back" these cuts, but first the cuts must be agreed upon.

Trishi Williams, a junior from Mabton on the Western Washington women’s basketball team, has scored in double figures during the Vikings’ last five games including a 20-point, eight-rebound, five-assist outing last month in an 85-71 win at Central Washington.
The 5-foot-9 Williams has played in all 19 games while starting nine for the Vikings (8-3 GNAC, 14-5 overall), who list only one senior on their roster. She’s averaging 10 points, third-highest on the squad, shooting a team-best .576 from the field, and is Western’s top rebounder at 7.3 per game.

Western Washington University students would continue to receive bus passes purchased through a student fee, under a deal Whatcom Transportation Authority is likely to approve.
But that's only if students this fall approve a five-year extension of the fee that buys the passes.
WTA's board on Thursday, Feb. 9, will consider approving an extension of the contract with WWU. More than half the WTA board members, sitting as the board's executive committee, have already recommended approving the extension.

Western Washington University ranks 17th on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) list of the nation's top 20 higher education green energy purchasers.

It's the only college or university in the state of Washington to make the list.

Each year, WWU offsets 100 percent of its electrical energy consumption from green sources, by buying renewable energy credits (RECs).

Chris LoCascio, a junior at UC Riverside, feared that there was no end in sight for tuition increases at the University of California. The state kept cutting subsidies, students kept protesting, but no one had any answers. So he and other students decided to turn the discussion on its head.

What if, he says, "instead of charging students upfront for their education, students would attend the UC with no upfront costs whatsoever"?

Under the Fix UC proposal, the bill would not come due until students graduate and start making money.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has announced a new plan to accelerate forest and watershed restoration.

Officials say $40 million has been allocated to fund several projects nationwide, including two forests in Eastern Washington state.