In the Media
Western Washington University women's basketball guard Kristin Schramm has been named Great Northwest Athletic Conference Player of the Week for Dec. 11-19. A 5-foot-9 senior from Chelan, Schramm was selected MVP at the WWU Great Western Shootout last week, leading the Vikings to impressive double-digit wins over Central Oklahoma, 69-53, and Drury MO, 76-57.
Karen Copetas, Western Washington University's admissions director for more than 20 years, has been fired after an internal audit found evidence that she had illegally used scholarship money as compensation for students who worked in her office, including at least four students who did not have legal immigrant status.Copetas provided The Bellingham Herald with a 10-page letter she sent to her superior, senior WWU vice president Eileen Coughlin. In her letter, Copetas charges that her practices in the award of scholarship money were widely known for years, and other university offices and departments handled their own scholarship awards in a similar way.
Western Washington University has fired its longtime admissions director for what the university describes as a pattern of lack of professional judgment.
University officials said Karen Copetas retaliated against an employee, awarded scholarship money in exchange for work and influenced the award of scholarships to relatives.
Longtime Seattle theater figure George Mount has been named artistic director at Seattle Shakespeare Company, the theater's board has announced.
Mount has been serving as interim artistic director. Stephanie Shine left that position in June 2011 after being with the company for 17 years.
More than 50 candidates were considered for the job.
The University of Delaware Library and the Delaware Art Museum have announced that Kristin Mahoney, professor of English at Western Washington University, has been selected as the 2012 Fellow in Pre-Raphaelite Studies.
During her one-month residency in July 2012, Mahoney will make use of the extensive collections of British Pre-Raphaelite art, literature and archival documents found in the Delaware Art Museum and the University of Delaware Library.
Both college graduates and small-business professionals may be unsure about what the future holds. But both can be proactive by thinking and acting like entrepreneurs.
Earlier this month, Seattle-area entrepreneur Chase Frankin spoke to several hundred graduates at Western Washington University's fall commencement ceremony in Bellingham, which included the first group of students to graduate from WWU's weekend MBA program in Everett.
(The program meets at the University Center at Everett Community College, and Juergen was part of the class.)
The Clinton Library invites the public to a free concert celebrating the life and music of John Denver at 2 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 31 at Clinton Community Hall.
Bryan Stratton, a musician and composer, presents a concert each year on Dec. 31 in honor of Denver’s birthday.
Denver, who was born in 1943, would have been 68 this year if he had not died in a plane crash on Oct. 12, 1997.
Last year, as Washington State faced a severe budget crisis, legislators embraced a novel way to fund student financial aid: a public-private partnership between the state and private corporations. Called the Opportunity Scholarship Fund, the fund attracts private donations and matches them with public money in order to support students in science, technology, and other “high demand” fields.
As Inside Higher Ed reporter Paul Fain wrote, “the thinking in Washington was that if corporations had more direct control of how their donations were used, they might be more inclined to give. “ This is exactly right -- Boeing and Microsoft quickly pledged $50 million -- but the creation of the fund must be placed in the broader context of state defunding of public higher education.
Western Washington University's philosophy program has been named among the top undergraduate programs in the country. The assessment comes by way of The Philosophical Gourmet Report, a respected biennial review, according to WWU.
Western Washington University ranks in the top five among colleges in the United States whose graduates earned certification from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards in 2011. Of the 6,200 teachers who certified nationally this year, 104 earned their undergraduate degrees from WWU.