In the Media

A dream of an education in the United States and an urgent need to escape a harrowing past presented Western Washington University's Dak Riek with a chance encounter to compete in a sport that has opened a world of opportunity for the Sudan native.
"If there is ever anything that is ever bothering me, I put on my shoes and take off," Riek said in a phone interview. "I use running as a medicine for me."

Western Washington University is eighth among 16 teams following first-round action Monday, Oct. 17, at the Chico State Wildcat Men's Golf Invitational being held at the 7,256-yard Sevillano Links.

Central Washington University President James Gaudino will earn $500,000 in incentive pay if he stays with the university for five more years, under a contract renewal approved this month by the school's trustees.

The decision has upset faculty, students and staff members at the Ellensburg campus. Public School Employees of Washington, a union that represents support staff working at CWU, has asked Gov. Chris Gregoire to declare the contract infeasible.

Dawn Prince gets a physical rush when she drives through a tunnel, sees the lines of a tennis court and smells a tin of Band Aids. Looking at the color turquoise, she said, "I would feel turquoise shivers run up and down my spine and hear turquoise singing in my ears."

When someone unexpectedly touches the 47-year-old author, however, she sometimes has to fight off rage. She can panic when she tries to use a vending machine. And it was not until she bonded with great apes at the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle that she was able to get close to other humans.

The Canadian farmer who was part of one of the first court cases about companies owning patents on life will share his story Friday afternoon, Oct. 21, at Western Washington University.
Percy Schmeiser was sued by Monsanto, a company that sells seeds and plant biotechnology traits, for patent infringement after some of the company's "Round-up Ready" GMO canola seeds were found naturally in his fields. The company stated the suit would be dropped if Schmeiser agreed to purchase the seeds and the biotechnology related to them.

Three weeks remain until the Nov. 8 general election, and Whatcom County voters still have plenty of opportunities to meet, hear and question candidates for public office.
Following are forums planned in coming weeks. All events are free, unless otherwise noted.

Holocaust survivor Noémi Ban will share her story about being in the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp as a child during a special lecture at Western Washington University on Wednesday, Nov. 9.

Countries around the world are working harder than ever to save their forests. Brazil’s president recently announced that the country’s 80 percent Amazon deforestation reduction target will be met by 2016 – four years earlier than promised. In 1998, China banned tree cutting to preserve its forests after the loss of trees caused flooding along the Yangtze and Yellow rivers. The ban is now extended to 18 of its 23 provinces, according to CQ Global Researcher. Here in the US, environmentalists backed by the EPA’s Endangered Species Act have reduced national forestland logging by 75 percent from its peak 20 years ago.

An initiative on the November ballot would require the state to increase spending by millions of dollars to boost training for long-term-care workers, at a time when the Legislature must slash nearly $2 billion from the state budget.

Initiative 1163 supporters say the spending is appropriate, given the need for additional training. "What this initiative says is this is a top-tier priority," said Sandeep Kaushik, a spokesman for the campaign, financed almost entirely by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which represents long-term-care employees.

It just got easier to lay off full-time faculty members in Washington State, thanks to a declaration of financial emergency last month by the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges. But some faculty leaders say the board’s move is more about a power grab than saving money.

Either way, faculty members are worried about the possibility of layoffs. And some observers say other cash-strapped states could try similar maneuvers.

A Washington law enacted in 1981 enables the board to declare a financial emergency if the state’s contribution to the two-year system is reduced compared to the previous budget. (Washington operates on a biennial budget cycle.) The declaration allows districts that oversee Washington’s 34 community and technical colleges to empower the campuses to dismiss tenure-track faculty members more quickly and easily -- essentially the same way the colleges can currently lay off adjuncts. Tenured instructors make up about half of the system’s faculty members, teaching roughly 55 percent of credit hours.