In the Media

The Bellingham Scottish Highland Games, which begins Friday, June 3, at Hovander Homestead Park, will feature a few changes this year, including a new rugby competition and the loss of some of the traditional athletics.

The majority of the rugby games will be played from 1 to 5 p.m. Saturday and will feature teams from Chuckanut Bay Rugby, Western Washington University and The Evergreen State College, said Joel Weisser, president of Chuckanut Bay Rugby.

The national champion Western Washington University Women's rowing team will be at Safeco Field on Saturday, June 4, for a special tribute prior to the Seattle Mariners' baseball game with Tampa Bay, including the ceremonial first pitch by team captain Casey Mapes.

The Washington State Executive Ethics Board today announced its largest-ever penalty – a $119,578 fine against Jorge Gilbert, a former instructor at The Evergreen State College who did not account for at least $50,000 in student fees that he collected for a study-abroad program in Chile.

The ethics board’s order fines Gilbert for multiple violations of the Ethics in Public Service Act. The $119,578 fine includes $9,900 that must be paid in restitution to the college.

Students attending college in Washington State are likely to see tuition rates spike next year—if they can get into classes.

Higher education funding took a big hit in the 2011-2013 state budget, which the House and Senate passed last week on the final day of the legislative special session.

Western Washington University is accepting applications for its Master in Business Administration (MBA) program in Everett, with classes to begin in January 2012.

This is to be the second cohort for the MBA program, which has proven popular with students who appreciate the weekend-based class schedule and the instructors who are full-time faculty members of Western’s College of Business and Economics.

A Centralia College administrator will be the next president of Lower Columbia College.

The LCC Board of Trustees on Wednesday selected Chris Bailey, a vice president at the Lewis County community college, to take over when president Jim McLaughlin retires in September.

Board members said Bailey's communication and leadership qualities helped boost him above three other finalists.

"I think we have really succeeded in finding an outstanding leader to lead our college," Board Chairman Max Anderson said.

John Belcher, principal at Omak High School in central Washington for the past seven years, has been chosen as the new principal at Mount Si High School.

“He’s a great match for our community,” Snoqualmie Valley Schools Superintendent Joel Aune said. “We think he is the man to take Mount Si forward. Mount Si is an excellent high school and we intend to make it better, and we think John is the man to do that.

Juniors in Western Washington University's Industrial Design program have completed their annual ReMade projects, with this year's designs featured at the Bellingham store Ideal - Carefully Curated Goods.

ReMade is an annual design challenge for the junior class of Western Washington University's Industrial Design program. Each year students produce innovative products from consumer or manufacturing waste with a trained eye on recyclability, life cycle analysis, and design for production. By doing this, students get a fresh understanding of the designer's impact on the environment and the economy.

For someone who was initially turned down by every music school she applied to, Canadian soprano Erin Wall has done pretty spectacularly, thank you.

Wall, who was born in Calgary and grew up in Vancouver, spent 11 years studying piano but didn't take her first voice lessons until her final year of high school. When she was rejected after her first auditions and told by a few officials that she should consider a different career, Wall worked on her singing for a year and tried again. She made up for lost time, going on to study at Western Washington University, Rice University and the prestigious training program at Chicago's Lyric Opera.

Over the past few weeks, America's colleges have sent another class of graduates off into the world. These graduates possess something of inestimable value. Nearly every sensible middle-age person would give away all their money to be able to go back to age 22 and begin adulthood anew.

But, especially this year, one is conscious of the many ways in which this year's graduating class has been ill served by their elders. They enter a bad job market, the hangover from decades of excessive borrowing. They inherit a ruinous federal debt.