Videos

Environmentalist and activist David Suzuki gave a lecture titled “Time is Running Out: Ecology or Economics?” May 6 at Western Washington University’s Performing Arts Center Concert Hall, as part of Western’s annual Japan Week Celebration.

Suzuki is best known for his work as a radio and television host dealing with natural sciences in an easy to understand way, and has won numerous awards throughout his career in broadcasting. He has also received 25 honorary degrees from institutions in the United States, Canada and Australia and written 52 books, 19 of which are children’s books. He also a co-author of “An Introduction to Genetic Analysis,” one of the most widely used textbooks on Genetics in the United States.

Suzuki graduated from Amherst College with a bachelor’s degree in Biology and received his doctorate in Zoology from the University of Chicago in 1961. He is currently a professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, B.C.

Environmentalist and activist David Suzuki will give a lecture titled “Time is Running Out: Ecology or Economics?” at noon on May 6 at Western Washington University’s Performing Arts Center Concert Hall, as part of Western’s annual Japan Week Celebration.

The event is co-sponsored by Japan Week, Western’s Office of Sustainability and Huxley College of the Environment, and is free and open to the public.

Suzuki is best known for his work as a radio and television host dealing with natural sciences in an easy to understand way, and has won numerous awards throughout his career in broadcasting. He has also received 25 honorary degrees from institutions in the United States, Canada and Australia and written 52 books, 19 of which are children’s books. He also a co-author of “An Introduction to Genetic Analysis,” one of the most widely used textbooks on Genetics in the United States.

Suzuki graduated from Amherst College with a bachelor’s degree in Biology and received his doctorate in Zoology from the University of Chicago in 1961. He is currently a professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, B.C.

Japan Week runs from May 2-9 and all events are free and open to the public. Other Japan Week activities include:

Thursday May 2

A faculty symposium titled “Identity Construction Across Time and Cultures” will open Japan Week from 4-7 p.m. in Science, Mathematics, and Technology Education (SMATE) building room 130. Massimiliano Tomasi will preside over the symposium. Professor Leith Morton from the Tokyo Institute of Technology will give the keynote address titled “Yosano Akiko and the Construction of Female Identity in Modern Japan.”

Other presentations will include Janice Kam’s “Fraternity and Fratricide in Early China,” Petra Fiero’s “German-Jewish Identity in Barbara Honigmann’s Work,” Hugo Garcia’s “The Image of Our Lady of Charity and the Negotiations of Cuban Identity” and Madoka Kusakabe’s “Challenging the Confinement of ‘Women’ in Earthy 20th Century Japan.”

Tuesday May 7

Michiko Yusa will preside over a faculty symposium titled “The Tohoku Earthquake Disaster of 2011: Response, Legacy, and International Significance” from 4-6 p.m. in SMATE 110.

Presentations will include Ed Vajda’s “Across the Ring of Fire: Japan and the Pacific Northwest,” Karen Bradley’s “Disastrous Context: Probabilities and Preparedness” and Seiko Purdue’s “Lost and Found: Artists Respond to the Tohoku Earthquake.”

Thursday May 9

Western’s Asia University in America Program will present “Japan Night” from 7-9 p.m. in the Viking Union Multipurpose Room. The event will have Japanese themed booths and activities including a tea ceremony, sushi-rolling, origami, card games and Japanese calligraphy.

For more information about the lecture or Japan Week 2013 please contact Professor Michiko Yusa at Michiko.yusa@wwu.edu or at (360) 650-4851.
 

The Western Washington University men's and women's basketball teams, who both were NCAA Division II national semifinalists and had a combined record of 60-7, were at Safeco Field on Friday, Apr. 26, for a special tribute prior to the Seattle Mariners' baseball game with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, including ceremonial first pitches by head coaches Tony Dominguez and Carmen Dolfo.

The Vikings became the first school in the state of Washington to have both its men's and women's hoop teams reach the national semifinals in the same season.

Together, the two teams had a winning percentage of 89.6. They were both ranked among the top five nationally in their respective Division II polls, the women finishing third and the men fourth, and each won a regional title and took a Great Northwest Athletic Conference regular-season championship with a 17-1 record.

The defending NCAA II national champion WWU men finished 31-3, the win total tying the school record set last year. Their 24-0 start and 30-game winning streak over two seasons each broke school records that had stood for 41 years.

The Viking women finished 29-4, winning 22 of 23 games during one stretch. Besides the regular-season league crown, they also won the GNAC tournament title and notched the 900th victory in the program's 42-year history on Feb. 28 (current total 907), an average of 21.6 wins per year.

The WWU men were 17-0 at home this season and will take a school and conference record 26-game unbeaten streak at Carver Gym into the 2013-14 campaign. The Viking women were 16-0 at home and have won 20 in a row at Carver Gym over the last two years.

Dolfo was named CaptainU Division II National Women's Coach of the Year and Dominguez was a finalist for the Clarence "Big House" Gaines National Men's Coach of the Year. Dolfo also was the Women's Basketball Coaches Association West Region and GNAC Coach of the Year, and Dominguez was the GNAC co-Coach of the Year.

Jim Schuster is director of VU Facilities.

Christopher Wise is a professor of English at Western Washington University.

Barbara Rogoff, the university of California - Santa Cruz Foundation Distinguished Professor of Psychology, will speak at Western Washington University April 16 and 17 about her ongoing research in a Guatemalan Mayan town.

The presentations are part of the Fairhaven College of Interdisciplinary Studies World Issues Forum.

At 4 p.m. Tuesday, April 16, Rogoff will present “Observing and pitching in: Learning in Indigenous communities of the Americas” in Academic Instructional Center West Room 204. In some communities, a prevalent form of learning is through keen observation of ongoing community events in which people collaborate when they are ready. This approach to learning seems to be especially common in Indigenous-heritage communities of the Americas, and less prevalent in communities that segregate children from the range of activities of their community. These ideas will be illustrated with research in Guatemalan Mayan, Mexican-heritage, and European-heritage U.S. communities.

From noon to 1:20 p.m. Wednesday, April 17, Rogoff will speak in the Fairhaven College Auditorium about changes and continuities across decades in children's and families' lives. The account centers on the life and work of a renowned Mayan midwife and her town. The presentation uses photos and film since 1941 to show the changes. Rogoff's presentation is based on her new book, "Developing Destinies: A Mayan Midwife and Town" (Oxford University Press).

Barbara Rogoff is a fellow of the National Academy of Education, Association for Psychological Sciences, American Anthropological Association, American Psychological Association, and American Educational Research Association. She has been fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Kellogg Fellow, Spencer Fellow, and Osher Fellow of the Exploratorium. She has served as editor of Human Development and committee member on the Science of Learning for the U.S. National Academy of Science. Recent books include "Learning Together: Children and Adults in a School Community" (Oxford, 2001), "The Cultural Nature of Human Development" (Oxford, 2003), and "Developing Destinies: A Mayan Midwife and Her Town" (Oxford, 2011).

Western's Environmental Health and Safety Office has released a new training video for building evacuations on campus. The video, available at YouTube or on the EHS emergency planning website, explains the role and duties of volunteer floor wardens and building coordinators.

These designated persons are assigned to every academic and administrative building on campus to help ensure safe evacuation during an emergency or drill. Floor wardens perform a sweep of their floor, making sure doors are closed, hazardous equipment turned off, and checking if anyone is left behind or remaining in an area of refuge. Building coordinators gather information from floor wardens once outside, and act as a centralized point of contact for responders on scene.

The designation of these voluntary positions is done annually in conjunction with updating of department and building emergency plans. All employees are encouraged to review general evacuation procedures and building/department assembly points for their buildings, as well as review which persons are assigned as floor wardens and building coordinators in your workspace.

For a quick understanding of what to do in emergencies, watch Western’s emergency preparedness video at emergency.wwu.edu.

For more information, please contact Western's Environmental Health and Safety Office at ehs@wwu.edu or 360-650-3064.

A handful of short documentaries created by Western Washington University journalism students winter quarter will be screened at 7 p.m. Thursday, April 11, in Communications Facility Room 110.

Admission is free, but seating is limited.

The mini-docs were created by students this past quarter for Stephen Howie's J370 visual storytelling course. The video above, by students Laura Going, Samantha Heim, and Lauren Stelling, is among the videos that will be shown at the event Thursday.

Holocaust survivor Noémi Ban, an award-winning public speaker and teacher, received Western Washington University’s honorary doctorate degree at winter commencement March 23 in Carver Gymnasium.

Ban also gave the commencement address, and graduating senior Wesley Ball of Maple Valley gave the student address.

Approximately 531 undergraduates and 32 master’s candidates received degrees.

Ban, who received an honorary doctorate of humane letters degree, was born in 1922 in Hungary, the eldest of three children. During World War II, Ban was deported to Auschwitz, where she lost almost everyone in her immediate and extended family to the horrors of the death camps. Soon after liberation, she married Earnest Ban, with whom she had two sons including Bellingham pediatrician Steven Ban. The family moved to the U.S. and Ban became an award-winning elementary school teacher and runner-up for Missouri’s 1981 Teacher of the Year.

Soon after retirement in 1989, Ban co-founded what is now Northwest Center for Holocaust, Genocide and Ethnocide Education, housed in Western’s Woodring College of Education. She is driven by a passionate belief that sharing is healing: Ban has shared her story of resilience, hope, healing and love with thousands of people in classrooms, community centers, religious congregations and lecture halls throughout the Pacific Northwest. Her many honors include an honorary doctorate from Gonzaga University in 2001, the 1997 Golden Apple Award, the 2003 Washington Education Association Human and Civil Rights Award, the 2004 Award for Excellence in Holocaust Education and the 2010 Daughters of the American Revolution Americanism Award.

Ball, the ceremony’s student commencement speaker, graduated with a degree in geology. While at Western, Ball played on DIRT, Western’s Men’s Ultimate Frisbee Team, and traveled with the Geology Department for field studies in summer 2012 in Montana and Idaho. Ball plans to go to graduate school to pursue a master’s or his doctorate while studying deep-sea sediments and micropaleontology. He has been accepted to Northern Arizona University for a master’s program and to University of Wisconsin at Madison for a doctorate program. Ball graduated from Tahoma High School, and came to Western in fall 2008.

A team of six Western Washington University students are semi-finalists in the Street Seats Design Challenge, an Industrial Design competition sponsored by Design Museum Boston.

The museum announced the semi-finalists on Feb. 28.

The team from Western included Tianyi Geng (Issaquah), Sarah Burley (Olympia), Tyler Dawson (Friday Harbor), Blake Morton (Bothell), Cale Kaufman (Camano Island) and Colton Sanford (Camano Island).

The Design Museum Boston invited individuals and teams from around the world to design an iconic bench, or “street seat,” which would be installed in South Boston’s Innovation District. The goal of the challenge is to improve the livability of the urban area by using design, while being socially and environmentally conscious.

The team is one of 20 semi-finalists from over 170 entries from 23 different countries. Those who participated sent in designs that are sustainable, outdoor sidewalk furniture with a focus on reuse.

“They worked exceptionally well as a team, handled criticism well, and moved the design proposal forward each week with new iterations and improvements,” said Arunas Oslapas, Western Washington University professor of Industrial Design, and the students’ advisor for the competition. “I am not surprised that they made it this far.”

The team will build a full-size model of their design, called “Cleat,” and send it to Boston using grants from the contest’s sponsors. All semi-finalists will have their work on display around Fort Point Channel in South Boston from April to October 2013. The top design team will receive a $5,000 prize and two runner-ups will receive $2,000 when the three winners are chosen in April. To see pictures of the semi-finalists’ projects and learn more about the competition, go to http://designmuseumboston.org/streetseats/.

"Now, the real work begins as they fabricate a full-scale prototype and deliver it to Boston for the public to test and evaluate. If they do this part well, I have no doubt that they can win the competition and have their design produced and installed along the river front in Boston," said Oslapas.

For more information, contact Arunas Oslapas at arunas.oslapas@wwu.edu.