Videos

Chris Linder of International League of Conservation Photographers and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution will present "Science on Ice: Adélie Penguins" as part of Western Washington University’s Huxley College of the Environment Speaker Series at noon on Friday, Jan. 6, in Academic Instructional Center West Room 304 on the Western campus.

The presentation is free and open to the public.

"Polar exploration is at once the cleanest and most isolated way of having a bad time which has been devised," wrote Apsley Cherry-Garrard of his time with the 1910 Scott expedition to the South Pole. That is how most of us still imagine polar expeditions: stolid men with ice riming their beards, risking death for scientific knowledge. But polar science has evolved over the past century. Using images from his recent book "Science on Ice: Four Polar Expeditions," Linder will explore how Adélie penguins, and the researchers who study them, survive and thrive at Cape Royds and Cape Crozier, the southernmost penguin colonies in the world.

Linder communicates science in the field from the Congo to Siberia using photography and multimedia. After earning a master's degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program in oceanography, he spent three years in Spain working as a US Navy meteorology officer and cultivating his photography skills. He then returned to Woods Hole, where his passions for science and photography came together. Since 2002, he has photographed two dozen science expeditions, including 14 to the polar regions.

His images have appeared in museums, books, and magazines, including Geo, Nature's Best, Outdoor Photographer, and Wired. His exhibit titled "Exploring the Arctic Seafloor" debuted at the Field Museum and traveled to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and the MIT Museum. He is a member of the International League of Conservation Photographers, and lives in Seattle with his wife and two children.

Anyone interested in this topic is encouraged to come and participate; the presentation will include a question-and-answer period. The speaker series is held by Western's Huxley College of the Environment to bring together the environmentally minded community and other interested members of the WWU and Bellingham communities. Speakers address topics of contemporary environmental concern in the region and the world.

For more information, please contact the main office of Huxley College of the Environment, at (360) 650-3520.

Western’s Huxley College of the Environment is one of the oldest environmental colleges in the nation and a recognized national leader in producing the next generation of environmental stewards. The College’s academic programs reflect a broad view of the physical, biological, social and cultural world. This innovative and interdisciplinary approach makes Huxley unique. The College has earned international recognition for the quality of its programs.

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Jane Lubchenco, chief administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and a celebrated marine scientist, received Western Washington University’s first honorary doctorate degree at fall commencement Dec. 10 in Carver Gymnasium.

Entrepreneur Chase Franklin (’86) gave the commencement address, and graduating senior Lauren Squires gave the student commencement address.

Approximately 600 undergraduates and about 40 master’s candidates received degrees this quarter.
The ceremony included the presentation of an honorary Doctor of Science degree to Jane Lubchenco, who has been the chief administrator of NOAA since 2009. Lubchenco is also a widely respected environmental scientist and marine ecologist who was named “2010 Newsmaker of the Year” by the scientific journal “Nature.” Earlier this year, Western was given authority by the Washington State Legislature to grant honorary doctoral degrees in recognition of outstanding achievement in arts, letters, sciences, or the professions, or for service in education, government or humanitarian endeavors. Lubchenco’s accomplishments as a scientist, her advocacy for improved dialogue between scientists and the public, and her leadership on environmental policy at the national level qualify her for the honor on multiple levels.

The ceremony’s main speaker, Chase Franklin, has been a successful entrepreneur, executive and innovator for 25 years. He co-founded and led a technology startup company through the boom-and-bust cycles of the 90s and early 2000s until it was acquired in 2006 for $275 million. Franklin also advises other entrepreneurs and is on the verge of launching another company of his own. Franklin and his wife, Teri, endowed the College of Business and Economics’ Allette and Cayden Franklin Excellence in Teaching Award, named for the Franklins’ two children.

Lauren Squires, the ceremony’s student commencement speaker, graduated with a degree in Urban Planning and a minor in Sustainable Design. She is “passionate about creating places that enable people to live well.” She served as an advocate for sustainability issues while at Western, serving as Associated Students Director of Environmental and Sustainability Programs and working in Western’s Office of Sustainability. The daughter of Alan and Valaree Squires, Lauren Squires grew up in Longview and is a graduate of Mark Morris High School and Lower Columbia College.

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The 2011 fall commencement ceremony’s main speaker, Chase Franklin, has been a successful entrepreneur, executive and innovator for 25 years. He co-founded and led a technology startup company through the boom-and-bust cycles of the 90s and early 2000s until it was acquired in 2006 for $275 million. Franklin also advises other entrepreneurs and is on the verge of launching another company of his own. Franklin and his wife, Teri, endowed the College of Business and Economics’ Allette and Cayden Franklin Excellence in Teaching Award, named for the Franklins’ two children.

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Lauren Squires, the ceremony’s student commencement speaker, graduated with a degree in Urban Planning and a minor in Sustainable Design. She is “passionate about creating places that enable people to live well.” She served as an advocate for sustainability issues while at Western, serving as Associated Students Director of Environmental and Sustainability Programs and working in Western’s Office of Sustainability. The daughter of Alan and Valaree Squires, Lauren Squires grew up in Longview and is a graduate of Mark Morris High School and Lower Columbia College.

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Jane Lubchenco, chief administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and a celebrated marine scientist, received Western Washington University’s first honorary doctorate degree at fall Commencement Saturday, Dec. 10.

Earlier this year, Western was given authority by the Washington State Legislature to grant honorary doctoral degrees in recognition of outstanding achievement in arts, letters, sciences, or the professions, or for service in education, government or humanitarian endeavors. Lubchenco’s accomplishments as a scientist, her advocacy for improved dialogue between scientists and the public, and her leadership on environmental policy at the national level qualify her for the honor on multiple levels.

Lubchenco has been the chief administrator of NOAA since 2009, making her the first marine ecologist and the first woman to hold the top post at NOAA . She is a widely respected environmental scientist and marine ecologist who was named “2010 Newsmaker of the Year” by the scientific journal “Nature.” A member of the National Academy of Sciences, Lubchenco’s academic contributions to the study of oceans, climate change and the interactions between the environment and humans have made her one of the most highly-cited ecologists in the world.

Lubchenco was a guiding force in responding to the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2009. She is also a tireless advocate for a comprehensive national response to the environmental challenges of rising seas, declining fish stocks, and the increasingly precarious health of marine ecoystems and coastal communities.

A firm believer that scientific knowledge must be shared with the broader community, Lubchenco co-founded three organizations, The Leopold Leadership Program, the Communication Partnership for Science and the Sea (COMPASS) and Climate Central, whose goal is to communicate scientific knowledge to the public, policy makers, media and industry.

Lubchenco grew up in Colorado and received her undergraduate degree from Colorado College. After earning a Master of Science from the University of Washington, Lubchenco received her Ph.D. and taught at Harvard University. From 1977 until her appointment as NOAA administrator, Lubchenco was a distinguished professor of marine biology and zoology at Oregon State University.

Pamela Whalley, director of the Center for Economic and Financial Education at Western Washington University, presented “Nice People Don’t Talk About it” on Nov. 16 as part of WWU’s Turning Points Faculty Speaker Series, which celebrates and shares the wealth of knowledge and talent on Western’s campus.

Whalley asked the audience to consider the following:

  • Only 70 percent of children who start ninth grade graduate four years later;
  • Financial difficulties are the number one reason students don’t attend or drop out of college;
  • Financial incompatibility and mismanagement are listed as the number one cause of divorce;
  • Poor financial choices played a role in causing the Great Recession.

Whalley discussed ways to begin the conversation about money in schools and at home so our children will be prepared for the financial world which awaits them. The reality is that our children aren’t failing personal finance – we are failing to provide them with this vital life skill.

Jill Heckathorn, a senior instructor in Physical Education, Health and Recreation at Western Washington University, has been honored for her work with Camp TEAM, a summer camp she created almost a decade ago for community members with disabilities.

The 2011 Peace Builder Award in education was bestowed by the Whatcom Dispute Resolution Center Friday night at the center's annual gala in Bellingham.

At Camp TEAM, 70 Western students from Heckathorn's Adaptive Recreation and the Development of Inclusive Communities class work with 70 community members together each year. At the three-day, two-night camp, which takes place at Camp Kirby on Samish Island, the students and community members play, eat, sleep and work together. Each student is assigned a leadership role and is required to develop and lead one small or large group activity. According to a nomination letter written by Keith Russell, an associate professor in PEHR, and his wife, Sheri, a mediator with the Whatcom Dispute Resolution Center, students in the class learn social and medical models of disabilities, models and principles of inclusion, activity adaptation and group leadership.

"Perhaps most significant, through Camp TEAM, Jill provides her students with the opportunity for authentic shared participation in activities with persons who have disabilities, and the opportunity for reflection on their experience," the Russells write. "Like branches of a tree growing, dividing and reaching further, the students' messages, increasing exponentially each year, lead to more and more communities with greater understanding and acceptance of persons with developmental disabilities. In turn, research has consistently shown this understanding and acceptance significantly reduces conflict and negative attitudes toward this vulnerable population."

Camp TEAM (Together, Everyone Achieves More) is a multi-agency effort with the coordinating committee consisting of members from Western Washington University Recreation Program, Skagit County and Bellingham Parks and Recreation, which is also a co-sponsor.

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Robert Sabie, a recent graduate of Western Washington University’s Huxley College of the Environment, recently won runner-up in the student category of the Environmental Protection Agency’s “Apps for the Environment Challenge.”

This national contest challenged app developers to create new ways to display and use environmental information.

Sabie, a native of LaPorte, Ind. who graduated last summer with a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Studies, submitted his interactive web mapping application, “Environmental Justice Participatory Mapping,” as part of a senior project collaboration with the environmental group The Forgotten People, located in the Navajo Nation. Sabie developed an online interactive map showing the proximity of abandoned uranium mines to drinking wells near Cameron and Tuba City, Ariz. Using 2007 EPA geospatial data, this online web map provides a new mapping resource for Navajo residents.

Western Associate Professor of Environmental Studies Troy Abel, who was Sabie’s senior project adviser, said, “Bob’s work on his senior project represents some of the finest applied environmental problem-solving I’ve seen. He has given our environmental studies field and the EPA an innovative demonstration of how participatory mapping web applications can empower communities struggling with environmental injustice.”

Sabie said the project opened to his eyes to the cost of the extraction of these minerals.

“The last week of the spring quarter, Professor Abel and I made a trip to the Navajo Nation to meet several of the families that were affected by uranium mining and lack of safe drinking water. The trip was humbling. The Navajo people have unequivocally shouldered the social cost of coal mining, uranium mining and nuclear testing,” he said.

“After returning to Bellingham, I spent the rest of the summer in the Spatial Analysis Lab working with GIS data available through the EPA and data that was collected by the Forgotten People. A few weeks after graduating, I moved to Seattle, and Professor Abel contacted me to inform me of the Apps for the Environment Challenge that the EPA was putting on.”

In addition to simple viewing and downloading of data, Sabie’s project is also able to provide online editing and geoprocessing functionality as well as tools for uploading of new data from web users. Therefore, Navajo residents will be able to add relevant spatial information to the online map in the future, such as drinking-water sources or abandoned, undocumented uranium mines.

“When I found out that I had come in runner-up I was very surprised. While I was in Washington, D.C. to accept the award, I reflected on the big contrast of where I had been in June – from sleeping on two sheep skins in a one-room home in Tuba City, Ariz., to being at the EPA conference podium presenting a speech on environmental justice and participatory mapping,” he said. “Although I felt honored by being chosen as a winner, the biggest sense of accomplishment came from knowing that the dialogue of environmental injustice on the Navajo Nation is still being addressed and that the citizens indeed, are not 'forgotten people.'”

Sabie’s project was made possible by support from the Forgotten Navajo People and Huxley’s Institute for Spatial Information and Analysis’ GIS Specialist Stefan Freelan.

For more information, contact Troy Abel at (360) 650-6133 or troy.abel@wwu.edu.

Western’s Huxley College of the Environment is one of the oldest environmental colleges in the nation and a recognized national leader in producing the next generation of environmental stewards. The College’s academic programs reflect a broad view of the physical, biological, social and cultural world. This innovative and interdisciplinary approach makes Huxley unique. The College has earned international recognition for the quality of its programs.

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Dan First Scout Rowe, a Nakota Indian enrolled on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in Montana and a Marine Corps veteran who served on a combat tour during the American war in Vietnam, was among the speakers at the annual Veterans Day ceremony held Nov. 10 on the Western Washington University campus.

In addition to Rowe, who is an instructor in Western's Fairhaven College if Interdisciplinary Studies, speakers were Western President Bruce Shepard; Janelle Marshall, a Western student and an enlisted U.S. Air Force Reservist; and Casi Myers, a Western student and a U.S. Navy Veteran.

In his remarks, Shepard mentioned that there are 139 student veterans on campus and 117 veterans in the WWU workforce. Shepard also noted that last year, for the second year in a row, "GI Jobs" magazine named Western a "military friendly school," putting it in the top 15 percent of higher education nationwide. He also noted that Western was selected by the U.S. Veterans Affairs office as a 2011-2012 Yellow Ribbon school for helping to support the financial needs of select out-of-state veterans.

The ceremony was sponsored by the Veterans Outreach Center, and the post-ceremony reception was sponsored by the President’s Office, the office of the Vice President of Enrollment and Student Services and Veterans Outreach Center.

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Western Washington University students took part in live coverage of election night in Whatcom County on Nov. 8, 2011. The Election Night Live broadcast contained up-to-date news and information about the general election; viewers saw live election coverage from multiple locations around the county as well as analysis and commentary by former Bellingham Herald reporter Sam Taylor, who interviewed a series of local guests.

The show was a collaborative effort of Western Washington University New Media Production Internship Program, the Whatcom Community College Media Production Internship Program, the Northwest Community College Initiative and dozens of community volunteers. All of this was coordinated by the Center for New Media, is a 501(c)3 focused on creating vibrant local programming and telling local and regional stories, according to a recent press release from the center.