Videos
The Seattle Opera’s Young Artists Program will perform Donizetti’s “Viva la Mamma” at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 5, in the Western Washington University Performing Arts Center Concert Hall.
“Viva la Mamma,” a riotous farce about crazy backstage shenanigans at an opera company, features a harried impresario, a victimized composer, a hair-pulling duet, and a decidedly unusual pushy stage mother. This first-ever Seattle Opera production of this comedy showcases the lighter side of Gaetano Donizetti, one of Italian opera’s most prolific composers.
Now in its 13th year, the Young Artists Program trains promising singers for a career in opera, with a curriculum that includes public performances. “Viva la Mamma” will feature nine singers from the Young Artists Program: Lindsey Anderson, Erik Anstine, David Krohn, Eric Neuville, Amanda Opuszynski, Adrian Rosas, Daniel Scofield, Andrew Stenson, and Marcy Stonikas.
Tickets for the performance are $18 general; $14 for seniors, WWU faculty and staff; and $11 for students. Tickets are available through the WWU Box Office at (360) 650-6146 or online at http://www.tickets.wwu.edu.
WWU Box Office hours are Monday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and one hour prior to performances. For tickets or disability accommodations call (360) 650-6146.
The Bellingham performance of “Viva la Mamma” is sponsored by the WWU Opera Studio and the Van Horn Family.
For more details call the WWU Department of Music at (360) 650-3130 or visit the Seattle Opera website.
Close to 900 fifth-graders from Skagit and Whatcom counties visited Western Washington University today, Oct. 26, to see firsthand what a university campus is like.
The tour kicked off the second year of Compass 2 Campus, a proactive effort that sends trained WWU student mentors into schools in order to get more kids to see themselves as future college students.
U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen spoke at the day’s opening ceremonies. Also expected to attend are State Sen. Rosemary McAulliffe, state representatives Bob Hasegawa, Kelli Linville and Jeff Morris, Whatcom County Executive Pete Kremen and Bellingham Mayor Dan Pike.
Modeled after a successful program in Wisconsin, Compass 2 Campus aims to get more kids thinking early about college with the help of mentors and role models to show them the importance of higher education. The tour is just the beginning of a long-term relationship between the youngsters and WWU mentors. The students who toured the WWU campus last year as fifth-graders now work with Western student mentors in their sixth-grade classrooms. And they will continue to see WWU students as Compass 2 Campus grows each year, eventually serving thousands of students in the fifth- through 12th grades.
“The campus has really put its arms around this and said, ‘Yes, we’re doing it,’” said Cyndie Shepard, director of the program. More faculty and staff have opened their doors to the student visitors this year, providing twice as many opportunities for the fifth-graders to get a glimpse of what it’s like to be in college. “They’ve been creative in opening up their minds to what would interest a fifth-grader and get them interested in coming to college.”
Close to 900 fifth-graders from Skagit and Whatcom counties visited Western Washington University today, Oct. 26, to see firsthand what a university campus is like.
The tour kicked off the second year of Compass 2 Campus, a proactive effort that sends trained WWU student mentors into schools in order to get more kids to see themselves as future college students.
U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen spoke at the day’s opening ceremonies. Also expected to attend are State Sen. Rosemary McAulliffe, state representatives Bob Hasegawa, Kelli Linville and Jeff Morris, Whatcom County Executive Pete Kremen and Bellingham Mayor Dan Pike.
Modeled after a successful program in Wisconsin, Compass 2 Campus aims to get more kids thinking early about college with the help of mentors and role models to show them the importance of higher education. The tour is just the beginning of a long-term relationship between the youngsters and WWU mentors. The students who toured the WWU campus last year as fifth-graders now work with Western student mentors in their sixth-grade classrooms. And they will continue to see WWU students as Compass 2 Campus grows each year, eventually serving thousands of students in the fifth- through 12th grades.
“The campus has really put its arms around this and said, ‘Yes, we’re doing it,’” said Cyndie Shepard, director of the program. More faculty and staff have opened their doors to the student visitors this year, providing twice as many opportunities for the fifth-graders to get a glimpse of what it’s like to be in college. “They’ve been creative in opening up their minds to what would interest a fifth-grader and get them interested in coming to college.”
Close to 900 fifth-graders from Skagit and Whatcom counties visited Western Washington University today, Oct. 26, to see firsthand what a university campus is like.
The tour kicked off the second year of Compass 2 Campus, a proactive effort that sends trained WWU student mentors into schools in order to get more kids to see themselves as future college students.
U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen spoke at the day’s opening ceremonies. Also expected to attend are State Sen. Rosemary McAulliffe, state representatives Bob Hasegawa, Kelli Linville and Jeff Morris, Whatcom County Executive Pete Kremen and Bellingham Mayor Dan Pike.
Modeled after a successful program in Wisconsin, Compass 2 Campus aims to get more kids thinking early about college with the help of mentors and role models to show them the importance of higher education. The tour is just the beginning of a long-term relationship between the youngsters and WWU mentors. The students who toured the WWU campus last year as fifth-graders now work with Western student mentors in their sixth-grade classrooms. And they will continue to see WWU students as Compass 2 Campus grows each year, eventually serving thousands of students in the fifth- through 12th grades.
“The campus has really put its arms around this and said, ‘Yes, we’re doing it,’” said Cyndie Shepard, director of the program. More faculty and staff have opened their doors to the student visitors this year, providing twice as many opportunities for the fifth-graders to get a glimpse of what it’s like to be in college. “They’ve been creative in opening up their minds to what would interest a fifth-grader and get them interested in coming to college.”
Western Washington University plans to test its capability to quickly and effectively respond to an earthquake during a drill on Wednesday, Oct. 27, that also will involve a test of its emergency steam whistle and notification system known as Western Alert.
A number of Western employees and students will participate in the on-campus damage assessment exercise. Participants will simulate evaluation of damage to the WWU campus, and communication of WWU’s situation to the community’s emergency operations center. There will be radio traffic during the drill about fictitious building collapses and fictitious injuries.
The exercise will begin at 8:30 a.m. and will conclude before 11 a.m.
At 10:45 a.m., the “Big Ole” steam whistle will sound for several minutes and a test message will be sent out to students, faculty, and staff via campus e-mail and cell phone text messaging. Test messages will also be posted on the Western Washington University homepage and on the university's Emergency Information website. The steam whistle is a signal on campus to immediately look for emergency information via these ways.
A text message is one of the most reliable ways to quickly provide emergency information. Even if users do not regularly text on their cell phones, most phones are capable of receiving text information. Western students, faculty and staff who have not yet registered to receive Western Alerts via text message are asked to update their personal information via Web4U. Employees may also call the Human Resources Department at 650-3774 for assistance in signing up.
To date, 86 percent of WWU students, 57 percent of staff and 42 percent of faculty members have provided their cell phone numbers to Web4U to receive emergency text messages.
In the Oct. 27 exercise, Western students, faculty and staff also are being asked to consider the steam whistle a reminder of the opportunity to practice their drop, cover and hold earthquake preparations. For more information see the Washington State Preparedness website.
The steam whistle, affectionately known in Whatcom County as “Big Ole,” was cast from aluminum-bronze by the Bellingham Bay Iron Works in 1899. The 2,000-pound, five-foot whistle operated at the local lumber mill on the waterfront at the foot of Cornwall Avenue until 1942 when that mill closed. In May 2002 the whistle was recovered from the Bloedel, Stewart-Welch’s Division at Port Alberni, B.C. which operated it until 1997. The steam whistle was installed at the Encogen NW Cogeneration Plant at Cornwall Avenue, where it was operational and blown on several special occasions, such as the Fourth of July. Several years ago, Western worked in cooperation with the Whatcom Museum to relocate the steam whistle to the University’s Steam Plant.
The quarterly blood drive at Western Washington University will take place Tuesday through Thursday, Oct. 19 to 21, in Viking Union Room 565 on campus. Donors can drop by between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. For more information, contact Catharine Vader at (360) 650-7557 or catharine.vader@wwu.edu.
Five easy steps to blood donation:
- Eat a healthy meal & drink plenty of fluids at least four hours prior to donating.
- Complete a health history questionnaire & screening interview.
- Undergo a brief health check of blood pressure, pulse, temperature and iron level.
- Relax while one unit (about one pint) of blood is collected.
- Enjoy refreshments while remaining seated for about 10 minutes.
Bellingham police identified a body found on the Bellingham waterfront as that of missing Western Washington University student Dwight Clark. Hundreds of WWU and Bellingham community members gathered Oct. 6 on Red Square to remember Dwight and to grieve together.
For those unable to attend the gathering, portions of the thoughts given by WWU President Bruce Shepard and Associated Student President Colin Watrin are presented in this video.
The Western Libraries at Western Washington University is offering a varied and fascinating selection of 1960s films from Bellingham-based KVOS TV online via the libraries’ Digital Collections.
Films include footage of Western’s campus; a feature on “Girls, Glitter and Gracie” at the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair; dramatic footage of the aftermath of the 1964 Alaska earthquake; a 1962 rally about nuclear weapons titled “If the Bomb Survives, Can We?”; a 1965 protest in Bellingham against the Vietnam War, and interviews with educators, politicians and Civil Rights leaders and activists, including James Farmer, Dick Gregory and Julian Bond (with Bond interviewed in 1967 while sitting on the Old Main lawn at Western).
The selection of 1960s films is now available online at Western Libraries and on the WWU YouTube site. Click on the URL image and then “Access this item” on the next frame. A complete list of more than 70 KVOS Channel 12 films archived and accessible at the Center for Pacific Northwest Studies also is available online.
The selections are from a collection of reel-to-reel films of KVOS television programs filmed and broadcast between 1961 and 1967. The collection includes copies of the Webster Reports (a monthly program focusing on human interest stories featuring Vancouver, B.C. newsman, Jack Webster) and Channel 12 Specials, which include interviews and documentaries about significant events and issues in Washington State and British Columbia during the 1960s.
Many of the Channel 12 Specials programs were broadcast live and were produced by Al Swift, former U.S. Congressman and former news director of KVOS TV, where his series of weekly public interest programs and documentaries earned Swift an Emmy from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (Swift’s Congressional papers are also archived at the Center for Pacific Northwest Studies).
The film collection is housed at the Center for Pacific Northwest Studies at Western. For more information, please contact the Center at (360) 650-7747 or e-mail: cpnws@wwu.edu For more information about collections at the Center for Pacific Northwest Studies, please visit here.
Last week, the Vertically Integrated Partnership (including Sodexo, Annie's Fun, and Hirai Farms) donated 8,000 pounds of potatoes to the Bellingham Food Bank, and more than 50 volunteers -- including Western Washington University students and folks from Sodexo and WWU Dining Services -- were on hand to help unload the tubers.
Making remarks to the crowd of volunteers and others who attended the event were Mike Cohen, executive director of the Bellingham Food Bank; Ira Simon, Sodexo resident district manager at WWU Dining Services, Blaine Hirai, owner of Hirai Farms, chair of Annie's Fun and co-chair of the Vertically Integrated Partnership; and Rep. Doug Ericksen, from the 42nd Legislative District in Bellingham.
The Vertically Integrated Partnership is a coalition of farmers, food processors, food distributors and food service companies, co-chaired by Sodexo and Annie's Fun/Hirai Farms, that are working together to help stop hunger in the Pacific Northwest. Since 2008, the partnership has donated more than 2 million pounds of food (potatoes, sweet corn, onions, beans, canned foods, etc.) to many food banks in the Pacific Northwest, including Northwest Harvest, Second Harvest, Food Lifeline, White Center Food Bank, Quincy Community Food Bank and Wenatchee Food Bank. The partnership hopes to donate another 2 million pounds of food in the next 12 to 16 months.
"This generous donation by the Vertically Integrated Partnership, Sodexo, Annie's Fun and Hirai Farms will greatly benefit Whatcom County," said Max Morange, agricultural programs coordinator of the Bellingham Food Bank. "The Bellingham Food Bank will be immediately distributing the potatoes to soup kitchens and emergency food providers across the county. Having such a large donation really makes it possible for us to distribute much-needed food to every corner of our community."
The Vehicle Research Institute (VRI) team from Western Washington University that just completed a dramatic run all the way to the last days of competition in the finals of the $10 Million Progressive Automotive X-Prize will arrive back in Bellingham this week in time for a celebration event at noon on Thursday, Aug. 5, at the PAC Plaza on the WWU campus.
The event, which is free and open to the public, will provide an opportunity for well-wishers to congratulate the team; meet team members; discuss and see the team’s car, Viking 45; and hear about lessons learned from the rigorous competition and how the construction of Viking 45 could influence the direction of the VRI in the coming years.
“We are very proud of what the X-Prize team has accomplished. It is another really great example of the excellence we have among our students at Western and their ability to compete at the very highest levels,” said Arlan Norman, dean of WWU’s College of Sciences and Technology.
The Viking 45 team advanced to the second-to-last day of trials and events at the Automotive X-Prize competition – a quest to design and build a 100-mpg automobile that could be easily mas manufactured – making it further into the events than any other university worldwide. More than 140 teams started the competition and Viking 45 made it through test after test, from range tests to safety trials to technical inspections – until there were less than a dozen teams left, before finally being eliminated.
"We need to hold our heads high, because this has been a great achievement to get this far in the contest," VRI Director Eric Leonhardt said after the competition. "From a student's and an educator's perspective, I can't imagine any other way to bring these lessons home to these students – technical lessons, interpersonal skills, time management, leadership, these are all things that we learned here. We've shown that Western Washington University can compete at this level."
There will be no charge for parking on campus during the event.
For more information on the welcome-back event for the VRI’s Viking 45 team, contact the WWU Office of University Communications at (360) 650-3350.