Winter 2022
Blue ribbon fairs in the Evergreen State
This year Washington’s state fairs were back in the swing. » More ...
Community Engagement
Fall 2022
In fine voice
Celebrating a century of Northwest broadcasting and the Murrow legacy at Washington State University » More ...
Spring 2022
Gallery: Looking back to Afghanistan
Washington State University has worked in Afghanistan for decades, helping Afghani people with agricultural outreach, English education, and developing communities.
Chris Pannkuk, former director of International Research and Development at WSU, shared some of his photos from work in Afghanistan between 2002 and 2017.
Photos courtesy Chris Pannkuk
Read more about the legacy in Afghanistan.
Fall 2020
How you can help during the COVID-19 pandemic
It’s a familiar promise around WSU: Cougs help Cougs.
There a number of ways to fulfill that promise during the COVID-19 pandemic, from supporting students to giving your time. And we can expand that generosity to our communities, as well. Below are a few suggestions of places and ways you might be able to help out.
Supporting students
Each WSU campus has a Student Emergency Fund to help students struggling during this crisis.
The pandemic is taking an economic toll as well, so you may want to support scholarships.
Food security
Fall 2020
Gardens of refuge
Growing vegetables and other plants offer refuge from stress while helping promote mental and physical well-being. » More ...
Summer 2020
To dream the impossible dream
In an unstable economy, Washington residents struggle to find affordable housing. » More ...
Winter 2018
Food security at WSU
Food maps, resources at Washington State University, and how you can help people get enough food
Students and others around the state increasingly face difficulty getting enough nutritious food for themselves and their families (read more in “Hungry”). Below are food maps of the Palouse (detailing farmers markets, food banks, community gardens, and other resources), resources on WSU campuses, and ways you can help.
Food maps
The Taste of Home: Local Food in the Palouse-Clearwater Region (University of Idaho resource)
Map the Meal Gap (Feeding America)
Food Atlas for the Puget Sound Region
… » More …
Spring 2017
Waste not
Someone forgot about the fruit salad. When the refrigerator door opens, the sickly sweet aroma delivers a potent reminder. All the rotting apples, pears, and bananas in the bowl will need to be thrown out, and hopefully composted. It may seem insignificant, but that fruit salad represents a piece of the 40 percent of food wasted in the United States, about 20 pounds per person each month.
In recent years, food waste in this country and many other places around the world has grown not only in volume, but also in the collective consciousness. The numbers are staggering. Americans throw away an estimated $165 billion … » More …
Winter 2016
Call it the Urban Extension
The massive Oso landslide killed 43 people, caused extensive flooding, and destroyed a key highway north of Everett in 2014, pushing the communities of Arlington and Darrington to their breaking point.
For months, grieving residents and community leaders remained so immersed in the search and recovery demands that nearly everything else had to be put on hold. That’s why, when they were invited to participate in a national competition that could funnel up to $3 million or more toward desperately needed economic revitalization efforts, Arlington Mayor Barb Tolbert was practically on the verge of tears, again.
“It was this rare opportunity but we had no … » More …
Fall 2016
Kids solving the unsolvable
Imagine Tomorrow
Flushing the toilet stirred up a good idea in four young women from Walla Walla High School. They recognized that families use hundreds of gallons of water per day, a real problem in places faced with water shortages. To ease that, Karen Maldonado, Edlyn Carvajal, Sandra Escobedo de la Cruz, and Ruth Garcia developed a trapping system using an inexpensive charcoal filter to recycle wastewater back to the toilet tank.
The Walla Walla teens took their plan to the Alaska Airlines Imagine Tomorrow competition, an annual problem-solving challenge at Washington State University that encourages high school students to propose and present ideas … » More …