Winter 2023
Remembering David H. Stratton, 1927–2023
The popular Washington State University history professor made a profound difference. » More ...
Faculty
Summer 2023
Weaving a tradition: The architect behind the President’s House
Visions of the past still resonate from what former President Enoch Bryan, writing in his memoir, remembered as “that beautiful corner of campus.” Work on a new home for the Washington State College president began there in 1912.
Sprawled across a grassy knoll, its elaborate garden-side façade remains visible behind thick foliage. More than a century since its completion, the newly re-dedicated Ida Lou Anderson House remains the premier representative of a transformational moment in the planning and design of the college grounds.
Designed by architect Rudolph Weaver, the new house for the college president offered a distinct example of the Georgian Revival: a … » More …
Spring 2020
Infographic: WSU by the #s
Click on image to view in PDF format
Spring 2020
Mao’s Kisses: A novel of June 4, 1989
Alex Kuo
Redbat Books, 2019
Deng Xiaoping learned to play bridge in the early 1950s. Little did he realize that appropriating state transportation to take him and his team to tournaments would result in the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and his being transported far from Beijing for reeducation through manual labor.
But Deng wasn’t just a Goren Prize-winning bridge player. He was, after his rehabilitation, China’s paramount leader during a time of civil crisis. The spring of 1989 brought … » More …
Fall 2018
Being best
A 9-year-old slave girl fanned her young mistress to keep the flies off her while she learned her lessons. Because she picked up enough education to be able to read and write a little, she ended up teaching other slaves and ex-slaves.
Her daughter became a schoolteacher, married to a Presbyterian minister in segregated Columbus, Ohio. The couple passed on the family mantras to their children: “You must get an education to get ahead” and “you must be a credit to our race.”
Their children, the second generation born free, took the advice to heart, attending college and becoming teachers and professionals. One of them, … » More …
Fall 2018
James F. Short Jr. 1924-2018
I am privileged to have known Jim Short and to have worked with and learned from him. When we met in 2000, Jim (’51 PhD, University of Chicago) recently had become professor emeritus of sociology at Washington State University and was beginning to “unwind” after an illustrious career spanning half a century. I was a graduate student in my second year of the doctoral program and had just learned that my first mentor would be departing WSU for what were very understandable personal reasons. I am forever indebted to him for walking me three doors down the hall to introduce me to Jim.
… » More …
Summer 2018
Nella Ludlow comes home
Nella Ludlow knew who she really was from an early age. “As I got older, I thought, I just can’t do this anymore,” she says. So she came out as a transgender woman.
After earning a degree in math and physical sciences at Washington State University, the 1982 graduate joined the Air Force. There she trained as a fighter pilot, worked in military intelligence, and earned a doctorate in artificial intelligence from the University of Edinburgh, and did post-doctoral studies at Cambridge University.
She retired at the end of the Cold War and entered the business world at the height of the dot com … » More …
Summer 2018
Fly on the Wall
Podcasts by Squeak Meisel
If you can’t come to the artist, the artist will come to you, thanks to a series of podcasts produced by Washington State University Fine Arts department chair Squeak Meisel.
Called Fly on the Wall, the artists interviewed on Meisel’s podcast have shown their work at some of the biggest venues in the world, such as the Venice Biennial. They come to the Pullman campus, teach for a few days, work one-on-one with undergraduate and graduate students, and give a public lecture.
But Meisel realizes that not everyone has time or ability to … » More …
Spring 2016
Successful startups from WSU
Launching startup companies like M3 is one key way that public research universities contribute to economic development. In addition to introducing a product or service to the market that solves global challenges or meets consumer needs, these companies create new jobs. Graduate students in the lab of entrepreneurial professors are also often heavily involved in startups, giving them business and leadership experience that expands their job opportunities. WSU’s Office of Commercialization works with researchers to navigate through every part of the startup process, from initially disclosing information about the invention, to securing patents, to developing a business plan and finding funding.
A sample … » More …
Fall 2012
Unfiltered history
Tom Brigham, the executive secretary of WSU’s Emeritus Society, stopped by the magazine office some time ago with a box full of interview transcripts, the results of one of the society’s major projects. Had I known how absorbing and distracting the contents would be, I might have been more hesitant to accept delivery.
Seriously, the oral histories contained in the box provide absorbing recollections of WSU history from the early 1950s on. At their best, the interviews combine engrossing storytelling and striking insight. Conducted and transcribed by history graduate student, now instructor, Katy Fry ’06, ’11, the histories provide unfiltered memories of WSU through five … » More …