Summer 2021
Talkback for Summer 2021
Letters from Washington State University alumni about Stevens Hall » More ...
Living Communities
Summer 2021
Memories of Stevens Hall
Its architecture is eclectic, a mix of New England Shingle, ornamental Queen Anne, and Colonial Revival styles with Pacific Northwest touches. Local basalt, clay from campus, and Puget Sound fir and red cedar were all used in its construction in 1895.
In those early years, Stevens Hall was not only an all-women’s residence hall but a social center for the students of Washington State. This is where they would come together—for dances and dinners, teas, readings, and receptions.
Today, Stevens Hall, placed on the National Register of Historic Places and steeped in tradition, remains women-only, and its residents tend to form close bonds, often … » More …
Summer 2020
Talkback for Summer 2020
A woman’s place
When I started my career at WSU in the fall of 1969, I knew I wanted to be a biologist. My all-girl high school had an excellent science program. I spent the summer of ’69 working at the WSU Extension Center in Puyallup raising house flies and counting bark beetles in entomology.
My assigned advisor was in the zoology department. Apparently, he was pretty famous. His first question to me was, “Are you going into this professionally, or do you plan to get married?” Although I was a pretty timid 18-year-old, I stared at him and … » More …
Spring 2020
A new page for an old chapter
The new chapter house for Sigma Chi is the first at Washington State University in a generation. » More ...
Spring 2019
TalkBack for Spring 2019
Letters from Washington State University alumni on Stephenson Hall reunions and campus changes for women in the 1960s » More ...
Winter 2018
Once upon a time in Stephenson South
In 1972, the tenth floor of the Stephenson South residence hall housed seven strangers. The stranger part didn’t last, as they soon became fast friends and poker buddies.
Today, those seven friends still meet and play cards, and have done so for the past 36 years.
“We just immediately bonded,” says Marc Anderson ’76.
Anderson was a sophomore when he lived in Stephenson while the rest of the group were freshmen. The friends hailed from all over Washington: Tonasket, Gig Harbor, Forks, Oak Harbor, and Seattle.
Most of the group still lives in the state while one is in Idaho and another in California. … » More …
Fall 2015
Gallery: Historic Stevens Hall
Stevens Hall at Washington State University has been home to women for 120 years.
Read more about this historic hall in “Tea Traditions.”
Spring 2015
After the war: Mud, floods, and modernization
After World War II, Bill Fitch left the Army, packed his duffel in Seattle and, with the U.S. government’s guarantee of free college tuition, headed to Pullman. When he and Al Smith, a fellow veteran and high school classmate, arrived at Washington State College, they found themselves on a campus crowded with thousands of GIs.
Spurred by unprecedented growth in student numbers from the “GI bulge” in the late 1940s, the small rural state college was becoming a modern higher education institution, and a decade later would bloom into a full-blown university. Wave after wave of student-veterans, a faculty newly empowered to govern itself, and … » More …
Fall 2015
Tea traditions
Taking tea in historic Stevens Hall for 120 years. » More ...