Hannelore Sudermann

Winter 2008

On the waterfront

Tacoma's past may be a key to its future :: Twenty years ago, the City Club of Tacoma approached the city with a plan to unify the waterfront and build a walking path from the Tacoma Dome to Point Defiance. The painstakingly researched report urged that the entire waterfront be redesigned as a people place. Lara Hermann '95 was thrilled when a city hall worker handed her the document. "It was like a present just lands in your lap," she says. » More ...

Summer 2006

Foreign stories

Crista Ames and Junko Matsumura are both bright, friendly, and soft-spoken. They are just a few months apart in age. And both want to go out and see the world.

It was these common interests that brought the student from Kennewick and the student from Osaka together at McCroskey Hall last winter. They’re roommates in a program that pairs international students with American counterparts to foster greater understanding between cultures. The residence hall, a former women’s dormitory that was remodeled in 2001, is home to close to 70 students, half of whom hail from places like Japan, France, Wales, China, and Bahrain. In all, WSU … » More …

Spring 2008

What I've learned since college: An interview with Johnnetta B. Cole-anthropologist, author, activist

Johnnetta B. Cole launched her career as an educator and activist at Washington State University in 1964. While in Pullman, she taught anthropology, helped found the Black Studies Program, and served as the program’s first director. In 1970 she was named Outstanding Faculty Member of the Year. After leaving Pullman, she held a number of teaching and administrative positions at several East Coast schools. In 1987 she became the first African American woman to be president of Spelman College, the country’s oldest college for African American women. In 1992 Cole landed in the national spotlight as a cluster coordinator on President-Elect Bill Clinton’s transition team … » More …

Spring 2008

A taste of history

Methow Valley, best known for its miles of Nordic skiing and other outdoor recreation, has developed a new note, one that lands it in Seattle’s culinary scene. The rare heritage grains from Sam and Brooke Lucy’s Bluebird Grain farms have found their way onto the menus of some of the city’s eateries.

Two histories intertwine in this story—the history of farming in a secluded mountain valley, and that of a cereal that once fed both kings and common Roman soldiers.

The grain, called farro, or emmer, is a primitive wheat that retains its outer hull. One of the first cereals to be domesticated in the … » More …

Spring 2008

Bernard Lagat comes home

On his first morning back in Pullman, world track and field champion Bernard Lagat ’01 pulled on his running shoes and said a quick goodbye to his wife, Gladys Tom ’00, and son, Miika.

It was 8 a.m. and about 19 degrees outside. But the morning was clear, and there was plenty of Johnson Road to share with the 17-member Washington State University cross country team.

After years of training in Arizona, Kenya, and, more recently, racing in Athens and Osaka, returning to his old jogging route was like visiting an old friend, says Lagat, who came to WSU in December to be publicly honored … » More …

Spring 2008

Ode to a tea set

A HANDCRAFTED STERLING SILVER TEA SET, its long rectangular surfaces modern in design, gleams from its perch on a bookshelf in an apartment high above Seattle, the home of the man who designed it.

The simple geometry of the set’s four serving pieces and tray belies the years of effort that went into its creation.

The same is true of another of architect Phillip Jacobson’s projects— much larger in scale than the tea set—the emerald-hued, glass-encased Washington State Convention and Trade Center just a few blocks east of the apartment.

The retired director of design at TRA Architecture and Engineering in Seattle, Jacobson has had … » More …

Spring 2008

Closing minds: How layoffs can be bad for business

One of the best ways to kill a worker’s creativity is to tell him his job is on the line.

Tahira Probst, an associate professor of psychology at Washington State University Vancouver, has explored that notion through a combination of laboratory experiments and field studies at businesses and schools in western Washington. She was able to prove that workers who believed their jobs were in jeopardy lacked cognitive flexibility.

Her study on job loss was published in the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology in 2007.

Workers whose jobs are in danger are less healthy and happy. That’s been common knowledge for years, says Probst. … » More …

Spring 2008

A school in the woods

Many of the children who visit IslandWood have never been to the woods. Some are afraid to try new things, to walk in the woods at night, to touch a slug or pull apart a wild mushroom. Now, they're as much a part of the place as the wildlife. » More ...

Summer 2006

The making of mountaineers

Danielle Fisher gave herself five years to become the youngest person to climb the highest mountain on every continent. The Washington State University student did it in two, joining the ranks in 2005 of an elite fellowship of climbers who got their start on Washington's peaks. » More ...