Carla Nellis ’90
Green Beanie Books, 2012
Young future Cougars and current fans of the University will enjoy this volume of WSU facts, stories, and profiles put together in an alphabetical “A is for…” format and illustrated with full-page watercolors. Nellis, a 1990 communications graduate, dug through WSU’s history to tell the tales of “F for Ferdinand’s,” “G for Go Cougs!,” “N for Neva Abelson,” and so on. The book covers a lot of ground … » More …
“You sunk my battleship!”
A familiar cry from the popular board game, but why is it ringing across Gibb Pool at Washington State University?
Because it is one of the latest offerings in WSU’s long-established and popular intramural sports program, joining perennial favorites flag football, basketball, soccer, and softball.
Battleship—the Gibb Pool version—has teams of four in canoes with buckets and shields. Their goal is simple: To fill their opponents’ canoes with water until they sink, while blocking water from filling their own canoe.
Matt Shaw ’06 MEd, assistant director of competitive programs and youth sports at University Recreation, says the battleship game started … » More …
When he learned about a job training police in the Pacific islands of Micronesia in 1978, former Los Angeles police officer Bryan Vila seized the opportunity to work in paradise. Little did he know that the hard lessons of teaching police officers from 2,000 different islands over six years would make him an expert on training in other cultures.
Vila, now a Washington State University professor of criminal justice and criminology at the Spokane campus, had been a Marine in Vietnam as well as a member of the sheriff’s department in Los Angeles, when he landed with a bang on an unpaved runway in Saipan.
… » More …
In 2008, when Asif Chaudhry became U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Moldova, the small Eastern European country wedged between Romania and Ukraine was in flux. As it moved from Communist rule to a free market, pro-Western government, the country was seeking a stronger relationship with the United States.
Chaudhry ’88 PhD knew the new Moldovan government faced economic problems as well as social issues with human trafficking. He also recognized Moldova’s importance as a former Soviet state and an economic partner with the European Union.
“The biggest challenge that we faced was a country that previously was not as strong in terms of the … » More …
The idea of having control of his view of a sporting event struck Sankar “Jay” Jayaram in 2009 while he was watching a Seahawks game on TV and wishing he was in the stands.
“I had never been to a Seahawks game and I wished I could put on a 3D headset and be in the stadium,” says the Washington State University mechanical engineering and computer science professor.
Fortunately Jayaram, an expert in virtual reality modeling, had been working for several years on an immersive 3D experience for use on exercise machines. His startup firm 3D-4U Solutions holds patents on the technology which creates 180- or … » More …
The crowd at Beasley Coliseum calls out, “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie! Oy, Oy, Oy!” for the Australian basketball players on the court, but one key to the Down Under connection sits on the sidelines.
Assistant WSU coach Ben Johnson played professionally and coached in Australia for six years, and has been instrumental in bringing standout players Aron Baynes and Brock Motum from there, as well as up-and-coming players Dexter Kernich-Drew and James Hunter.
Johnson, who has been at Washington State for nine seasons, says, “Through that time, I was able to build some good networks and contacts over there in Australia. And … » More …
When a public policy issue, say climate change or health care reform, becomes politicized, people with strong partisan leanings sometimes have a hard time dealing with facts.
Douglas Blanks Hindman, an associate professor in the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University, researches this effect, which he labels the “belief gap” between knowable and testable claims and partisan perception of those claims.
Communication researchers have long had a theory about a knowledge gap, which says the mass media does not distribute information about science and public affairs equally, and over time the difference between what highly educated and less educated people actually … » More …
Dan Bar-El, illustrated by David Huyck
Kids Can Press, 2012
Strange things can happen on a Halloween night, as the young protagonists find out in the three stories of this illustrated book. Populated by sea monsters in the bathtub, witches, vampires, and pranks, author Dan Bar-El’s funny and, of course, scary tales get an excellent graphic treatment by David Huyck, an instructor at Washington State University and Moscow, Idaho-based artist.
With stories titled “Broom with … » More …
Grady C. Myers and Julie Titone
2012
When the United States was in the thick of the Vietnam War, a legally blind, out of shape young man from Boise volunteered. Grady Myers had been rejected previously because of his physical problems, but the Army of 1968, desperate to fill its ranks, snapped him up and shipped him off to Fort Lewis for basic training. This memoir of Myers’s time in training and then … » More …
The funky Second Ending logo rolls across the screen, then fades to the KWSU TV studio where a young band takes the stage for a concert in February 1976. After an energetic instrumental prelude, the lead singer steps to the microphone and says, “Welcome in, everybody. This is Heart here and this is gonna be a nice evening.”
With that introduction to a packed studio audience of Washington State University students and others, Ann and Nancy Wilson and the other members of Heart launch into songs from their soon-to-be-released Dreamboat Annie, the album that brought the band international fame.
Behind camera two, right up next … » More …