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Fall 2002

Spokane Health Sciences Building enhances research, medical partnerships

Linda Massey swings open the doors of large kitchen cabinets that store portions of the $10,000 worth of groceries needed over eight weeks for people in a kidney-stone- and low-salt-diet study. Nearby are industrial-sized freezers to keep perishables. The Washington State University Spokane professor of human nutrition is studying the role salt plays in the formation of calcium kidney stones under a grant from the National Institutes of Health.

Next door in another lab is a white contraption that might have come straight out of NASA, a six-foot long container with a window. Large enough to hold one person, the “Bod Pod” has instruments to … » More …

Fall 2002

Students join Cyprus to tackle hunger

On the morning of March 30, the United Nations Security Council held an emergency session at the UN building to discuss the crisis in the Middle East. At the same time, three floors down in Conference Room 4, I was giving a presentation on world hunger.

As part of the National Model United Nations (NMUN), nine of us Washington State University students joined 2,500 other students in “modeling” UN procedures: lobbying, debating, and writing resolution papers.

We spent a week in New York City, going to committee sessions, talking with UN representatives and ambassadors, and sightseeing on the side. Schools from around the world sent … » More …

Fall 2002

The survey expert

Don Dillman may be the most influential social scientist in developing the scientific basis for research methodology over the last 25 years. His Mail and Telephone Surveys: The Total Design Method is a classic of its genre, the first work to provide detailed procedures for conducting surveys by these methods. In the early 1990s, he was senior survey methodologist for the U.S. Bureau of the Census. He also led development of new questionnaire designs and procedures for the 2000 Decennial Census and other government surveys.

Dillman has worked at Washington State University for 33 years. He directed the Social and Economic Sciences Research Center at … » More …

Fall 2002

Killing the messenger

Christiane Amanpour, chief international correspondent for CNN, received the 2002 Edward R. Murrow Award for Distinguished Achievements in Broadcasting May 23 from the Murrow School of Communication. Amanpour, who has been covering the Israel-Palestine conflict, flew in from London to present her talk, “Killing the Messenger.” Earlier in the day, Washington State University broke ground for a 24,000 square-foot addition to the Edward R. Murrow School of Communication. The facility is scheduled to be completed by fall 2003.

A few excerpts from Amanpour’s talk:

 “In my opinion, what we say and how we report the truth defines not only the moment but us as people.”

… » More …

Fall 2002

Guardian angel comes to the rescue

When his home and family life was in turmoil, Kathy Cochran came to her nephew’s rescue. At the time Robert Cochran was 15, living in Kansas, and the court was about to place him in a foster home again. Kathy gave the court another option. She agreed to take him in, and the judge awarded her custody.

“Aunt Kathy … has been my best friend, my mom, and my guardian angel all at the same time,” Robert wrote in a letter nominating her for Washington State University 2002 Mom of the Year. She was selected from 24 candidates and recognized at the April 13 Mom’s … » More …

Fall 2002

Keeping our food safe

If you’re worried that our food supply might be the next target of international terrorists, you probably needn’t be, says Barbara Rasco, associate professor of food science and human nutrition. Rasco’s research centers on bioterrorism and the safety of our food and water supply.

“I don’t think the events of September 11 mean there’s any increased risk to our food supply,” she says. Domestic ecoterrorists and bioterrorists are more likely to target our food supply than are foreign entities, she says. “The risk from them hasn’t changed.”

A lawyer as well as a food scientist, Rasco has worked on the prevention of international terrorist incidents. … » More …

Fall 2002

A common reader: Overcoming inertia

I’d like you to meet someone. He’s a vulnerable fellow, rather too open to the joys and despairs of deep remembering. His life, therefore, is disordered but rich, evocative but dangerously reflective. He gets along, he thinks too well, he cuts corners, he sighs great sighs. Wisteria blooms and withers while he gouges his summer with indolent harrow thrusts. He regrets memory’s hold on him, yet memory, a vast overgrown archive, secrets vital news. He has a hunger there to lose himself, and a trough of youth to do it in. The luxuriant foliage thins with the approach of life’s winter, clarity trumps extremes and, … » More …

Fall 2002

Alex Kuo wins American Book Award

Alex Kuo’s Lipstick and Other Stories has won him the honor of the American Book Award. Kuo is Washington State University’s first writer-in-residence and chair of the Comparative American Cultures Program (CAC) and an English department faculty member. “The Peking Cowboy,” a story from the collection, appeared in the Spring 2002 Washington State Magazine.

Kuo teaches Asian American and Native American literatures in the CAC, cultures of the American West in American Studies, and creative writing in English. He has received a National Endowment for the Arts Fiction Fellowship and grants from the United Nations and the Idaho Commission for the Arts for background … » More …

Fall 2002

“Why do you believe this?”

“I now think twice when I look in the mirror.”

Wes Leid remembers the advice Leo K. Bustad, late dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine, offered him when he was hired at Washington State University 22 years ago. “You may not think you teach ethics, but you teach ethics every day of your life in your interactions with others.”

“You need to explore why you believe what you believe,” Leid says, “and get others to explore issues they had not considered before.”

That is what he does. And, according to students in his University Honors class, “Medical Ethics … » More …

Fall 2002

Paying it forward

Under the right conditions, mentoring will snowball.

One of the simplest pleasures I have is turning on the radio and hearing the voice of Frank Shiers (’77 Communications), a Seattle deejay working the mid-day shift on MIX 92.5. I’ve known Frank since high school, and his influence on me was so profound, it’s the main reason I went to Washington State University.

My family does not have a long history of higher education, and Frank was nearly the only role model I had for showing me the way through a bachelor’s degree. But since then, things have changed for new students at WSU. Recognizing the … » More …