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Spring 2008

A new life for Winnie

Though she’s only three, Winnie the grizzly bear has already seen some rough times. Her mother left her last year. And when hunger drove her into a Yellowstone campground, park service employees did their best to haze her and scare her off. Eventually she was trapped and moved miles away. But after she found her way back to the campgrounds—twice—she was carted off to a concrete den 600 miles from home.

As the newest, and wildest, member of the Bear Center at Washington State University, Winnie is struggling to adjust to a different life.

Winnie’s story started in the summer of 2006, when she was … » 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

Vanished places: Tanglewood and Silver Lake

Imagine having a campus lake to skate on in the winter or, in fairer seasons, to picnic by. Washington State College had one: a small man-made pond in the area now occupied by Mooberry Track and the Hollingbery Field House. Officially called Silver Lake, it was informally known as Lake de Puddle.

Silver Lake became part of the College in 1899 as part of six acres purchased for $275. The school used the low-lying area to carve out a 1.6-acre water feature. Our earliest photographs of Silver Lake, such as those in President Bryan’s Historical Sketch of the State College of Washington, show the pond … » More …

Spring 2008

The orphan flower

In a Washington State University greenhouse, on the roof of Abelson Hall, dwells an orphan. Sheltered by a translucent plastic tent that diffuses the sunlight, drenched in water that keeps the air heavy with moisture, a semitropical plant called Gasteranthus atratus unfurls its crinkly, dark mahogany leaves. Once a year or so it puts forth cream-colored, vase-shaped flowers. It doesn’t seed, however. Whether it needs another member of its species or a particular insect or bird to pollinate it isn’t known. For now, it simply grows, and waits.

Gasteranthus atratus is an orphan, because its home no longer exists. The species was discovered in the … » More …

Spring 2008

Meditations on a strip mall

Why has architecture become an exercise in stage set building? » 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 ...

Spring 2008

Through the Garden Gate

Invasive species--plants, animals, and microbes--have been estimated to cost American businesses and taxpayers at least $122 billion every year in damaged property, lost productivity, and control efforts. However, perhaps more costly in the long run is the damage done to natural communities. » More ...

Spring 2008

The Home of My Family: Ozette, the Makahs, and Doc Daugherty

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Ozette is the cultural continuity. Makahs had lived in Ozette for 2,000 years and probably much longer. The village had been abandoned for only 60 years, and many Makahs still went there to fish and hunt. One elder called the exposure of the longhouses by the storm "a gift from the past." » More ...

Summer 2008

WSU Alumni Association’s Achievement award winners

From the CEO of Boeing to the founder of Olympia’s Oysterfest, Washington State University’s Alumni Association has found many worthy and interesting graduates deserving of recognition for their accomplishments and contributions to WSU and their greater communities. Here is a list of the WSU Alumni Achievement Award Winners from the past two years.

2007

Richard B. Ellingson ’75, president of the Foodservice Equipment Distributors Association and advisory board member of the WSU School of Hospitality Business Management, has enriched the lives of numerous WSU students.

Shaikh M. Ghazanfar ’62, ’64, ’69, professor emeritus at the University of Idaho, an expert on Islamic studies and culture, … » More …

Spring 2008

New Poets / Short Books, Volume One

Three collections of poems, by Gwendolyn Cash, Boyd W. Benson, and Lisa Galloway, each numbering something over 20 pages, comprise the first volume of Lost Horse Press’s New Poets / Short Books series under the editorship of renowned poet Marvin Bell, who connects the present undertaking with the Scribner series, Poets of Today, edited by John Hall Wheelock between 1954 and 1962. In his introductory comments Bell indicates that the “3-in-1 series” is “intended to sample a range of poets who have yet to publish a book,” and he adds that “It will not be run as a contest, nor will it accept submissions.” Bell … » More …