WSM Fall 2008

Fall 2008

CUB’s new, too!

This fall, visitors and alumni returning to Pullman will see that campus has changed all around the stadium renovation. In fact, a far bigger project, the $86 million renovation of the Compton Union Building, is wrapping up. The ’60s and ’70s décor is gone, but the 1951 architectural shell remains. Now it holds a brighter, more open student union and a very large bookstore to boot.

The CUB was closed in 2006, and for two years students had to go elsewhere for food, entertainment, and to just hang out. With six floors and 235,000 square feet to renovate, the project involved rebuilding stairways, removing walls, … » More …

Fall 2008

Stadium on the rise

In 1978, Sam Jankovich knew something had to be done about the football stadium.

With just 27,600 seats, Martin Stadium was much smaller than its counterparts in the Pacific-10 Conference. Because of a Pac-10 rule requiring guarantees of $25,000 to visiting teams, the Cougars had to truck up to Spokane to play certain opponents, namely USC, UCLA, and Washington, at the larger Joe Albi Stadium.

“If you could not bring in USC, UCLA, and Washington to Pullman, you could not bring the biggest attractions to where you get the biggest crowds,” said WSU’s former athletic director this spring when he stopped by Bohler Athletic Complex … » More …

Fall 2008

Seeing red (and far-red)

Ask crop scientist Michael Neff about plant growth, and he won’t talk about rainfall or fertilizer. He’ll talk about what the plants see.

“What I’ve been interested in forever is how plants use light as a source of information,” says Neff. “Plants have photoreceptors that are completely independent of photosynthesis and chloroplasts, that read their environment and say, ‘I am in full sunlight, I’m in the shade of another plant, I’ve got plants that are growing too close to me,’” and so on. The photoreceptors then trigger a host of hormonal reactions that influence how tall the plant will grow.

Neff thinks it’s possible to … » More …

Fall 2008

Let the invasions begin

As Beijing prepared to welcome athletes and spectators to the Olympic Games, a quieter and much less welcome influx was already under way.

According to a new study by Washington State University ecologist Richard Mack and four Chinese colleagues, China’s explosive economic growth and ambitious public-works projects have allowed non-native species of plants, insects, and other organisms to spread throughout the country and inflict more than $14 billion of damage on the nation’s economy—and the Olympic Games could provide an opportunity for even more biological invaders.

Mack and his co-authors combed through trade and economic data to discover that China’s economic boom has been … » More …

A new memorial in Neah Bay, built on land donated by Ed Claplanhoo '56, his wife Thelma, and two other Makah families, commemorates area veterans and the presence of Spain on the Northwest coast as early as 1774. Photo Zach Mazur

Fall 2008

A memorial and a blessing

At the western edge of the Makah Nation village of Neah Bay sits a tidy new park. It marks the spot where 216 years ago Spanish explorers built the first European settlement in the continental United States west of the Rockies and north of San Francisco.

Fort Núñez Gaona–Diah Veterans Park, dedicated in May, was built on property donated by Ed Claplanhoo ’56, his wife Thelma, and two other Makah families in a unique partnership amongst the Makahs, the state, and the Spanish government.

Claplanhoo, a former Makah Tribal chair, had known of the historic significance of his property for many years, even marking … » More …

Fall 2008

Powerful solutions from young minds

At Washington State University’s inaugural high school energy competition on May 10, Bohler Gymnasium on the Pullman campus buzzed with the ideas and enthusiasm of more than 350 high school students.

Teams from across the state were invited to present ideas for sustainable living in one of four areas: technology, design, personal behavior, or society/public policy.

Image depicting a light bulb sparking ideas and therefore solutions

Eighty-six teams gathered to share ideas that ranged from … » More …

Fall 2008

If you don’t ask…

Tiffany Ludka ‘04 has a piece of advice for students with big bills: It never hurts to ask for help.

During her first year of medical school at the University of Washington, the Colfax native hit on the idea of asking the medical community in her hometown to consider paying some of her medical school bills if she agreed to go into practice there. She’d known for a long time that she wanted to practice in a small town, preferably the one she grew up in.

Colfax, 13 miles north of Pullman, has a bustling downtown and is the county seat, but with a … » More …

Fall 2008

A new college guide

The market is full of books on how to get into and succeed in college, but few of those books are targeted at students who may be the first in their family to go beyond high school. Even fewer are targeted specifically to the needs of Native American students.

Two faculty members at Washington State University have sought to fill that need with a handbook titled The American Indian and Alaskan Native Student’s Guide to College Success, published in 2007.

The book is for students, but it’s also for “quite a range of stakeholders,” says Michael Pavel, the author and associate professor in the … » More …

Fall 2008

Electricity from a beet

Chemists around the world are looking to the plant kingdom for ideas about harvesting the energy of sunlight. Plants, after all, have been making a living exploiting sunbeams for almost four billion years. And part of what plants accomplish each day creates a tiny flow of electrons—a form of electricity.

The familiar solar-electric panels on the roofs of RVs depend on pure silicon crystals, which are produced in an energy-intensive manufacturing process. The crystals are semiconductors “doped” with special impurities to make them work—impurities that are often toxic metals requiring special mining to unearth. These first-generation panels certainly work, but the electrical power we can … » More …

Fall 2008

60 minutes with Don Hewitt

This spring, while a reporter from a Spokane TV station sat face to face with 60 Minutes creator Don Hewitt, two Washington State University communications students waited quietly in the hall for their turn with the television legend.

Jamie Grosz, a senior who would soon be interviewing the CBS news veteran, used the time to run over her questions and switch into a pair of high heels for the on-camera interview. The cameraman, Brent Weisberg, started unpacking his equipment.

They weren’t missing much by waiting outside since the Spokane station interview covered many of same questions Hewitt had been answering over the past few … » More …