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Summer 2024

WSM Spring 2006

Spring 2006

Faith and imagination transform a Pullman landmark

Faith and imagination came into play last spring when Jillian Potts (’06 Pol. Sci./Pre-Law) signed an agreement to lease a unit at the Greystone Church Apartments sight unseen. Not there was anything to see. It was months before the walls of her apartment would even be built.

Still, with just the blueprints as a guide, Potts committed to one of the most exciting projects Pullman has seen of late.

Greystone Church, a long-neglected century-old landmark on College Hill, found new life last fall as an apartment house for 47 tenants, the majority of them Washington State University students.

The challenge for the new owners—Glenn Petry, … » More …

Spring 2006

A Genetic and Cultural Odyssey: The Life and Work of L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza

Anthropology embraces four disparate subfields: archaeology, physical anthropology, linguistics, and cultural anthropology. Few people today are able to make significant contributions to more than one of these. This book celebrates a career marked by signal contributions to all four, and to genetics as well. Born Luigi Cavalli in Genoa in 1922 and, following his father’s death, formally adopted at age 27 by his maternal stepgrandfather, Count Sforza, Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza (hereafter, Cavalli) has come to be a leading figure in anthropological genetics—a field which he in fact has helped define. His accomplishments have been recognized by election to the National Academy of Sciences (U.S.) and … » More …

Spring 2006

When Pullman was a ski town

“Everybody still skis tremendously,” says Richter.”They’re all in really good shape.”

In 1952 the Washington State College ski team placed first in the Northern Division, the Pacific Coast Conference, and the North American International Intercollegiate Tournament in Banff, Alberta. In 1953 the Cougars won every University and College meet they entered, including Banff and the National Intercollegiate Championship at snow Basin, Utah. The following year the National Intercollegiate Championship became the NCAA Division I championship, which took place in Reno, Nevada. The Cougars were favored to win that as well. But the coach of the University of Denver team  managed to get two of the … » More …

Spring 2006

Eat more garlic

If there’s just one thing you plant in your garden, make it garlic.

For one thing, it’s extraordinarily easy to grow. Plant it around Columbus Day. Cover it with mulch. Or don’t. Water it now and then when it starts growing again in the spring. And that’s about it.

You can start eating it at any stage, though obviously you don’t want to eat it all up before it develops heads. Thus, you need to plant a lot. You can chop the young shoots and add to a stir-fry. Pull the developing young heads and slice, using it for a mild flavoring. In early summer, … » More …

Spring 2006

Words on words

 

Mark Twain is rumored to have said that he had no respect for a man who could spell a word in just one way. Many college students wish that their English professors shared this view. Yes, it’s true that conventional spelling promotes effective communication—no one denies it—but at the same time there’s always a loss when capitulation to conformity extends too far. A good example is vocabulary usage, particularly in academic settings. Am I the only person in the University who’s heard the words “benchmarking” and “networking” a few times too often? Somehow I doubt it. In my own field of study, English literature, … » More …

Spring 2006

See Shells Far From the Sea Shore

If the winter grays have you hankering for a glimpse of beach life, head to the Washington State University Tri-Cities campus at Richland. There, more than 200 miles from Washington’s coast—or just a few clicks down the Internet road—you’ll find the Gladys Archerd Shell Collection. Looking at the incredible variety of whorls, spikes, and splashes of color, you can almost hear the gulls calling and feel the sand between your toes.

The collection was the lifelong passion of Gladys Doy Archerd, whose fascination with shells began in the early 1900s with childhood walks along the shores of the Olympic Peninsula. Over the years she became … » More …

Spring 2006

Doggy Dream House

Basil was a dog in need of a home. And with just 30 hours to assess the whippet’s personality and create and execute a design, a group of Washington State University design students were determined to give him one.

It was an intense competition with “a tremendously difficult timeline,” says Keith Diaz Moore, assistant professor of architecture and landscape architecture, who coordinated the annual design-challenge charrette for the Interdisciplinary Design Institute. “To complete everything in 30 hours is pretty amazing—and to see the delicacy of some of these solutions is fascinating.”

More than 100 students from a variety of disciplines—architecture, interior design, landscape architecture, and … » More …

Spring 2006

Cell phones help students and parents stay close—Sometimes too close

Michael Johnston (’08 Bus. Admin.) switched his cell-phone plan in October. And the incentive wasn’t just the free, high-tech phone or the low text-messaging fees.

“I can get those mobile-to-mobile minutes with my family now,” says Johnston. “Now I don’t have to worry as much about the minutes I use with them.”

Johnston says he talks to either his mom or dad each day, for at least 15 to 20 minutes.

He’s not the only one. He’s part of the millennial generation for whom there is no typical, mandatory Sunday evening phone call home.

Now parents are getting the 9 a.m. Saturday call, the … » More …

Spring 2006

Cool, Soothing, Lucrative Mint

If you drive through Central Washington’s mint-growing country in mid-summer, you’re likely to be overwhelmed by the scent of mint rising like an exhalation—at once delightful and inescapable—from the surrounding fields. In fact, your senses might deceive you into believing that not much has changed in the last 30 years or so. But during that time Rod Croteau, professor at the Institute for Biological Chemistry at Washington State University, has been doing research that has helped make Washington mint plants produce more and better peppermint.

Peppermint plants produce menthol, which is a terpene, as are all the other compounds Croteau researches. Terpenes are chemicals put … » More …