Skip to main content Skip to navigation
Summer 2024

WSM Summer 2007

Summer 2007

Fighting for a free press

Brian Schraum ditched school for several days in January. The 19-year-old Washington State University junior wasn’t playing hooky, though. He was testifying in Olympia on behalf of a free-press bill he inspired.

Schraum, a communication major, is trying to protect high school and college newspapers from censorship. House Bill 1307, which Schraum helped Rep. Dave Upthegrove (D-Des Moines) craft, would put the full weight of editorial decisions in the hands of the student editors. Even in high schools.

Last year, as editor of the Green River Community College newspaper, Schraum realized that while he had the freedom to print what he chose, that freedom wasn’t … » More …

Summer 2007

A lavender landscape

The landscape west of Sequim has, no doubt, always been beautiful. There’s an obvious advantage to having the foothills of the Olympics on the near horizon. But add fields of lavender, and you have jaw-drop stunning.

Beauty is obviously a constant here. But where Cathy ’68 and Leeon ’68 Angel planted their lavender seven years ago, dairy cows once grazed. And not too long before that, you might have seen a band of Clallam people heading across the meadow toward the Dungeness River to fish. Or north toward Sequim or Dungeness bays to dig shellfish.

Lavender is a recent development around Sequim. By the … » More …

Summer 2007

Happy—and healthy—ever after

“In sickness or in health. . .”

That noble sentiment of the traditional marriage vow says your spouse promises to stick with you if you get sick. What it doesn’t say, and what a study by Washington State University psychologist John Ruiz (photo) and researchers at the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University now shows, is that your spouse’s personality can help you heal–or speed your demise.

And, in the happiest of endings, being satisfied with your partner, no matter what his or her personality, is like an inoculation against all the bad things wrought by depression and anxiety.

Drawing on a subject group … » More …

Summer 2007

She's home

When her husband-to-be Michael Pavel took her home to the Skokomish reservation in the summer of 1996, it was revealed that Susan Pavel (photo, center) couldn’t cook.

“The attitude,” she says, “was, well, let’s teach you some useful trade. Like weaving.”

And with that, Susan Pavel (’99 Ph.D.) joined the revival of Coast Salish weaving.

Susan and Michael, a Washington State University faculty member in education, were living with his uncle, Bruce Miller, a master weaver.

“He started me at the beginning, carding the wool, spinning the wool, dyeing the wool, working up the loom. Actual weaving was maybe a third of the process.”

Susan … » More …

Summer 2007

Questioning the questions

A few years ago, when an academic publisher approached Dirk Schulze-Makuch about writing a book on the search for extraterrestrial life, the astrobiologist couldn’t resist.

“You’re not often getting asked to write a book about life in the universe,” he recalls. “It was just too tempting.”

Life in the Universe: Expectations and Constraints was published shortly before Schulze-Makuch joined Washington State University’s Department of Geology in 2005. Coauthored by Louis Irwin of the University of Texas-El Paso, the book takes a close look at what’s really necessary for life-not life as we know it here, but life as it might be on other worlds.

“We’re … » More …

Summer 2007

World Class. Face to Face. It's not a slogan, it's a plan.

Only a little more than a year after I arrived at Washington State University, America and the world were shocked by the events now simply known as “9/1l.” It is difficult to assess how much our lives were altered by that event and the chain of actions that followed. Afghanistan and then Iraq became the centers for the “war on terrorism,” and intrusions on our freedom and privacy that would have been unthinkable only a few years ago became somewhat commonplace. The war in Iraq is now four years old, and is nothing remotely related to what we expected. Furthermore, we really do not know … » More …

Summer 2007

Hops & beer

Raising the raw ingredients for beer can be just as complex and interesting as growing grapes for wine, says Jason Perrault '97, '01. Like grapes, hops have different varieties and characteristics. Perrault, fourth-generation heir to a hops-farming legacy, runs a hops breeding program for Yakima Valley growers, helping to ensure that Washington continues to provide three-quarters of the hops grown in this country.

» More ...
Summer 2007

Counting cougs

Between 1995, the year before Washington banned the hunting of cougars with hounds, and 2000, the number of human-cougar encounters nearly quadrupled. Although encounters have returned to pre-ban levels in some areas, the public perception is that cougars are making a comeback--and must be stopped. But Hillary Cooley and Rob Wielgus insist that much of what we think we know about cougars is wrong. And their argument rests with the young males.

» More ...
Summer 2007

The presidents

Depending on how you count, Elson S. Floyd becomes Washington State University’s tenth, eighth, maybe twelfth, president. Whereas the tenures of the first two, Lilley and Heston, were tumultuous, brief, and of corresponding effect, other interim presidencies, including those of Wallis Beasley and William Pearl, were more subdued, yet productive and vital to the progress of WSU.

Regardless of how you count our presidents, though, the story of WSU and its presidents is rich, wonderful, and filled with drama, pathos, and even a little scandal here and there. Obviously, much has changed over the past 115 years. When George Lilley was named the first president … » More …