WSM Winter 2001

Winter 2001

Basketball—Pac-10 tourney on their minds

GETTING TO THE INAUGURAL post-season Pac-10 women’s basketball tournament is not a problem. All conference teams are invited to the March 1-4 tourney in Eugene, Oregon. The challenge is to succeed.

Last year, the Cougars were 11-17 overall and ninth in the league. With eight letter-winners gone, just about every position is wide open. “Questions will be answered by how hard the players compete,” coach Jenny Przekwas says as she embarks on her third campaign in Pullman. “We have some good experience returning and a really high desire to win.”

Guard Jessica Collins, back for a fifth season after a medical hardship year, leads the … » More …

Winter 2001

Basketball—Heading in the right direction

THE WASHINGTON State men’s basketball program isn’t where Paul Graham wants it to be. But the third-year coach has it headed in the right direction.

Last year the Cougars doubled their win total to 12. Can the Cougars build on that momentum? Can they improve their sixthplace finish in the Pac-10, WSU’s best showing in six years?

WSU defeated Oregon, swept Arizona State, and won back-to-back league games— against Oregon and Oregon State— for the first time in four years. WSU’s 10 victories on Friel Court were the most since 1995.

Experience will be the team’s strength. Six-foot-10 senior center J Locklier started all 28 … » More …

Winter 2001

Beginning again

…attaining any worthwhile goal is really a matter of taking one small step at a time.

GEOFF GAMBLE, former interim provost at Washington State University and now president of Montana State University, once told me studies show that most people will have three different careers in their lifetimes. During that conversation, he revealed that he was on career number two, since he’d worked in insurance before becoming an academic.

According to a variety of sources, people may change careers as many as seven times during their working life. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports 67 percent of American workers don’t like their jobs, and … » More …

Winter 2001

In search of a tougher honey bee

WASHINGTON STATE apple growers have a problem. The honey bees that pollinate their trees can be a little wimpy when it comes to temperature.

Apple growers prefer to have the king, or primary, blooms pollinated, because they produce the biggest apples. But all too often, the trees bloom during cool weather. And the resident honey bees, being mostly of Italian descent and therefore partial to Mediterranean weather, hole up when the temperature dips below 55 degrees F.

Other bees do better in cool weather but often have quirks of their own that limit their usefulness as pollinators.

So Steve Sheppard—associate professor of entomology at Washington … » More …

Winter 2001

Arts for all

“WOULDN’T you like to write music for someone famous like NSYNC?” a Clarkston High School student asked Greg Yasinitsky.

Tough crowd.

But Yasinitsky, a Washington State University music professor and jazz studies coordinator and a nationally recognized composer, arranger, and saxophonist, can handle it.

“We’re in the only field where we have to compete with dead people for jobs. In jazz, everyone can buy a John Coltrane CD. Why buy yours?” he says.

Yasinitsky reflected on the first of his three years as composer-in-residence at Clarkston High (CHS), sponsored by the Commission Project of New York. He received the project’s inaugural Washington state residency in … » More …

Winter 2001

Asking for trouble

Hunting may create cougar problems

IF THE COUGAR IS ANYTHING like its fellow carnivore the grizzly, then the method we’re using to try to solve our current problems with cougars may well aggravate rather than alleviate them.

Rob Wielgus, director of the Large Carnivore Conservation Laboratory at Washington State University, turned the Canadian wildlife management world upside down with his graduate and postgraduate research showing that trophy hunting of grizzly bears in the Kananaskis region of Alberta was neither beneficial nor benign to the resident population. His work indicated that trophy hunting would lead to the extinction of the grizzly population in 15 to 20 … » More …

Winter 2001

State Economy: Across the new divide

Sooner than you think, you’re going to connect those dots and discover the whole state lit up.

THE VARIOUS PEOPLES OF Washington have successfully prevailed over many divides— mountain passes, raging rivers, ocean straits, even cultural differences— that separated comfort and prosperity from isolation and hard times. There were grim consequences to encounters with those divides, and sometimes stuff and people were jettisoned so a few could make it across. We wouldn’t be here at all if we had seriously miscalculated who had the right to survive.

Now, in a techno-economic system constantly challenged to be robust and resilient enough to meet the fiercest global … » More …

Winter 2001

Firstenburg family fountain dedicated at WSU Vancouver

Intermittent spurts of water play on native basalt slabs and columns in the new Firstenburg Family Fountain at Washington State University Vancouver. Local residents Ed and Mary Firstenburg, owners of First Independent Bank, donated $500,000 to create the fountain and plaza as a focal point for the 351-acre campus. The Firstenburg family was recognized at an August 16 dedication. Ed is a graduate of the University of Washington and fondly remembers students gathering on the campus plaza in Seattle during his college days. WSU Vancouver executive officer and dean Hal Dengerink said the fountain is “a permanent legacy for the Firstenburg family and for WSU … » More …

Winter 2001

Washington apples—best of the best

ALTHOUGH DEBATE will continue over the benefits of organic versus conventional farming, Washington State University scientists have established that organic production of apples is more sustainable than conventional apple production. Soil scientist John Reganold, soils graduate student Jerry Glover, horticulturist Preston Andrews, and agricultural economist Herbert Hinman reported the results of a six-year study comparing organic, integrated, and conventional apple production in the cover article of the April 19, 2001 Nature.

In 1994 the researchers planted four acres of Golden Delicious apples within a Yakima Valley commercial orchard. Plots of equal size were managed according to organic, conventional, and integrated farming practices. Integrated farming … » More …

Winter 2001

WSU reports record enrollment

Over the past year fall semester enrollment at Washington State University’s four campuses grew by 2.5 percent—from 21,248 to 21,794. The freshman class at the Pullman campus is the second largest in history and the most diverse ever, with students of color totaling 409, or 15 percent of the class. The class total increased to 2,619 from a fall 2000 total of 2,473. Transfer students were up from 1,318 to 1,329.

“We are pleased with these solid numbers,” said Charlene Jaeger, vice president for student affairs. “The University plans to attract the most able students. We are interested in quality, not quantity.”

The average … » More …