Summer 2015
Maps: Mashups from the WSU GIS Laboratory—a sampling of studies and classroom exercises
Maps from WSU's GIS lab show the potential to match data with geographical representations.
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Summer 2015
Global War and Christian Nationalism
An excerpt from American Apocalypse: A History of Modern Evangelicalism
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Mashing up new landscapes
WSU's Geographic Information System coordinator Rick Rupp helps students and researchers mash up maps and data to find insights.
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Spring 2015
Brain rules and brain development
John Medina's 12 brain rules and more information on brain development.
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Spring 2015
A re-dress of the West
Joe Monahan, from all appearances a typical American frontiersman, arrived in Idaho Territory in the late 1860s. He was lured by the promise of fortune in the hillsides and settled in Owyhee County, which The New York Times had described as “a vast treasury” with “the richest and most valuable silver mines yet known to the world.”
Monahan built a cabin and mined a claim. He also worked as a cowboy with an outfit in Oregon.
When he returned to Idaho, he settled into a dugout near the frontier town of Rockville. An 1898 directory lists him as “Joseph Monahan, cattleman.” And his neighbors described … » More …
Spring 2015
We’re one big counterculture
Back in the early 1970s, Barry Hewlett was part of the whole counterculture thing. He designed his own major at California State University, Chico—sociology, anthropology, and psychology—and set off after graduation for Europe. By the time he got to Greece, he was bored.
“I thought, ‘This is so familiar to me,’” recalls Hewlett, now a Washington State University anthropology professor.
Other people his age and temperament were heading to India. Not wanting to follow the crowd, “I went the other way, directly south,” he says, “and there were no other European folks with me.”
He ended up in central Africa, encountering hunter-gatherers for the first … » More …
Spring 2015
Gentle commerce
From humankind’s long history of violence, two chapters have come under the scrutiny of Washington State University researchers that point the way to a more peaceful world.
Tim Kohler, who has spent four decades pondering the people of the ancient southwestern United States, saw violence drop in one sector of the region as its people took up a sort of “peaceful commerce” with other groups. And Jutta Tobias ’06 MS, ’08 PhD, after helping Rwandan coffee farmers use computers to broaden their customer base, found they eventually came to think more charitably about people with whom they had been in conflict during the brutal ethnic … » More …
Spring 2015
Bringing up babies
If only babies came with instruction manuals.
A simple set of operating guidelines might help new parents navigate the necessity of naps, manage mealtimes, and teach a toddler to share.
While there are thousands of books and guides and websites, the situation is far from simple. Well-meaning childhood experts, doctors, and parents have blanketed early childhood with good, bad, and often conflicting advice. “The problem is, no one has time to read all that’s out there,” says Tracy Cutchlow ’97, a journalist, book editor, and (fairly) new mother.
Raising a baby can be confusing, confounding, and complicated, Cutchlow admits one afternoon over coffee in Seattle. … » More …
Spring 2015
Prisoner guardians
Criminal justice doesn’t end when the prison gate clangs shut behind the departing offender. Unseen, but of great value, are the officers who serve as guardians on the outside, watching over the former prisoners and guiding their integration back into society. While community corrections officers, generally known as parole and probation officers, help offenders transition from prison, they also safeguard the public.
The work of these officers in the criminal justice system only seems to come to light when an offender does something horrible. Considering that around 16,000 released prisoners are currently under supervision in Washington state, the many success stories of these officers usually … » More …
Spring 2015
Posts for Spring 2015
Mapmaker mystery
Of all the names that were mentioned in the [previous issue] article (those that I studied under in geology), I know Dr. Campbell would have had your answer. I was a graduate student in geology in the early ’70s and I knew Dr. Rosenberg (my advisor), Dr. Webster, and Dr. Campbell. These people were phenomenal teachers and mentors. But when important questions come up, like historical geology questions, Dr. Campbell was your man. He would have known. I remember his research, his retirement, and his death later. Another person who would have known was Al Butler in physics (also my advisor) … » More …