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Spring 2002

Alumni president Ed Little: “I always wanted to work with children”

It’s been almost 30 years now, but Ed Little, president of the Washington State University Alumni Association, remembers it like yesterday.

A sophomore and a member of the Cougar Yell Team, he was in Eugene, Oregon, for WSU’s 1974 football game with Oregon in Autzen Stadium. Before the Cougars secured their 21-16 victory, Little received an urgent message on the sideline.

His father, Gerald, had been seriously injured in an industrial accident. Little was needed in Seattle. Athletic director Sam Jankovich immediately had his wife, Patty, drive Little to the Eugene airport. When they arrived, a ticket was waiting for the next flight north. The … » More …

Spring 2002

New graduates entering a different world

Washington State University’s newest graduates are entering “a world vastly different and more dangerous than it was before September 11,” a world that cries out for their leadership in government, in science, in business, in education, in the military.

This was the message U.S. Congressman and WSU alumnus George R. Nethercutt, Jr. delivered as commencement speaker December 15 at the University’s first fall graduation exercise.

“Your generation is now called on to face a fearsome worldwide threat of terrorism similar to that serious threat which faced your grandparents, as they were stunned by Pearl Harbor and World War II.”

Nethercutt (’67 English), a Spokane native, … » More …

Spring 2002

It’s in the blood

“There I was [in May 1980], focused on completing my last month at WSU, and Mount St. Helens erupts,” recalls Kathi Goertzen ’80. “I spent the next few weeks basically living at the KWSU studio, not only reporting the news aspects, but also interviewing local farmers about the ash that had covered Eastern Washington and what affect that would have on their crops. I guess you could say that was my first ‘breaking news’ story, and after that, I had it in my blood.”

Her degree in broadcast communications in hand, Goertzen joined KOMO-TV in Seattle as the assistant to Art McDonald (’55, Speech Communication). … » More …

Spring 2002

Treatments for congestive heart failure focus of study

For this alum, age is no obstacle

“I asked what would happen if I die before the research is over. They said, ‘We’ll try to find out where you are and sue you.’ ”—Dr. Gordon Maurice

With some amusement, Dr. Gordon L. Maurice (’40, Chem) describes the call he received last year from the Canadian National Heart Institute. Canadian health officials wanted him—at age 83—to be a primary investigator in a four-year international study on congestive heart failure treatments.

No matter that he retired from his cardiology practice 17 years ago and works in clinical research only three days a week. The Canadians knew Maurice … » More …

Spring 2002

A salon of their own

Good conversation should bring about a transcendental melding of minds and dissolve class and ideological differences.

The funniest things Washington State University historian Steve Kale ran across in researching his latest book were the accounts of how much early 19th-century French women hated going to England. For England was much like the provinces. In other words, it was not Paris.

On social occasions, English men and women would eat dinner together, but not talk much. Afterwards, the men would retire to the salon, where they would smoke cigars and talk politics. English women would drink tea and chat. “The French women,” says Kale, “found it … » More …

Spring 2002

“You’ll miss it”

“I liked science classes because they were applicable, and I’ve always been logical. But music adds some structure.”

Nothing navigates the left brain-right brain divide more effectively than guilt and loyalty.

For proof, just pick the brains of Washington State University plant pathologist/cellist Jane Jung-Hae Choi. She switches with ease between running through experiment protocols and symphony movements, thanks to the bicameral prick of expectation.

It worked that way in her science. Offered the choice in summer 1996 between two fellowships through the State University of New York, one at Syracuse Medical Center and one at Geneseo in plant research, Choi chose the plant research … » More …

Spring 2002

The other side of the coin

Making financial decisions is difficult to begin with—even more so when we let our emotions get in the way.

“Greed is good,” says Gordon Gekko in the movie Wall Street.

Although I would not go quite that far, greed is a natural human emotion. A Wall Street adage states that two factors move the market: fear and greed. This perception is fueled partly by the media and partly by reporters who wish to be dramatic but may not fully understand what truly drives the market. While ideas of fear and greed have dramatic potential, the characterization is far too simplistic. The human mind is too … » More …

Spring 2002

Mooney banking on improved pitching

Good pitching is like money in the bank. It’s there when you need it, and it can carry you over the rough spots.

That’s the philosophy of Washington State University baseball coach Tim Mooney.

Last season, Mooney’s first at WSU, quality pitching was thin, particularly in the tough Pacific-10 Conference where teams typically play three games in three days. Too often, he was forced to remove his starting pitcher as early as the second, third, or fourth inning of a game and bring in a succession of other arms. That’s no way to succeed, he says. If a starting pitcher can go seven innings “that’s … » More …

Spring 2002

The liberal art of judgment

Effective judgment asks us to go beyond ourselves, beyond our assumptions, and beyond the comfort of our traditions.

With little effort, we can now garner information about any part of the globe, society, legal system, health care remedy, religious belief, scientific discovery, business product, or service almost instantly. But having all this information does not guarantee that we’ll use it effectively or wisely. That requires judgment. And the responsibility for instilling judgment lies largely with the university.

Two basic ingredients assure that our universities develop and preserve judgment: faculty committed to and supported in their efforts to seek truth and discover new knowledge, and a … » More …

Spring 2002

Better chow

As anyone who has stir-fried vegetables knows, quickly cooking foods at high temperatures makes for crisper, fresher-tasting foods than using slow-cooking methods.

So it is that over the past six years, associate professor of biological systems engineering Juming Tang and his associates have been working on new technologies to produce high-quality, ready-to-eat military rations (MREs) and “humanitarian daily rations” like those recently air-dropped in Afghanistan.

With conventional methods, lengthy processing times are necessary to kill harmful bacteria that can thrive even in hermetically sealed packages. Depending on package size and type of food, traditional processing can take anywhere from one to two hours. By the … » More …