Winter 2012
Maps, memory, and imagination
The aspirations, dreams, and metaphors invested in maps are displayed in two recent books by WSU alumni, as well as several articles in this issue. » More ...
Books
Spring 2012
Reviews: Books by Orrin Pilkey ’57
Orrin Pilkey ’57 has written several books on beaches, shorelines, sea levels, and climate change.
You can read reviews of his books from Washington State Magazine.
Retreat from a Rising Sea: Hard Choices in an Age of Climate Change (2016)
The World’s Beaches: A Global Guide to the Science of the Shoreline (2011)
The Rising Sea (2009)
You can read more about Pilkey’s works in WSM Spring 2012, at his Duke University website and on Wikipedia. He also received the WSUAA Alumni Achievement and the Regents’ Distinguished Alumnus Awards.
Fall 2010
Tree Top: Creating a fruit revolution
David H. Stratton
WSU Press
In the September 10, 1951, issue of Life magazine is a picture of a bulldozer mounding apples in the Yakima dump. Seven acres of apples worth $6 million dollars rotted as pigs rooted through them, the result of failing foreign markets and high tariffs. At the time, if Washington’s apples didn’t sell, orchardists paid $5 a ton to have their culls hauled off to rot.
Culls are rejected from the fresh fruit market due primarily to shape, size, or color, but they are perfectly sound for such traditional uses as juice. The … » More …
Summer 2010
Booked: The Long Sentence of an Apprentice Reader
What would it mean to refuse connectedness? Is it even possible? » More ...
Spring 2004
Poor farm kid makes good
Sherman Alexie likes to remind people that attending Washington State University presented him with a real challenge. As a Spokane Indian, a liberal, and a writer, he did not fit the prevalent mold of students attending WSU in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Regardless, on October 10, 2003, WSU president V. Lane Rawlins presented Alexie with the University’s highest alumni honor, the Regents’ Distinguished Alumnus Award.
Since leaving WSU in 1994 with a bachelor’s degree in American studies, Alexie has published nine books of fiction and poetry and has written and directed two award-winning movies. Widely popular, his short stories appear in the nation’s … » More …
Summer 2003
A tale of many cities
As a boy Clint Borgen dreamed of having an interesting life, radically different from the humdrum sleepiness of Anacortes, Washington, his commercial-fishing-oriented hometown. He played spy games with a seemingly fearless older brother and best friend. At 20, Borgen became a firefighter. No small wonder that the next year (1999) he hopped a flight to Macedonia for a month of volunteer service, simply because he had watched television images of Albanian refugees and wanted to see the war zone for himself.
Returning safely to another somnolent community, this time Pullman, Borgen (’03 Comm.) published a book late last year about his four-year, 13-country marathon of … » More …
Summer 2003
Adjusting to life during college and after
By the time he graduated from Washington State University, Terry Arndt (’93 Horticulture) had accumulated $20,000 in student loans, $5,000 in credit card bills, and car payments.
Fortunately, he found a job right away, and a financial advisor. She suggested he pay off his high-interest credit cards first. Then he began making extra payments on his student loans, some with a 10-year payback period. There were other budget considerations. Health insurance premiums. Income tax. A vacation. A year after marrying Melissa Segars (’94 Music), he enrolled in the University of Florida’s M.B.A. program. More expenses.
Adjusting to life after college was not the smooth transition … » More …
Winter 2006
Book burden
It’s not news to anyone that textbooks are among a student’s biggest expenses. But some of us have figured ways around paying the high prices.
This fall, I coaxed my freshman sister, Kaytee, into sharing her book for the human development class we are taking together. The two of us were able to outsmart the system by buying just one heavy hardback for a steep $90. It didn’t take much to convince her: I promised she could keep it in her dorm room and explained that we were helping our parents, who usually pay for our books.
I’ve come a long way from my freshman … » More …
Winter 2004
The Extreme Survival Almanac
In many cases, those who survived made acommitment to just get through the night or day.
This book could save your life.
Your car breaks down in a remote area. You’re lost in the woods, not knowing which way to turn, or whether to stay or to go. You’re left with serious injuries after a plane crash on a mountainside. Your boat capsizes in rough seas, miles from land and shipping lanes.
Reid Kincaid’s book, The Extreme Survival Almanac, is intended for those who find themselves in such crises and want to get out alive. The author likens the book to a helpful tool … » More …
Fall 2005
Noam Chomsky
The surprising thing about Noam Chomsky in person was what he was not. Even though I was not intimately familiar with either his linguistics or his political writing, I had imagined him as stern and austere, too absorbed in thought to bother with either social grace or chitchat.
Rather, he’s like your favorite uncle-albeit the one who has perfect recall and is amazingly smart and has the ability to explain big ideas in everyday language. No jargon. No evasiveness.
A professor in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Chomsky is the most influential and best-known American linguist. Even more familiar … » More …