Government

Civility and Democracy in America: A Reasonable Understanding
Cornell W. Clayton and Richard Elgar
WSU Press, 2012
This collection of essays from WSU professors and other scholars takes a hard look at the historical and contemporary state of civility in the country, probing the complexities and the causes of the current “crisis.”
The articles cover not just history, but religion, architecture, ethics, philosophy, and media studies, as the writers discuss the context of incivility and heated rhetoric surrounding major issues of social movements, civil rights, immigration, and other matters long affecting American democracy.
The collection of essays emerged from a 2011 conference on civility … » More …

Bringing history and historian together
Historian Douglas Brinkley recently visited Seattle to interview William D. Ruckelshaus, the founding head of the Environmental Protection Agency and advisor to a variety of Northwest clean water and community groups.
Ruckelshaus first made the connection between the environment and public health shortly after graduating from Harvard Law School when he returned to Indiana as a young lawyer. In the office of the Indiana attorney general, Ruckelshaus was assigned to the Indiana Board of Health, where he noticed that many of the state’s health issues were tied to air and water pollution, he says. It was a foundation for his work a decade later defining … » More …
Opinions: Sam Reed and Sam Hunt in the 1966 Daily Evergreen
Opinion articles written by students Sam Reed and Sam Hunt for the November 4, 1966 issue of WSU’s student newspaper the Daily Evergreen represent their opinions of that year’s national and state elections from the perspective of the WSU Young Republicans and the WSU Young Democrats. Sam Reed ’63, ’68 is now Washington’s Secretary of State, and Sam Hunt ’67 is a state representative for Olympia and surrounding areas. Read more about them in “Civility in Politics and Campaigns.”
You can also view the original page from the 1966 Daily Evergreen in PDF format.
Daily … » More …
An American in Albania
Adapted from a series of e-mail messages from the author to friends and associates.
Introduction
Since serving three terms as ASWSU president as an undergraduate, I have never lost my passion for the process of student representation. I’ve tried to be a help to as many student leaders as possible, and I have wound up speaking at a lot of conferences around the nation, and even helped found the American Student Government Association (the only professional association for student governments) in 2003.
Earlier this year, I was asked by the State Department to do a speaking/training tour in Albania to assist their effort to create … » More …