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Spring 2024

mentor

James Donaldson stands in a park in front of ocean
Spring 2022

James Donaldson’s gift of life

James Donaldson had a great college and professional basketball career, a physical therapy business, and many aspirations, even in retirement from sports.

But over the course of several years, illness, bankruptcy, divorce, and circumstances in life sent Donaldson into a dark mental spiral. He found his way back, writing a book about his struggles and starting a foundation to help others.

In this episode, Donaldson talks with magazine associate editor Adriana Janovich about his struggles with depression and suicidal thoughts, his recovery and memoir, and his desire to help other men, especially men of color, who face the same darkness.

Donaldson, a 1979 alum of … » More …

Talk Back
Winter 2018

TalkBack for Winter 2018

 

Instrumental journey

The article written by Wenda Reed on the life of Gladys Jennings was excellent. I graduated in ’92, and had Gladys as an advisor in the Food Science & Human Nutrition Department. I transferred to WSU from the University of Alaska, Anchorage in the fall of ’89, and Gladys was instrumental in that process. After phone conversations and mailings, the transition from U of A to WSU was seamless. She would guide me in my course choices while in Alaska, and told me that these courses would directly transfer. She was instrumental in the success I had as a student at … » More …

First Words
Fall 2018

Influence

Abraham Lincoln, when nominated for president in 1860, apologized for his lack of formal education. No apology was necessary from the articulate orator and voracious reader whose desire to learn and improve himself continued into his adulthood. Even without school, Lincoln had teachers, people who influenced his education. He moved to New Salem, Illinois, in his early 20s and studied grammar and debate under the tutelage of his mentor, remarkably named Mentor Graham, who wrote about Lincoln: “No one ever surpassed him in rapidly, quickly and well acquiring the rudiments and rules of English grammar.”

Gladys Cooper Jennings ’48 similarly served as a mentor … » More …

Dinner with girl geeks - Kristin McKinney
Spring 2017

Dinner with girl geeks

Working for a Portland, Oregon, staffing firm in the late 1990s, Kristin McKinney ’95 helped recruit employees to the city’s burgeoning tech industry. The job unleashed her own geek.

“I found I had a bit of an inner nerd,” says McKinney, who got her degree in business. “I never really knew that.”

Her newfound enthusiasm was tempered by a sobering reality: Women then, like now, accounted for less than 30 percent of the computing and information technology workforce, according to the National Science Foundation.

McKinney, now a recruiter in Nashville, Tennessee, is working to reverse the trend. In 2013, she joined computer application engineer Rachel … » More …