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Spring 2024

Public service

Winter 2015

Three portraits of Foley Institute alumni

The Foley path to public service through internships

“In a cynical age, I still believe that we must summon people to a vision of public service. For, in the end, this ethic determines more than anything else whether we will have citizens and leaders of honor, judgment, wisdom, and heart. These are the qualities this institute will nurture and advance, helping this nation become what it has always been destined to be, the best hope of a free people to live in an open and just society.”

—The Honorable Thomas S. Foley

Former LeLoup Intern, John Culton ’11 remembers the day … » More …

Ruckelshaus with Nixon
Winter 2011

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 …

Winter 2010

Common cause

I was walking down Pike Street on a beautiful day in July with an Afghan lawyer. We were just discussing the difference between civil and Shariah law when we came upon a couple of young protesters. They were both holding large posters of President Obama with a Hitler mustache. The male of the pair came up to me and insisted, “Wouldn’t you like to get rid of this jerk?”

Perhaps my reaction was exacerbated by having just listened to a group of idealistic scholars from Afghanistan discuss their efforts to build a society out of ideological and economic chaos; regardless, something inside me snapped, and … » More …

Winter 2003

Is there life after basketball?

Donaldson finds it in business and community

 

James Donaldson would like you to know that he’s fine not playing basketball. Sure, the former Washington State center spent 20 seasons in the National Basketball Association and on the European circuit. And yes, it brought him some nice paychecks and an opportunity to compete at the highest levels of professional basketball. But it’s never been a case of “basketball is life.”

Now don’t get the wrong picture. Donaldson still misses the competition. Still misses the practices–really–and the nightly face-off in games.

But here’s the ugly side of pro sports—it’s cutthroat. Younger players are always … » More …

Fall 2004

Broadcasting as public service: Peter Jennings refreshes the Murrow vision

What would veteran newsman Peter Jennings tell students seeking a career in broadcasting today?

His wife posed the question to him when they were in Pullman for Washington State University’s 30th Edward R. Murrow Symposium April 14. The answer came that evening in Jennings’s presentation, after he accepted the Murrow Award for Lifetime Achievement in Broadcasting from WSU.

“If you believe that broadcasting is a public service, then please come into the profession,” he told the largely student audience of 2,500 in the Beasley Performing Arts Coliseum theater.

ABC’s World News Tonight anchor had been on assignment in Iraq a week earlier and shared some … » More …