Winter 2005
Maybe tomorrow: Graduate student follows his heart into uncharted territory
Just as Washington State University political science student Steve Overfelt was finishing his master’s degree coursework and preparing to write his thesis, he decided to put it off. And his advisor, Prof. Martha Cottam, encouraged him to do so.
Was this evidence of deteriorating academic standards at WSU? Hardly. It was a response to the tsunami that devastated coastal communities in Southeast Asia on December 26, 2004.
“I’d spent Thanksgiving in Indonesia doing research for my thesis on non-governmental organizations (NGOs), so I really wanted to go back to help,” Overfelt says. “But nobody wanted my physical labor, only the cash in my pocket. After … » More …