Skip to main content Skip to navigation
Fall 2024

WSU presidents

Glenn Terrell
Winter 2013

Glenn Terrell, WSU President 1967–1985: Recollections

Glenn Terrell served as Washington State University’s seventh president, from 1967 to 1985. He passed away in August at his home in Sequim. He was 93.

 

Terrell earned his bachelor’s degree in political science from Davidson College in North Carolina, his master’s degree in psychology from Florida State University, and his doctoral degree from the University of Iowa. He served in the U.S. Army during World War II and was one of the American soldiers who marched down the Champs-Elysee with Charles de Gaulle.

He began his academic career as an instructor in psychology at Florida State, later moving to the University of Colorado … » More …

First Words
Fall 2012

The spirit of the land grant institution

Had the intent of the land grant spirit been simply to produce homemakers or farmers or carpenters, Justin Morrill, the author of the act that established the land-grants 150 years ago, might have best looked for his model among the craft guilds of the fifteenth century, wrote Enoch Bryan in 1931, 15 years after he stepped down as the first enduring president of Washington State College. In one of four essays that make up The Spirit of the Land-Grant Institutions (reissued in 1961), Bryan argued that the curriculum prescribed by the land-grant legislation was academic rather than vocational. “It was far broader, far more fundamental,” … » More …

First Words
Spring 2012

Time’s Warehouse

As anniversaries go, I suppose a mere decade is not so big a deal, even for a magazine. Many magazines, after all, have lived much longer. Atlantic Monthly’s 154 years aside, even here at Washington State University, Washington State Magazine is a relative youngster. Pow Wow, Washington State College’s first magazine for alumni, debuted in 1910 and ran until 1969, when it was replaced by HillTopics.

Along the way, Pow Wow, to which I last referred a few issues ago, reflected the life of a nascent college. Drawing on the dramatic events of the young twentieth century, dispatches from Washington State College’s few alumni and … » More …

Summer 2011

Somewhere in France

The latest posting on our Coordinates website is from Margrit von Braun ’89 PhD, who writes from Nigeria. Margrit and her husband, Ian von Lindern, founded TerraGraphics, an environmental engineering company, in the 1980s. They have since developed an expertise in remediation of sites contaminated with heavy metals and are currently working to clean up lead contamination resulting from gold mining in Nigeria’s Zamfara State.

Over 400 children have died from the contamination. With no other income as lucrative as gold mining, the residents of Zamfara brought ore into family compounds, where women, many of whom are not allowed to leave … » More …

Winter 2003

All for one, one for all

In the president’s conference room I have placed a Smithsonian Institution poster showing a group of about a dozen meerkats. For many years I have been fascinated by these small mammals, about the size of prairie dogs, that survive in the harsh conditions of the Kalahari Desert. I first learned of them in an article in the Smithsonian magazine in the early 1980s. Since that time there have been a number of studies, magazine articles, and at least three television specials on these small members of the mongoose family. They have been the subjects of extensive study, not just because they are small, cute, and … » More …

Fall 2006

Video: V. Lane Rawlins to retire

President V. Lane Rawlins has announced his intention to retire from Washington State University. WSU’s ninth president says he will serve through the next academic year. He plans to spend his remaining time as president focusing on legislative issues, continuing to improve the quality of education at WSU, and moving forward on the WSU Foundation’s fundraising efforts.

 

 

Video produced by Hannelore Sudermann for Washington State Magazine

Fall 2006

Terrell honored

Last spring, amid smiles and tears and tales from years past, nearly 100 Washington State University officials, students, alumni, and faculty gathered in the atrium of the New Library to rename the 1994 building the Terrell Library in honor of president emeritus Glenn Terrell.

Ever warm and easygoing, Terrell, who had traveled from Seattle with his wife, Gail, accepted applause, hugs, and handshakes from his friends and former staff before sitting down to the dedication.

At the May event, Terrell said that the dedication of that particular building was especially meaningful, since the library is truly the center of the University.

Summer 2007

World Class. Face to Face. It's not a slogan, it's a plan.

Only a little more than a year after I arrived at Washington State University, America and the world were shocked by the events now simply known as “9/1l.” It is difficult to assess how much our lives were altered by that event and the chain of actions that followed. Afghanistan and then Iraq became the centers for the “war on terrorism,” and intrusions on our freedom and privacy that would have been unthinkable only a few years ago became somewhat commonplace. The war in Iraq is now four years old, and is nothing remotely related to what we expected. Furthermore, we really do not know … » More …

Summer 2007

The presidents

Depending on how you count, Elson S. Floyd becomes Washington State University’s tenth, eighth, maybe twelfth, president. Whereas the tenures of the first two, Lilley and Heston, were tumultuous, brief, and of corresponding effect, other interim presidencies, including those of Wallis Beasley and William Pearl, were more subdued, yet productive and vital to the progress of WSU.

Regardless of how you count our presidents, though, the story of WSU and its presidents is rich, wonderful, and filled with drama, pathos, and even a little scandal here and there. Obviously, much has changed over the past 115 years. When George Lilley was named the first president … » More …