March 2000   

Dear Colleagues:

With spring nearly here, this a good time to take stock of where we are as a college and to anticipate new opportunities with the administration of our new President, V. Lane Rawlins. I invite you to join me on March 6, at 4 p.m. in Room T-101, FSHN, and at WHETS sites at the branch campuses, for my All-College Address. I hope to make this address an annual occasion for talking together about the progress of our college community in meeting our goals in teaching, research, and service to our university, civic, and professional communities.

I welcome you, too, to join in the continuing discussion about our strategic plan. We completed the plan last December and now are gathering input from faculty, staff, and students through department meetings about ways to implement its goals and objectives. Your input is crucial to our making the plan a working document that both inspires and records our progress.

Finally, I wish to thank our faculty volunteers who are assisting in WSU's recruitment efforts this spring by calling students who have applied to WSU and expressed an interest in Liberal Arts majors. Your work is making a significant difference to the College, your program, and our students.

Best wishes to all of you in your teaching and research. I look forward to meeting with you on March 6.

Barbara Couture
Dean, College of Liberal Arts

The Department of Philosophy has received an endowment of nearly $1 million upon the death of longtime supporter Mildred Bissinger. Bissinger left almost $2.5 million to WSU; endowments also were established for the Museum of Art and the WSU Libraries’ Manuscripts, Archives and Special Collections. Her gift was among the top ten endowed gifts to WSU from an individual. Bissinger, who grew up on a farm near Tekoa, graduated from WSC in 1933 with a bachelor’s degree in English. She was a former student of Frank Potter, who was instrumental in founding the philosophy department. After his death, she anonymously provided the support to start the Potter Memorial Lectures, which annually have brought in renowned philosophers from throughout the country.

The Faculty Senate has approved a status change from Program to Department for Women’s Studies.

Pianist Susan Chan (Music) and noted Cleveland Pops Orchestra violinist, Bulgarian Denitza Kostova performed at the Pullman Presbyterian Church last fall. Their program included works by Suk, Mozart, Franck, and Sarasate-Zimbalist. The duo also performed at the Cleveland Institute of Music, Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio, Gonzaga University in Spokane, and at the Good Samaritan Retirement Center in Moscow, as a community service project.

In February, Heather Streets (History) attended two conferences in Austin, Texas. The World 2000: Teaching World History and World Geography conference was teaching oriented and the Conference on New Imperial History, at the Harry Ransom Humanities Center at the University of Texas, Austin, was by invitation only. Streets spoke on “Military Spin Doctors in Late Victorian Society: The Case of Frederick Roberts.”

Noël Sturgeon (Women’s Studies) was invited to give a keynote speech at the annual meeting of the Great Lakes American Studies Association in April. The theme of the conference is “Culture, Nature, Environment” and she will be giving a talk entitled “Culture, Nature and Justice.”

Robert E. Nofsinger (Communication) and Terry S. Schliesman, Western State College of Colorado (MA Communication, Ph.D. Interdisciplinary Doctoral Program at WSU), presented “Adapting the Turn-Taking System for Televised News Discussion Programs” at the Western States Communication Association convention in February at Sacramento.

Jennifer Wiley (Psychology, WSU-Vancouver) won an $83,172 Office of Naval Research grant to study the effects of web page design on learning from electronic text. Wiley also won a $50,000 grant from the Paul G. Allen Virtual Education Foundation for research on educational browser design.

T.V. Reed (American Studies) was recently elected chair of the Committee on American Studies Programs of the national American Studies Association. This summer he will be a Fulbright fellow at the JFK Institute for North American Studies at the Freie Universitat, Berlin, Germany.

Lance LeLoup (Political Science) was selected to teach in Angers, France, in spring 2001 with the Northwest Council on Study Abroad (NCSA). He will teach a course on “France, Europe, and the Politics of Food and Wine,” as well as act as the site administrator. His course will cover topics including food safety, genetically modified food, and trade relations between Europe and the United States. This semester, Joan Grenier-Winther (Foreign Languages) is teaching in Macerata, Italy, with the NCSA program. Her courses are “Ancient Books, Scripts, and Illuminations, and the Concept of ‘Literacy’” and “Italian Humanism in the Trecento: Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio.” LeLoup and Grenier-Winther are the first WSU faculty to be selected to teach on NCSA programs since the early 1990s.

WSU students may study in the NCSA program. They are required to have one semester of French. Almost all financial aid, federal loans, and scholarships are applicable towards the NCSA and other education abroad programs.

Tahira Probst (Psychology, WSU-Vancouver) won a $1,000 American Diversity Curriculum Development Mini-Grant.

The McSweeney Lab (Kenjiro Aoyama, Christina Compton, Ben Kowal, Fran McSweeney, and Eric Murphy) will make several presentations at the annual meeting of the Western Psychological Association in Portland, Oregon, during April. The presentations are: “A comparison of human and rat maze learning,” “The effects of conspecifics on operant responding in rats,” “Within-session changes in pigeons’ operant responding as a function of pre-session feedings,” and “Dishabituation during multiple schedules produces contrast in pigeons.” The last two won Student Scholarships of $325.

Maureen Schmitter-Edgecombe (Psychology) and her students, Amy Simpson, Naomi Chaytor, Leigh Beglinger and W. Rogers, presented posters at the February meeting of the International Neuropsychological Society in Denver. The posters were titled: “Evaluation of Inhibitory Attentional Mechanisms Following Severe Closed-Head Injury,” “The Influence of Strategy Use on Working Memory Performance in Older Adults,” and “Acquisition of Skilled Visual Search Performance Following Severe Closed-Head Injury.”

Additionally, a manuscript based on Simpson’s thesis project, “Intactness of Inhibitory Functioning Following Severe Closed-Head Injury,” will be published in the April issue of Neuropsychology.

In March, Mary Blair-Loy (Sociology) will be presenting “The Social Context of Work and Employees’ Use of Family-Responsive Policies,” co-authored with Amy Wharton (Sociology), at the Work and Family: Expanding the Horizons conference in San Francisco. This conference brings together academics and policymakers on work-family issues.

Loren Lutzenhiser (Sociology) has been awarded $158,000 by the University of California’s Institute for Energy Efficiency to study the social processes that shape environmental impacts in large commercial and institutional buildings.

David Brody (Criminal Justice, WSU Spokane) serves as a technical adviser to the State Jury Commission, which will host a public forum at WSU Spokane on March 25. The commission wants public comment on ways to improve the jury system. “The commission was created in an effort to make the jury system more juror friendly,” says Brody. It will make recommendations on such items as length of jury service, how citizens may be called, who will be called, the amount of pay for jury service, streamlining of the trial process, and increasing juror participation in the courtroom.

Kathryn E. Meyer (History) and Mary Jane Engh (a Palouse area writer and scholar) were February’s featured speakers for the U of I’s Classical Lecture Series, which is sponsored by their Classics Honorary, Eta Sigma Phi. They will give the same talk, “Rome’s Women in Office: A Greek Legacy?” at the Joint Classical Association of the Pacific Northwest and Classical Association of the Canadian West Conference in Victoria, British Columbia in March. Their presentation, “Window on the Roman Past: Art as a Source for the History of Women,” was the Art a la Carte program for March 2.

Two liberal arts students were among those selected by the Campus Writing Programs for Best Writing Portfolio awards from last fall. They are Marie Kojis Pham (Social Sciences/History) and Stephanie Schweitzer (Economics major, French minor).

Jan Stets (Sociology) received a NSF award entitled “Research Experiences for Undergraduates” which provides $12,000 in additional support for her project “Identity Theory, Justice, and Emotions.” The funds will support the two undergraduates working on her project.

A cover story interview with Alex Kuo (English, Comparative American Cultures) was published in the November/December 1999 issue of the Bloomsbury Review. Also included was one of Kuo’s poems “Coming into Beijing” and a review of his book, Chinese Opera. In the review Kuo is quoted, “The publishers think that American readers prefer to position Asian Americans at the port of entry—quaint, not totally ashore, a thirties kind of realism, marginaliza- tion underlined, still waiting for the boat to go back to the motherland, even after 40 years, even after five generations. Ironically, this view is reciprocated on the other side of the Pacific.” Kuo has just completed a new novel, The Man Who Dammed the Yangtze.

Carol Ivory (Fine Arts) attended the fifth Marquesan Festival of the Arts in December on the island of Nukuhiva, Marquesas Islands.

Greg Hooks and Mary Blair-Loy (both Sociology) received a $5,000 seed money grant from the American Sociological Association/National Science Foundation small grant program to pursue their study of how household wealth influences educational aspiration and attainment.

Maria Cuevas (Sociology Ph.D. candidate) delivered the commencement address at the WSU High School Equivalency Program.

Wanda Costen (Sociology Ph.D. candidate) delivered a presentation entitled “Bridging Cultural Gaps” at the Third Annual Education Conference for the Washington Restaurant Association in Bellevue.

Nicholas Lovrich (Political Science) was named to the American Society for Public Administration’s Hall of Champions for contributions to the organization and field.

Ceramics by Ann Christenson (Fine Arts) are a part of the exhibition “Clay Shapers” at The Gallery on the Hudson in Irvington, New York.

The “Miniatures” exhibition at the Hooks-Epstein Gallery in Houston, Texas, included works by Tamara Helm (Fine Arts).

Chris Watts (Fine Arts) is participating in the creation of an International Reference Collection of original works on paper. His paintings will be housed permanently at Mondriaanhuis in Amersfoort, Netherlands.

The student chapter of the American Choral Directors Association held a meeting with Edward Strauss, a prominent New York musical theatre conductor, via speakerphone in February. Strauss played piano for shows like Pippin, Baby and Your Own Thing. He discussed his field and experiences for 45 minutes. ACDA president Andrew Mielke contacted Strauss initially through the Internet.

Keith Wells’ (Fine Arts) works in glass, titled “Thinking Clearly, are in the CUB Gallery until March 10.

The prestigious Scout Report reviewed and recommended English professor Paul Brians’ “Nuke Pop” Web site at http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/nukepop/. The Report also gave him kudos for his Online Study Guides site at http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/guides_index.html, “…guides to an extensive library of works, including texts in the fields of science fiction, world history, eighteenth and nineteenth century European classics Renaissance and World Literature, and the Bible.”

As a guest lecturer, Epifanio San Juan gave an “Introduction to Diaspora” in Stanford University’s Winter Colloquium Series in February.

Lisa Jorgensen (student, Communication) 1999-00 president of the Jay Rockey chapter of the Public Relations Students Society of America, received two awards at the National PRSSA Conference last fall in Anaheim, Calif.– a National Presidential Citation for her leadership skills and chapter dedication, and a Codispoti Technology Grant for her interest and knowledge of the high-tech communication industry.

A WSU, one-act play, “A True Promise,” was selected for the Regional American College Theatre Festival /NWDC in Boise in February. The play was written by Jason Secatello, a communication major.

Charles Neufeld (Music) presented a workshop on Musical Milestones of the 20th Century: Using Music in Secondary Social Studies at the national convention of the National Council for Social Studies held in November in Orlando, Florida.

E. San Juan (Comparative American Cultures) gave a talk in February at the Colloquium on “Asia and Asia America: Crossing the Boundaries” at Stanford University, California.

Delia Aguilar (Comparative American Cultures, Women’s Studies) gave a presentation, “Interrogating Feminism in an International Context,” at a conference sponsored by Nature, Society, & Thought in Reno, Nevada, in October.

Sue Armitage (History) is serving a three-year term as co-president of the Coordinating Council for Women in History, a well-known women’s organization founded in the 1970s to advance the status of women in the historical profession. At the recent meeting of the American Historical Association in Chicago, CCWH gave major awards to help two women graduate students complete their dissertations, and a major award of $10,000 to a nontraditional (that is, someone without a regular tenured position) woman historian.

Tim Kohler (Anthropology) and Sander van der Leeuw (archaeologist, Université de Paris) have received funding from the Santa Fe Institute, New Mexico, to organize an international transdis- ciplinary conference next winter in Santa Fe on conceptualiza-tions of human/environment interactions and their evolution through time. This will be the first in a two-conference sequence for computer modelers, anthropologists, landscape historians, and biologists.

Jay Wright, Jennifer Wiley, and Rebecca Craft (all Psychology) each received seed grants from the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Program at WSU. Their work will focus on the effects of alcohol on reading and memory loss and sex differences on reactions to opioids, respectively.

Tom Brigham (Psychology) gave a keynote address at the California Association for Behavior Analysis annual conference in San Francisco in February. He spoke about AIDS education and sexual decision making.

Jack Dollhausen’s (Fine Arts) sculptures were shown at the Art and Technology exhibition “A Marriage for a New Millennium“ at the Bush Barn Art Center/A.N. Bush Gallery in Salem, Oregon.

Camille Roman (English) had three essays on the poets Robert Frost and Elizabeth Bishop published this fall. An anthology, “The Women & Language Debate: A Sourcebook,“ which she co-edited and published in 1994 , has been published in an online edition available through netlibrary.com. She is on sabbatical as visiting scholar in English at Brown University.

The just-published March 2000 issue of Lingua Franca concludes an article about the dispute over Sacagawea’s meaning and legacy by quoting Orlan Svingen (History), a leading expert on the Lemhi Indians, her native tribe.

Delia Aguilar (Comparative American Cultures, Women’s Studies) published an article, “Questionable Claims: Colonialism Redux, Feminist Style,” in Race & Class, Jan.-March 2000.

Val Limburg (Communication) was commissioned to write four articles for the Encyclopedia of Radio. One article was on WSU’s alum, Edward R. Murrow. Limburg was also named to the state’s newly formed Washington News Council, which handles complaints about media coverage of issues. He has also been named to the Washington State Bar Association’s Council on Public Legal Education, a task force to institutionalize education about the role of the individual in our constitutional republic.

A volume entitled Dynamics in Human and Primate Societies, edited by Tim Kohler and George Gumerman, director of the Arizona State Museum, has just been published by the Santa Fe Institute and Oxford University Press (http://www.santafe.edu/sfi/publications/Bookinforev/kohnew.html).

Lance LeLoup (Political Science) has just had a new book published entitled Budgeting, Management and Policymaking: A Comparative Perspective. Co-authored by Bogomil Ferfila, it was published in Slovenia by the University of Slovenia Press.

An essay by Jim Short (Sociology) entitled “Criminology through the Lens of Theory, Ideology, and Research” was published in the fall 1999 issue of Sociology Inquiry. It reviews four recently published books in the field.

Marta Maldonado (Sociology Ph.D. candidate) is the first author of an article entitled “Owning and Contesting El Yunque: Forest Resources, Politics, and Culture in Puerto Rico” in the Berkeley Journal of Sociology, volume 44.

Scott Akins and Robert Griffin (Sociology Ph.D. candidates) published an article entitled “Multiple Birth Rates and Racial Type: A Research Not Regarding r/K Theory” in the January-February 2000 issue of Deviant Behavior: An Interdisciplinary Journal.

American Studies graduate student Dorothy Graber has an article on “Indian Artifact Collection in Court” in the most recent issue of Wicazö Sa Review: A Journal of Native American Studies published by University of Minnesota Press.

Nicolas Kiessling (English) has recently published two articles, “Anthony Wood, Thomas Gore and the Use of Manuscript Material,” in the June 1999 issue of The Library, and “The Library of Anthony Wood,” in the October issue of Bodleian Library Record. Kiessling will be a senior visiting member at Linacre College, Oxford, during Hilary and Trinity terms, January to June 2000. He will retire in August after 33 years of service to the Department of English.

Tahira Probst (Psychology, WSU-Vancouver) recently published an article, “Wedded to the job: Moderating effects of job involvement on the consequences of job insecurity,” in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology.

A book by Bonnie Frederick (Foreign Languages), “Spanish for Veterinarians: A Practical Introduction,” was published this month by Iowa State University Press.

William Willard (Anthropology and Comparative American Cultures, emeritus) was guest editor of the spring 1999 issue of the Wicazö Sa Review: A Journal of Native American Studies. The issue was devoted to indigenous resistance and persistence. Among the contributors were WSU faculty and students: Tracylee Clarke (Communication graduate student), Mary Katherine Duffié (’94 Anthropology alumna), Donna Dwiggins (Anthropology graduate student), Mario Gonzales (’97 Anthropology alumnus), Dorothy Graber (American Studies graduate student), Darcy James (’97 Sociology alumna), James Stripes (Comparative American Cultures instructor), and Willard, who was among the founders of the journal.

Epifanio San Juan (Comparative American Cultures) had an article published in “Bakhtin: Uttering the ‘(Into)Nation’ of the Nation/People” in Bakhtin and the Nation by Bucknell University Press. His collected poems in Filipino have been printed in a book titled Materyales Alay Sa Paglikha Ng Bukang-Liwayway: Mga Tula 1960-2000 by Quezon City: Ateneo University Press. Two of his books are now in paperback, Beyond Postcolonial Theory and From Exile to Diaspora. “Thinking Beyond Postcolonialism: An Interview with E. San Juan “ was carried in the Tamkang Review last summer.

A book by Ray Sun (History), Before the Enemy is Within Our Walls, Catholic Workers in Cologne, 1885-1912: A Social, Cultural and Political History was published by Boston: Humanities Press, a subsidiary of Brill Academic Publishers in 1999.

An article by Carol Ivory (Fine Arts), “A Coconut Container from the Marquesas Islands,” appeared in the first volume of a new journal, Arts and Cultures, published in Geneva, Switzerland by the Barbier-Mueller Museum.

Zheng-min Dong has a paper entitled, “Elliptical Sentences,” accepted for publication in the journal Russkij yazyk za rubezhom (Russian language abroad), No. 1, 2000, Pushkin Institute of Russian Language, Moscow. This journal is the organ of the International Association of Teachers of Russian Language and Literature.

March 1-10  “Thinking Clearly,” works in glass by Keith Wells, CUB Gallery.

March 1  Anthropology Colloquium, “Late Paleoindian, Cody Period Mobility Patterns in Hell Gap Locality V Site, Wyoming,” Ed Knell, WSU, College Hall 125, 12:10 p.m.

March 2  Faculty Recital: Gerald Berthiaume, Piano and James Schoepflin, Clarinet, Bryan Hall Theatre, 8 p.m.

March 6  All-College Address, Dean of Liberal Arts Barbara Couture, Food Science Human Nutrition building T-101, 4:00 p.m. Questions at 4:45. A reception will follow in FSHN T-101.
Via WHETS: in Spokane–MFC B-110; in Tri-Cities–TC 210W; in Vancouver–CL 117.

March 7  Asia Program Colloquium, “Religion & State Are Twins: Mysticism and Prophecy in the Formation of Islamic Modernity,” Cornell Fleischer, Todd 133, 4 p.m.

March 7  Choral Concert, Bryan Hall Theatre, 8 p.m.

March 8  Anthropology Colloquium, “Dining on Rats and Duikers: Ethnoarchaeological Research on Hunting and Sharing Among Contemporary Hunter-Gatherers in Central African Republic,” Karen Lupo, WSU, College Hall 125, 12:10 p.m.

March 10-12  Conference, Environmental Justice 2000: Building Coalitions for Environmental and Economic Justice. (See story.)

March 21-31  Photo Exhibit: Echoes of Asia, CUB Gallery, by Marina Tolmacheva, 30 years of photos of Inner and Central Asia.

March 22  Anthropology Colloquium, “Spontaneous and Sponsored Migration of the Yi in Southwest China,” Hua Han, WSU, College Hall 125, 12:10 p.m..

March 23  Women’s Music Concert, Bryan Hall Theatre, 8 p.m.

March 24  Big Band II, Bryan Hall Theatre, 3:10 p.m.

March 24-26  “Truth and Meaning,” Inland Northwest Philosophy Conference, U I and WSU. Public Forum, Moscow Community Center, Friday 7:30 p.m. (See story.)

March 24  “The Women’s Liberation Movement: Thirty Years Later,” Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Wilson 13, 2 p.m.

March 25  Honor Band Day and Chamber Music Workshop. All day. Concert, Bryan Hall Theatre, 7 p.m.

March 25  Washington State Jury Commission’s Public Forum, hosted by WSU Spokane Criminal Justice Program, Phase One Classroom Auditorium, 1 p.m.

March 25  Crimson Company Free Show, Gladish Auditorium, 2 p.m.

March 28  Comparative American Cultures Film Series, Turumba, Wilson 13, 7 p.m.

March 29  Anthropology Colloquium, “Weaning/Caregiver Context: Toddlerhood Among Central African Bofi Foragers,” Hillary Fouts, WSU, College Hall 125, 12:10 p.m.

March 30  Wind Symphony/Symphonic Band, Bryan Hall Theatre, 8 p.m.

The third annual Inland Northwest Philosophy Conference will be held March 24-26 at University of Idaho and WSU. The topic is Truth and Meaning. The conference runs from noon Friday through early afternoon on Sunday. Friday evening, the Public Forum on Truth and Meaning will be held at the Moscow Community Center. This event is open to the public and will begin with a panel of experts in a variety of fields including religious studies, history, philosophy, physics, and literary theory, responding to the question, “Is truth an illusion?” followed by general discussion. Steve Kale (History) and Dean Barbara Couture will be members of the panel.

A Northwest regional gathering at WSU, March 10-12 will discuss Environmental Justice. This movement is based on the belief that environmental problems have their most damaging impacts on people of color and the poor and that the “voices of those who have typically been silenced” need to be included.

Discussion will center on tribal sovereignty, pesticides and other toxic substances, nuclear power, farm worker rights, and healthy and sustainable agriculture. Tribal members, farmers, agricultural workers, community activists, students, teachers, lawyers, and policymakers are invited. Featured speakers are Dolores Huerta, co-founder and secretary-treasurer of the United Farm Workers of America; Richard Moore, coordinator of the Southwest Network for Environmental and Economic Justice and past chair of the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council to the Environmental Protection Agency; and Yalonda Sindé, director of the Community Coalition for Environmental Justice in Seattle.

Sponsors are Community Coalition for Environmental Justice; the Center for Environmental Education, the Women’s Studies Program, and the American Studies Program at WSU; and the Race and Ethnic Studies Institute at Texas A & M University. Check the Web site at http://www.wsu.edu/~amerstu/EJ2K/ej2k.html. or call 335-5957 for more information, the agenda and registration form.

The WSU Speech and Hearing Clinic will offer free hearing screenings to the public on May 6, in conjunction with Self Help for Hard of Hearing People’s National Day of Hearing Testing. Thanks to Dick Franks, who will supervise screenings from 10 a.m. to noon in our Pullman clinic and Jeff Nye, who will supervise from 9 a.m. to noon in the Spokane clinic.

Professor of English Louise Schleiner died February 22 in Davis, California. An authority on 16th-Century British Literature, Louise was known for her new interpretations of writers of the English Renaissance and her discovery of forgotten women writers of the period. She was also known for the unusual depth and inclusiveness of her classroom instruction.

Louise received her Ph.D. from Brown University in 1973 and was hired by WSU in 1984. She was named the department’s first Buchanan Distinguished Professor in 1997. Her death followed a long struggle with ovarian cancer. Survivors include her husband, Winfried, of Davis, and three daughters. Her colleagues remember her conviction that their department should be a community and believe her presence helped make it so. Some of her poetry can be seen on the Web at http://www.wsu.edu/~schleine.

Memorial donations may be made to the English Language and Literature Fund, earmarked for Schleiner graduate student awards. A WSU memorial service will be at 4:10 on April 7, in the Bundy Reading Room.

Western Regional Institute for Community Oriented Public Safety has hired John Turner to be executive director, effective March 1. John received a B.S. in Police Science and Administration from WSU in 1971, before the creation of the criminal justice program. He retired his position as chief of police for Mountlake Terrace, Washington, in February. “WRICOPS is fortunate to attract a person of his quality as executive director,” said Michael Erp (Political Science, WSU Spokane).

Two WSU Communication graduates are among the producers of a feature film, “The Basket,” which was filmed in the Spokane region and near Kahlotus. They are producer-director Rich Cowan ‘79 and co-producer/production manager Ian Kennedy ‘97. The movie, which won the Best Family and Children’s Film award at last year’s Breckenridge Festival of Film, was recently picked up by a theatrical distribution company which expects to release it nationally in May. The movie was produced by North By Northwest Productions of Spokane.