Dean's Message

Dear Colleagues,

As happens each year, April finds us all working hard to bring another academic year of teaching and research projects to a close in the midst of celebrations honoring our students and faculty as graduation nears. This issue of the Chronicle may help bring a little order into this busy chaos by helping you plan your schedule for the month. Be sure to include time to attend the College Fellows Address delivered by our first recipient of the College Fellows Award, Mary Blair-Loy, on April 17. Mary will be speaking about her continuing research on how executives in the workplace balance career and family obligations. I invite you, also, to attend our annual College Awards Ceremony on April 30 from 3-5 p.m. in CUE 518, where we will be announcing recipients of our college teaching, scholarship and service awards and celebrating with our colleagues.

In the midst of these “end of year” activities, we are continuing to work together on several issues facing our college and university. On April 24, our chairs and directors will discuss departmental responses to the report of the college Committee on Recruiting and Retaining a Diverse Faculty. Outcomes of that discussion will help direct our recruiting plan for next year. In early May, the chairs and directors will discuss together the recent report to the regents on the newer (branch) campuses. Dean Hal Dengerink, who is chairing an 18-month effort to direct the implementation of the report’s recommendations, will be joining us for this discussion. I invite you to read the report at <http://www.wsu.edu/president/campus-recommendations.html> and bring to the attention of your unit director your thoughts and concerns.

Finally, I wish to assure you that we are working closely with your department and program leaders to protect our academic programs in the face of continuing budget challenges. During the months of May and June, I will be meeting with each of your program administrators to set priorities for the coming year. We will present our college budget to Provost Bates in August, following this careful review and incorporating the input of our Dean’s Advisory Committee on Resource Allocation. I invite you to tell me of your concerns for the future of your program and professional development as we engage in this process.

Best wishes,

Barbara Couture, Dean
College of Liberal Arts

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Worthy of Note

  Meredith Newman (Political Science, WSU Vancouver) has been elected to the executive council of the Section on Ethics of the American Society for Public Administration for a three-year term.

  Jim Short (professor emeritus, Sociology) received the Outstanding Service Award from the WSU Foundation. The award is not given every year, but is given occasionally in recognition of special service on the part of faculty or staff. Previous recipients include Leo Bustad, Bob Smawley and Gen DeVleming.

  A book version of Paul Brians’ (English) popular Web site Common Errors in English was published March 20 by William, James & Co. and distributed by Franklin, Beedle & Associates. The paperback volume, enhanced with period illustrations and finding aids, is called Common Errors in English Usage and will sell for $12. More information about the book, plus a sample section in PDF for downloading, is available at www.wmjasco.com/89-9.html.

  Gail Chermak (Speech and Hearing Sciences) presented an invited workshop on management of auditory processing disorder at the annual convention of the Speech-Language-Hearing Association of Virginia in Richmond, Va., March 21. She will present an invited presentation during an all-day institute on new trends in science and clinical practice in auditory processing disorder at the annual convention of the American Academy of Audiology (AAA) in San Antonio, Texas, on April 3. Chermak will also present a paper on advanced case studies in auditory processing at the AAA convention.

  In March Sally Johnston (Speech and Hearing Sciences) presented a workshop on diet modification and other compensatory strategies for patients with dysphagia (swallowing disorders) to adult day health staff at Gritman Medical Center in Moscow, Idaho.

  Michael Delahoyde (English) presented a paper, “De Vere’s Lucrece,” at the Seventh Annual Edward de Vere Studies Conference in Portland, Ore. The cult devotes itself to showing the 17th Earl of Oxford as the author of the works published under the pseudonym Shakespeare.

  Jeannette Mageo (Anthropology) will be chairing a session entitled “Gender and Sexuality” at the eighth biennial meetings of the Society for Psychological Anthropology in San Diego and presenting a paper entitled “Theorizing Sex/Gender Systems.”

  Ed Weber (Political Science) will present two papers at the upcoming annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association in Chicago. One provides an assessment of government agency attempts to use collaboration to implement the federal endangered species law for salmon in Washington state watersheds, and the other is a first step at theory building with respect to the behavior of innovative, successful public managers in a wide variety of policy areas, including responses to terrorist attacks, environmental policy and the rebuilding of blighted urban neighborhoods, among other things.

  Don Dillman (Sociology) gave one of four invited presentations at a National Science Foundation sponsored workshop on stability of methods for collecting, analyzing and managing panel data at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Cambridge, Mass., March 26-27.

  Greg Yasinitsky (Music) will be featured as a guest artist (composer and saxophonist) at the British Columbia Interior Jazz Festival in Kelowna, B.C., in April. Yasinitsky will also be the guest artist (conductor, composer and saxophonist) this month for the Clarke College Honor Jazz Band in Dubuque, Iowa. This event will feature an “all Yasinitsky” program. Yasinitsky’s new piece for concert band, “First Flight,” will be featured as the title track on a CD to be released this summer by the USAF Band of the Golden West. The piece was commissioned by the band in celebration of the first powered flight by the Wright brothers.

  Marina Tolmacheva (History) was interviewed on KGA radio (Spokane) on the subject of the Iraq war. Tolmacheva has been invited to join the KGA “War Council” convened on the air by talk show host Rick Miller. In March, she traveled to Syria and Lebanon and gave a lecture on “Medieval Muslim Women Travelers” at the American University of Beirut. In February, Tolmacheva participated in a weeklong international workshop held at the Villa Serbelloni in Bellagio, Italy. The theme of the workshop was “Middle Eastern Islam from Afar.” She presented a paper on “Middle Eastern Genealogy in Central Asian Islam.”

  John Streamas (Comparative Ethnic Studies) participated in the “New Voices in American Studies” symposium at the University of Wyoming in late March. Each of the six invited participants, chosen from nominations of recent PhD’s in the field, delivered a 45-minute presentation of recent work and was paired with a senior scholar to discuss the work (for Streamas, Barry Shank of The Ohio State University’s division of comparative studies). The symposium was based on a similar program hosted at Harvard, in which a small number of recent PhD’s in American studies and related fields were brought together with established scholars to share their work and discuss the future of the field.

  Lori Wiest (Music) conducted the Spokane Symphony Chorale in a concert in Spokane on March 21. She is currently preparing the chorale to perform the “Damnation of Faust,” composed by Berlioz, with the Spokane Symphony on May 9.

  Ann Christenson (Fine Arts) continues through April as visiting artist at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. As part of her residency her ceramics will be featured in New Bedford, Mass., at the ArtWorks! gallery during June.

  Michelle Kendrick (English, WSU Vancouver) and Laurie Mercier (History, WSU Vancou-ver) received a Vancouver CLA summer overage grant to begin work on a Media and War Web site. The site will be a teaching tool focusing on how to examine, critique and teach various media coverages of war.

  Chris Watts (Fine Arts) opens Wednesday, April 2, at Spokane Falls Community College with an exhibition of his paintings and constructions entitled “Number Structures, Marks to Sounds.” He will present a lecture in connection with the exhibition on Thursday, April 3, at 11:30 a.m. in the SUB AB with a reception following the lecture in the Art Gallery, Building 6. The exhibition runs through May 3.

  Clare Wilkinson-Weber (Anthropology, WSU Vancouver) has been selected to be this year’s visiting scholar at the South Asia Center of the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington. As part of her appointment, she will present colloquia on her recent research into Hindi cinema.

  Congratulations to Laurie Carlson (PhD candidate, History), Mary Watrous-Schlesinger (History) and Madelsar Ngiraingas (senior, Women’s Studies), Women of Distinction honored at the 2003 Women’s Recognition Luncheon March 27. Bettie Steiger (BS ‘56, Political Science) was named Woman of the Year.

  Marilyn Lysohir and Ann Christenson (both Fine Arts) continue an exhibition titled “In Form: Six Ceramic Artists” at the Archer Gallery on the campus of Clark College in Vancouver, Wash. The show runs April 1-25.

  Barbara Couture (dean, College of Liberal Arts) presented a paper entitled “From Private Commitment to Public Responsibility: Practicing Transformational Rhetoric” as a member of the panel “Transforming the Writing Subject: The Private and the Public in Composition Studies” at the Conference on College Composition and Communication on March 21 in New York City.

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Professional Productivity

  Robert Eddy (English) is a coauthor of “Should We Invite Students to Write in Home Languages? Complicating the Yes/No Debate,” published in the spring issue of Composition Studies.

  Julie Andsager (Communication) is currently president of the Midwest Association for Public Opinion Research. She has an article, “Racial and Regional Evaluations of Newspaper Columnist Credibility by Race and Sex,” forthcoming from Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly. Andsager also has three papers accepted for presentation at the American Association for Public Opinion Research conference in May, one with Douglas Blanks Hindman (Communication) and one with Paul Bolls (Communication).

  Meredith Newman’s (Political Science) coauthored article (with Robert Jackson and Douglas Baker), entitled “Sexual Harassment in the Federal Workplace: The Efficacy of Sexual Harassment Abatement Training,” will appear in the July/August 2003 edition of Public Administration Review.

  Andrea Mason, a writing instructor in the Department of English, has placed her essay “The Inaccessible Sun” in the Gettysburg Review. The Review is one of the country’s leading literary journals. Mason graduated from the University of Idaho’s MFA program last year.

  Ed Weber (Political Science) published a book with MIT Press titled Bringing Society Back In: Grassroots Ecosystem Management, Accountability, and Sustainable Communities.

  Michael Allen (Sociology) and Anne Lincoln (PhD candidate, Sociology) have had their article on “Critical Discourse and the Cultural Consecration of American Films” accepted for publication in Social Forces, one of the leading journals in sociology. The research examines the reputational careers of American films and explains why some films are considered to be great now even though they might not have been considered exemplary at the time of their initial release.

  Jim Short (professor emeritus, Sociology) wrote the foreword to Violent Crime: Assessing Race and Ethnic Differences, edited by Darnell F. Hawkins and just published by Cambridge University Press.

  Val Limburg (professor emeritus, Communication) has written an article in Media Ethics, fall 2002, entitled “The Teaching of Journalism Ethics: Taught, Caught, or Bought?” He also presented a lecture on Edward R. Murrow at the Skagit County Historical Museum in La Conner, Wash., an area where Murrow grew up and attended high school. He continues to work on a history of the Murrow School of Communication, including a history of the 30 years of Murrow Symposia.

  Yolanda Flores Niemann (Comparative Ethnic Studies, Tri-Cities) has a chapter, “The Psychology of Tokenism: Psychosocial Reality of Faculty of Color,” forthcoming in the Handbook of Racial and Ethnic Minority Psychology from Sage Publications. She coauthored Black-Brown Relations and Stereotypes, recently published by the University of Texas Press. In addition, she edited Chicana Leadership, published by the University of Nebraska Press, to which she also contributed “Chicanas: Dispelling Stereotypes While Challenging Racism, Sexism, Classism, and Homophobia.”

  Leonard Burns (Psychology) and Marcela Moura (PhD ’01, Psychology), with colleagues Rapson Gomez from the University of Ballarat, Australia, and James Walsh from the University of Montana, published an article in the March issue of Psychological Assessment. The title of this article was “A multitrait-multisource confirmatory factor analytic approach to the construct validity of ADHD rating scales.” The editor of the journal, Steve Haynes, asked George DuPaul to write a comment on the paper, with Burns, Gomez, Walsh and Moura then writing a comment on the comment.

  Clayton Mosher (Sociology, WSU Vancouver), Thomas Rotolo (Sociology), Robert Griffin (PhD candidate, Sociology) and Scott Akins (PhD ’02, Sociology) have had their article “Adult Substance Use: Causes and Consequences: A Focus on American Indians” accepted for publication in the Journal of Drug Issues.
     Mosher and Akins’ article “Prison Records” has been accepted for publication in the Encyclopedia of Social Measurement (Academic Press). Mosher’s article “Criminal Justice Records” has also been accepted. In addition, Mosher and Dretha Phillips’ (SESRC) “Evaluation of the Pine Lodge Residential Therapeutic Community” has been published on-line by the National Institute of Justice.

  Michelle Kendrick’s (English, WSU Vancouver) coedited collection, Eloquent Images: Word and Image in the Age of New Media, is coming out in July from The MIT Press. The collection of essays is on the enduring complex relationship between word and image, from hieroglyphics to new media.

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Student Activities and Awards

  Laurie Carlson (PhD candidate, History) received a $500 travel award from the American Society for Environmental History to present “Alcohol the Farmer’s Fuel: Washington State Grange and the Alcohol Fuel Movement, 1907-1919” at its meeting in Rhode Island on March 27. She also organized the panel, which was called “Paths Not Taken: Alternative Fuels and the Hegemony of Petroleum” and included scholars from Virginia, Georgia, Finland and New York City. Carlson is currently teaching Hist 380, History of Medicine, for the Department of History.

  Carli Crozier Schiffner (PhD candidate, History) received a student-nominated teaching excellence award at Lewis Clark State College in February for her work with nontraditional students.

  Elizabeth G. Wilmerding (PhD candidate, Anthropology) was awarded the James VanStone Graduate Scholarship for $750 from the Alaska Anthropological Association. She is working on her dissertation about a prehistoric archaeological site in the Aleutian Islands. She will use the award monies to pay for things like carbon dates, fish bone identification and analysis, and flotation samples of organic material associated with her dissertation research. These will help to explain what the Aleut people at the site ate and the environmental conditions existing at the time of the site’s occupation.

  Teresa Tsushima (PhD Candidate, Sociology) has accepted a tenure-track assistant professor position at Iowa State University.

  Michael Egan (PhD candidate, History) participated in the WSU Wiley poster exposition, presenting “Knowing Sin: Science, Ethics, and the Principles of Progress,” work from his dissertation. Egan has been invited to a Hagley Museum symposium on “Monitoring the Environment” in July. His paper, “Leaving It to the Experts: Resisting Reductionism and the Environmental Crisis,” will examine some of the problems involved in using narrow frameworks to set environmental controls.

  Victoria M. Arthur (PhD candidate, English) had an essay, “Wielding Authority in the Non-Authoritative Classroom,” published in March in Conflicts and Crises in the Composition Classroom—and What Instructors Can Do About Them.

  Michael Brown (PhD candidate, History) has been invited to present a paper, tentatively entitled “Intersectionality in Progressive Era Browne’s Addition: Scandinavian Immigrant Servants in Early Twentieth Century Spokane, Washington,” at the 93rd annual meeting of the Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Studies, to be held at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, at Minneapolis May 1-3.

  Douglas Habib’s (PhD candidate, History) book review of Army Regulars on the Western Frontier, 1848-1861 appeared in the winter 2002 edition of the Pacific Northwest Quarterly.

  Congratulations to Liberal Arts majors Audrey Houser (senior, English, WSU Vancouver), Tyler Hawkins (senior, Business Administration, Comparative Ethnic Studies), Marianne Refuerzo (sophomore, Journalism, Spanish) and Marilyn Johnson (junior, Philosophy), four of the six undergraduates who submitted the best University Writing Portfolios for fall 2002.

  Ryan Sain (PhD candidate, Psychology) has received notice that his master’s thesis, “The effects of a threaded component on student satisfaction and performance,” was accepted for publication by the Journal of Educational Computing Research.

  Fernanda Martinez (MS candidate, Psychology) coauthored “Learning in children and sleep disordered breathing: Findings of the Tucson Children’s Assessment of Sleep Apnea (TuCasa) prospective cohort study,” in press with the Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society.

  Joanna Mann-Jones (MS candidate, Psychology) was awarded a “student presenter grant” by the Association for Behavior Analysis for the ABA convention in San Francisco in May for her undergraduate thesis, “Dextromethorphan Modulation of Associative Morphine Tolerance.”

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Alumni News

  Nikolus Meisel (MFA ‘02) recently installed his sculpture for a solo exhibition in the University Center Gallery at the University of Montana, Missoula. The show opened March 24 and runs through April 18. The sculptor will present a slide lecture at 4:30 p.m. on Friday, April 18.

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New Building Opens in Vancouver

On Feb. 24, the College of Liberal Arts in Vancouver celebrated the grand opening of the new Multimedia Classroom Building, WSU Vancouver’s newest teaching and research facility. The building is home to state-of-the-art classrooms and computer laboratories, while also housing Liberal Arts faculty and staff. Guests at the open house were part of an African libations ceremony led by Nana Kwaku Mensah, who poured libations to the ancestors and spirit world to bless the building and its occupants (in Twi with translation), and then enjoyed live Latin music and dance performances featuring visiting Cuban master drummers Juan D’Dios Ramos and Miguel Bernal with Omó Iré direct from Havana. The Liberal Arts program at Vancouver is led by Director Candice Goucher (History).

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Student Musicians Take National Honors

Flutist Sophia Tegart (senior, Music) won second place in the Solo Woodwind Division of the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) National Competition held in Salt Lake City in March. She is a student of Ann Marie Yasinitsky (Music).

The WSU Sextet returned from the national competition with third place in the Collegiate Chamber Music Division. The sextet, coached by Gerald Berthiaume (Music), is composed of Tegart on flute, Mary Doornink (junior, Music) on piano, Sarah Wilson (senior, Music) on clarinet, Sarah Blake (second-year Veterinary Medicine) on oboe, Adam Zahand (senior, Genetics and Cell Biology) on bassoon and Jonathan Kirk (senior, Bioengineering) on horn.

Pictured l.-r. are Doornink (seated), Tegart, Kirk, Wilson, Zahand, Blake.

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2003 Faculty Tenure and Promotion

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29th Edward R. Murrow Symposium to Honor Fallen Journalist Daniel Pearl

The life and career of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl will be honored at the Edward R. Murrow Symposium April 16. Pearl, the South Asia bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal, was kidnapped and murdered in Karachi, Pakistan, last year while working on a story related to terrorism.

“Daniel Pearl’s career and ultimate sacrifice exemplify the highest ideals of journalism,” said Alex Tan, director of the Edward R. Murrow School of Communication. “The faculty of the school thought it especially fitting to make the award posthumous this year to honor Pearl not only for his journalistic achievements but also for his efforts at building bridges between cultures.”

The award, which will be presented to Daniel Pearl’s family in his honor, is the Edward R. Murrow Award for Distinguished Achievement in Journalism.

“We are told,” said Tan, “Pearl’s family is honored and touched by this gesture.” According to Tan, Pearl’s parents have agreed to accept the award or to send a family representative in the event of conflicting schedules. The presentation will be made in Beasley Coliseum at 7:30 p.m. on April 16. Immediately after the award presentation there will be a panel discussion, “War and Words: The Challenge for Today’s Journalist.”

“War and Words: The Challenge for Today’s Journalist”

Moderator
Peter Bhatia, executive editor of the Oregonian and incoming president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors. Bhatia is a member of the Edward R. Murrow School of Communication advisory board.

Panelists
Bryan Gruley, Wall Street Journal. Gruley wrote one of the two lead stories in the Journal’s 9/12/01 issue, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for spot news reporting. He led a multi-bureau team of reporters probing the 9/11 attacks. He was also a friend of Daniel Pearl.

Thomas Kent, deputy managing editor, Associated Press, New York City.

Peter Kovach, former director of the U.S. Department of State Foreign Press Center.

Susan Ross, associate professor, Edward R. Murrow School of Communication. Professor Ross has done extensive research (and published) on issues of free speech, access to information and coverage of underrepresented groups in the media.

Danny Schechter, author of Media Wars: News at a Time of Terror and executive producer and cofounder of Globalvision, New York City. Schechter is executive editor of MediaChannel.org, the world’s largest online media issues network.

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"Who Speaks for America?" Series Continues

Native American poet Joy Harjo spoke at Washington State University March 26 as part of the “Who Speaks for America?” lecture series, organized by the Department of Comparative Ethnic Studies. Created by Professor Alex Kuo nearly 20 years ago, the series brings accomplished poets, writers and activists to share diverse views with residents of the Palouse and the WSU community throughout the year.

Harjo read and sang poems from her latest collection, How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems, 1975-2001, as well as a new poem, “NO,” which appears on the Poets Against the War Web site.

NEXT UP: This year’s series concludes with African American poet, novelist and essayist Ishmael Reed on Friday, April 18, at 7:30 p.m. in CUE 203. Recent works include Another Day at the Front: Dispatches from the Race War and the edited volume From Totems to Hip-Hop: A Multicultural Anthology of Poetry Across America.

Since receiving widespread attention with the publication of The Free-Lance Pallbearers in 1967, Reed has become a celebrated novelist, poet and publisher, who is sometimes called a rabble-rouser and controversial giant of the American literary culture. He went on to become a MacArthur fellow and American Book Award and Pulitzer nominee who is best known for his use of parody and satire to challenge the formal conventions of tradition. Reed has also lectured at some of the country’s greatest universities including Harvard, Dartmouth, Yale and Berkeley.

In addition to his writing accomplishments, Ishmael Reed was also a cofounder and serves on the board of directors of the Before Columbus Foundation, a public foundation established to promote American multicultural literature.

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NOTICE OF VACANCY
ARTS PROGRAMMING COORDINATOR
Washington State University

Position Available: Half-time, 10-month arts programming position. Serves as the executive secretary of the Visual, Performing and Literary Arts Committee (VPLAC), manager of the Compton Union Gallery and coordinator of the Art a la Carte noontime art series.

Qualifications:
(Required): Bachelor’s degree; three years experience (professional or volunteer) with arts programming. Computer literacy. Strong organizational, interpersonal skills and multitasking skills. Strong writing skills. Ability to work independently as well as a member of a team. Ability to work well with a variety of constituents (community, artists, university departments, students). Needs to be able to work a flexible schedule, with some nights and weekends. Should possess an appreciation for all aspects of the arts.

(Preferred): Master’s degree, graphic design experience, experience with staging exhibits and/or performances, grant writing, familiarity with Washington State University resources and area arts resources.

Salary Range: $18,000–$20,000, plus benefits.

Application: Send cover letter, resume, and names and contact information of three references to: Search Chair, Campus Involvement Arts Programming Coordinator, c/o Soleil Martel, Washington State University, P.O. Box 647204, Pullman, WA 99164-7204.

Application review begins: April 10, 2003, and continues until the position is filled.

Washington State University is an EEO-AA employer. Protected group members are encouraged to apply.

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