Western Today for Monday, April 20

Don Alper the first subject in faculty video series

The Border Policy Research Institute's Don Alper is the subject of the first installment in Lisa Spicer's Faculty Focus video series. Click on the image to see the video, or see it on FAST Online.

NOTE: Earthquake drill set for this Wednesday

WWU is partnering with the City of Bellingham and others to exercise a community-wide damage assessment plan on Wednesday, April 22. The exercise will begin at 9:45 a.m. to coincide with the statewide drop, cover and hold earthquake exercise.

During this exercise, WWU will test the Big Ole steam whistle and the Western Alert emergency messaging system. The steam whistle is the campus-wide signal to immediately find emergency information. Western Washington University will provide Western Alert information via your e-mail, a text message to your cell phone (if you previously subscribed), and the following websites: the University’s emergency communication webpage at emergency.wwu.edu, and the university home page at www.wwu.edu. For more information, click here.

It's CTR Program survey time!

Every two years Western is required by state law to survey employees regarding their commuting practices and usage of the state's Commuter Trip Reduction program, and it is that time again. This week, (April 20-24) please prepare for the survey by noting what method you use to get to work each day, in preparation for filling out the survey next week. All employees will receive a coupon good for a free coffee or chai beverage in campus mail this week, as thanks in advance for participation in the survey!

Click here for more info on the survey.

Today at noon and 4 p.m.

The head of Canada’s Green Party, Elizabeth May, will be among the speakers during spring quarter’s World Issues Forum/Paths to Global Justice lecture series.
May will give two lectures today: “The Climate Crisis: Why U.S. Leadership is Urgently Needed,” at noon in the Fairhaven College Auditorium and “Moving Toward a Green Economy” at 4 p.m. in Fraser 3.

Follow WWU on Twitter

Do you "Tweet?" If so, follow WWU at "wwunews," and get the latest news from the Office of University Communications delivered right to your desktop and mobile devices.

USA Today

Microsoft ready to open a new Window
Julie Larson-Green hopes you'll like Windows 7. Microsoft is counting on her to deliver an operating system that delights the world's PC users as much as its last effort, Vista, disappointed them.
Larson-Green, 47, a 16-year Microsoft veteran, grew up in tiny Maple Falls, Wash., about 100 miles north of Microsoft headquarters. She waited tables to put herself through Western Washington University, then took a job in 1987 answering customer support calls at Aldus, a pioneering software company in Seattle.
"Some people are great at having ideas, and (have) no discipline. Some people are great at discipline, not much at ideas," says Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. "She's got both."

The Bellingham Herald

Fixing this economy through financial education
It may have taken a national economic meltdown, but it appears the problem of financial illiteracy is starting to be addressed.
Last week U.S. Senator Patty Murray, D-Wash., dropped by Western Washington University to talk about legislation she and some of her colleagues recently introduced. The Financial and Economic Literacy Improvement Act of 2009 would provide $250 million in grants annually to states to support programs that teach financial literacy in schools. Many K-12 schools do not have financial literacy classes, relying on programs such as Junior Achievement for help.
During her Western visit, Murray listened to a group of college students who recently completed a study of what their peers know about basic personal finance. Jordan Maughan, Spencer Covich, Simon Trigg and Thomas Evans surveyed 1,200 Western students and found that 60 percent of those surveyed had at least one credit card and that 18 percent have already maxed out at least one card.
Artist profile: Bill Dietrich
Tacoma native Bill Dietrich, whose first full-time job was at The Bellingham Herald covering politics and state government, has been an assistant professor of environmental journalism at Western Washington University since 2006. He shared a Pulitzer prize for coverage of the Exxon Valdez oil spill and he’s a winner of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award and the Washington Governor Writer’s Award. He’s also a novelist; and he reads from his latest historical thriller, “The Dakota Cipher,” at 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 22, at Village Books.
Power deal is critical to Intalco's survival
The future of the Alcoa Intalco Works aluminum smelter hangs in the balance this weekend, as its 500 employees wait to find out if their jobs will survive the latest crisis brought on by a global economic squeeze.
Western Washington University's Center for Economic and Business Research estimates that the indirect impact of an Intalco closure could eliminate another 1,000 jobs, in addition to the 500 that would be lost at the smelter. That would push the county's unemployment rate to 10.4 percent.
Sports wrap: Injuries decimate Viking pitching, lose sixth straight; women's crew sweeps to 5th straight NCRC title at Lake Steven regatta; short-handed T&F teams place third at Central meet

WWU News Releases

The fine print: Western Today is compiled and edited by John Thompson in the Office of University Communications. Some links have time limitations and may not be accessible in the near future. A few articles may require registration to view. If you prefer to be removed from this list, please let us know via the link at the bottom of this document. For upcoming events, faculty research, or faculty and student achievements you would like publicized, please reply to this e-mail; click here to submit news online, or click here to submit entries to our online calendar of events. For the latest Western athletics news and schedules, see http://wwuvikings.cstv.com/. For more on faculty and staff news, see the new FAST Online at http://fast.wwu.edu/.

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