The Bellingham Herald

• WWU researcher studying climate change in the Bering Sea ecosystem
  David Shull's study of the critters living in the mud at the bottom of the Bering Sea could help reveal how climate change is affecting the world's largest commercial fishery, as well as the people and wildlife dependent on that region in Alaska.
  Shull, an assistant professor of environmental science at WWU's Huxley College of the Environment, is among 94 scientists from 10 states and two countries who have teamed up for a $52 million study of the ecosystem of the eastern Bering Sea shelf, which lies between the Aleutian Islands and St. Lawrence Island.
  

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• WWU's Joseph Garcia named to magazine's ed board
  Western Washington University's Joseph Garcia has been named to the editorial board of The Business Journal of Hispanic Research. Garcia is the associate dean of the College of Business and Economics and director of the new Karen W. Morse Institute for Leadership.
  

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• County's job recovery may take until 2012
  Even as the economy begins to show signs of getting back on track, Whatcom County may not see job recovery for quite some time.
  Local economists are expecting job recovery to take a while, as a series of conflicting data show a bumpy ride. Hart Hodges, director at the Center for Economics and Business Research at Western Washington University, doesn't think job growth will actually begin until 2010 and isn't sure if this area will return to the sub-5 percent unemployment seen in the early part of 2008.
  

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• Youths to set sail at WWU sailing camp
  Young sailors and windsurfers can learn from scratch or hone their skills at the WWU Lakewood Junior Sailing Camps slated to begin Monday, June 22, at the Lakewood Water Sports Facility, located on the south shore of Lake Whatcom.
  

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• Graduation worth the effort despite tough economy
  It is a tough time for high school and college graduates to be entering the job market. The latest unemployment figures, for May, showed 9,260 people actively seeking work in Whatcom County, an unemployment rate of 8.4 percent. Statewide, matters are even worse, with a 9.4 percent rate and 16 of the state's 39 counties with a rate of 10 percent or higher.

Skagit Valley Herald

• Compass 2 Campus gives fifth-graders a glimpse of college life|
  Students whose parents have never been to college can have a hard time of figuring out what steps to take along the way to their dreams, and Cyndie Shepard wants to help them get there.
  Shepard, the wife of Western Washington University’s new president, Bruce Shepard, will bring college students and fifth-graders together in a program called Compass 2 Campus.
  Compass 2 Campus is a pilot mentoring program that will send 450 college students into fifth-grade classrooms in 10 school districts in Skagit and Whatcom counties. In all, about 800 fifth-graders will be served, Shepard said.