Back 2 Bellingham events bring 7,000 people to campus

The annual Party in the Library drew hundreds to the Wilson Library Reading Room for drinks and appetizers. Photo by Zeck Koa | WWU Alumni

Western Washington University’s Third Annual Back2Bellingham reunion weekend May 18–20 was the most successful to-date, drawing nearly 7,000 people to campus and exceeding university expectations with sold-out shows and events Thursday through Sunday.

About 81 percent of Back2Bellingham registrants traveled from nine different states, British Columbia and the District of Columbia to attend the weekend’s festivities.

“All major player hotels were sold out the entire weekend,” said Cheryl Collins, visitor services manager for Whatcom County Tourism.

“We were just delighted to have such a diverse group of alumni, current and future students, parents, faculty and staff, as well as neighbors from the community join us for the biggest Back2Bellingham yet. This gathering to celebrate the distinctive excellence and community that is Western is becoming one of the year’s highlights,” said Western President Bruce Shepard.

Honors Program graduates bright, gifted students

Western sophomore Angela Gelfer, a geology honors student and member of Western’s NCAA champion women’s rowing team, conducts research at Locust beach in Bellingham on May 17. Photo by Michelle Naranjo | University Communications intern

Western sophomore Angela Gelfer has always been a kind of student who enjoys challenging herself. At Western, she found her niche in the Honors Program, a rigorous academic program for highly motivated and excelling students. Gelfer, a geology student and member of Western’s NCAA champion women’s rowing team, finds a way to balance rigorous classes that include lengthy labs and a sport – in her case, one that is both physically demanding and time-consuming. That’s the way of life for most honors students at Western.

Admission to the program is based solely on academic record, and while Honors students are high academic achievers, the program attracts some of the university’s most balanced and involved students. Like Gelfer, many of them are also athletes or musicians – generally well-rounded individuals who know how to juggle many responsibilities and activities.

The program appeals to high-achieving students, says Honors Program director and history professor George Mariz, because of the attention they receive here. With about 60 honors students per year graduating and a low professor-to-student ratio, students have access to private-college education within a larger university – without the hefty private-college price tag.

The past few years have seen high student interest, with about 480 applicants in 2010, about 530 in 2011 and a record-shattering 870 this year. One of every 11 students who applied to Western this year also applied to the Honors Program.

Mariz has noticed an overlap between students who are applying to Western Honors and students applying to private small liberal arts colleges, and in some years, even the larger, more well-known schools such Stanford, Rice and Yale.

Honors courses are not necessarily harder, he says; they are just a different kind of work. They’re discussion-based and push for critical thinking.

“Our classes are small, they’re highly interactive – there’s a lot of interaction between students and faculty, a lot of interaction among students themselves,” Mariz says.

$1M gift kicks off athletic field project

A project is under way to create a fully lighted and fenced artificial turf play field sized for regulation soccer in space currently used as intramural athletics fields in south campus. Courtesy photo

A $1 million gift from Western Washington University alumnus Scott Harrington and his family has helped begin the process of building a modern new multipurpose athletic field at WWU. This project will create a fully lighted and fenced artificial turf play field that is sized for regulation soccer and will serve as the new home of Western’s NCAA Division II men’s and women’s soccer teams. It also will be an important resource for Western recreation programs and intramurals.

“The contributions of the Harrington family along with the visionary leadership of the student recreation committee have combined to move this project forward,” said Marie Sather, director of Campus Recreation at Western. “Data indicates that approximately two-thirds of WWU’s student body actively participates in club, intramural or NCAA division II sports. With such strong and growing participation rates, there is an evident need to both expand field space on campus and develop fields that serve multiple purposes.”

“This field project is significant of course for Western, we’ve had a shortage of on-campus field space for some time, and our soccer teams have been playing off-campus for years,” said Lynda Goodrich, director of WWU Athletics. “It will also be a resource for the community. There are currently only two other all-weather turf fields in Bellingham – Orca Field and Civic Stadium – that are regulation-sized for soccer. We’re thrilled that we’ll be able to host other major sporting events at this first-class facility.”

Sather added, “I’m excited and delighted that the Recreation Center Advisory Committee (RCAC) recognized the need for additional multi-purpose field space on campus. This new facility will serve the growing needs of the intramural and sport club system, such as flag football, rugby, lacrosse and ultimate frisbee.”

From Window Magazine: 'Artistic Gifts'

Virginia Wright (right) poses with Mark di Suvero as he assembles “For Handel” in 1974. Wright bought the soaring I-beam sculpture for Western after losing out on a different di Suvero work that would eventually resurface at Dartmouth College. | Photo by Jack Carver (’40); courtesy Whatcom Museum

How much art can you buy with a million bucks?

That was the question Virginia Wright faced in 1969, when her father, Northwest timber baron Prentice Bloedel, gave her a million dollar endowment and a mandate to buy public artworks for the region.

Mr. Bloedel’s gift came as a surprise: He didn’t really like contemporary art. But he knew what made his daughter tick – and that she had the passion, the knowledge and the connections to make his investment a pretty safe bet.

He was right. Since that time, the Virginia Wright Fund has reshaped the landscape of Northwest art and provided the driving force behind Western Washington University’s nationally acclaimed Outdoor Sculpture Collection. Of the collection’s 25 artworks, the Virginia Wright Fund purchased five and partially paid for two others. Six more works were donated from the Wrights’ private collection. Mr. Bloedel would surely be pleased.

If you have a lot of money, giving it away is easy enough. But if you want your money to make a difference, it takes vision, research, hard work and the guts to go out on a limb. Those are qualities that set that Virginia Wright and her late husband, Bagley, apart from the crowd and made them a power couple whose impact on this region’s cultural life began well before Prentice Bloedel endowed the Virginia Wright Fund. Their work has since extended far beyond it.

Read the rest of this story on the website for Window magazine.

Go with the flow

Western Washington University student Jesus Velazquez practices the art of FLOEball in Red Square. A form of meditation, a martial art, an exercise and a game, FLOEball (FLOE stands for "For Love of Energy") has its roots at Western.

Author Stacey Levine to read from her work May 24

Award-winning fiction author Stacey Levine will read from her work at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 24, in room 110 of the Science, Mathematics and Technology Education (SMATE) building at Western Washington University.

The event is free and open to the public. It is sponsored by Western’s Department of English and the Cold Beverages Fund.

Levine is the author of “My Horse and Other Stories,” which won a PEN/West Fiction award and the novels “Dra---“ and “Frances Johnson,” which was a finalist for the 2006 Washington State Book Award. Her collection “The Girl With Brown Fur: Tales and Stories” was published in 2011. Her fiction has appeared in the “Denver Quarterly,” “Fence,” “Tin House,” “The Fairy Tale Review,” “Yeti” and other venues.

Born in St. Louis and a University of Washington graduate, Levine has contributed to “The Stranger,” “The Chicago Reader,” “The Seattle Post-Intelligencer” and other publications. She received a Stranger Genius Award for Literature in 2009, and has received a number of writing grants and fellowships. Levine's work has been translated from English into Danish and Japanese.

No permit is required to park after 4:30 p.m. in the gravel lots 12A and the C lots south of the SMATE building, near Fairhaven College. Parking meters require payment all hours.

2012 Alumni Award recipients on campus all day Friday

Western Washington University presented its alumni awards to 10 individuals and a legacy family at its 2012 Alumni Awards Ceremony last night. The award winners span a wide range of accomplished alumni, including leaders in business, education, public health, performing arts, the environment, and human services.

The distinguished alumni gathered for another breakfast this morning with university leadership and will spend the day on campus giving lectures and meeting with faculty and staff from their respective colleges.

“We are very proud of these exceptional alumni award winners. They are representative of a spirit of excellence so often found among our alumni – outstanding achievement and the determination to make a difference in their communities, professions and our world,” said Western President Bruce Shepard.

Bike to Work and School Day is Friday

Sophia McCloy, then a student member of the Western Washington University cycling team, chats with (left to right) students Jesse Acosta, Dianne Huynh and Rebecca Anderson, Communication Department faculty member Jennifer Karchmer, and students Mandi Brady and Hannah Bostwick at a celebration station near the Wade King Student Recreation Center on Friday, May 21, 2010. File photo by Matthew Anderson | WWU

Bike to Work and School Day is Friday, May 18.

Tomorrow, pedestrians and cyclists may stop by a local celebration station for a treat and prizes. Station attendants also will applause bikers and walkers as they pass.

Two celebration stations will be set up on the Western Washington Unviersity campus from 6:30 to 10:30 a.m.; one will be in front of the Wade King Student Recreation Center, and the other will be near Red Square.

Twenty other stations will be set up in the Bellingham area, with several more in further reaches of Whatcom County.

For more information about BTWSD or cycling resources contact The Sustainable Transportation Office at (360) 650-7960 or transportation@wwu.edu. Also, visit http://www.biketoworkandschoolday.org.

Western to hold open auditions May 18 for summer show

"Conventicle of Curiosities." Photo courtesy of Rachel Bayne

Western Washington University’s Department of Theatre and Dance is looking for local dancers and actors to appear in its summer dance performance, “Conventicle of Curiosities.” The department is holding an open audition from 4 to 6 p.m. Friday, May 18, Performing Arts Center Room 16.

The audition is open to students and community members of all levels of ability.

“Conventicle of Curiosities” will feature new works by WWU Dance faculty Nolan Dennett and Penny Hutchinson, as well as a reconstruction of Dennett’s master work of the same title inspired by the photographic art of Robert Parke-Harrison. The original premiere of Dennett’s work was at the Dance Faculty Concert in April 2012.

“Conventicle of Curiosities” will be performed for the public at 7:30 p.m. on July 26 and 27 in the Western Gallery.

Reminder: Seattle artist Cable Griffith to lecture today at 4

"Aeaea," by Cable Griffith (courtesy of the artist)

Cable Griffith, a Seattle-based artist and curator, will present his work in a public lecture at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, May 16, in Communications Facility Room 105 at Western Washington University. The lecture is sponsored by Western’s Department of Art and is free and open to the public.

From Window Magazine: 'Down to Earth'

George "Pinky" Nelson is Western's director of Science, Mathematics and Technology Education. | Photo by Dan Levine

Weightless and untethered in the vastness of outer space, astronaut George “Pinky” Nelson maneuvered toward the errant satellite for the world’s first in-orbit satellite repair.

The date was April 11, 1984, but Nelson’s trip into space had really begun back in 1957 when the Soviets’ Sputnik 1 soared over him and his Illinois farm town. The 7-year-old boy was already dreaming of the stars after gaping at a two-tailed comet through binoculars from a neighbor’s back porch. But the sight of a Soviet satellite ringing the planet galvanized the U.S. into pouring billions into science research and development; the Space Race to dominate the skies launched Nelson’s career as an astronaut.

Back in Mission Control, a room full of nervous engineers and Cold War-era military brass watched on screens as Nelson inched closer to the satellite. His colleagues on the Challenger space shuttle, trained test pilots who wished to God they were out there instead of the red-haired astrophysicist tooling around in a real-life jetpack, crowded together to peek at Nelson through a window.

He moved forward, nice and stable like in the simulations back on Earth. The satellite was rolling ever-so-slowly; he moved the Manned Maneuvering Unit to dock onto the satellite.

And bounced right off. Twice. Nelson grabbed the solar array, but the darn thing wouldn’t stop rolling through space.

Read the rest of this story on the website for Window Magazine.

From Window Magazine: 'Haiti: Home of her Heart'

Analiesse Isherwood (’11) first came to Haiti before the quake to bring toys to children and medical care in a mobile clinic. Now she has much bigger plans for the nation she says is the home to her heart. | Photo by D. Leal Olivas

It was intended to be the Christmas toy giveaway in the church. Christmas. Church. Cité Soleil. Boy. The nearly naked boy.

In Cité Soleil [site so-lay, Sun City] the poorest slum in Port-au-Prince, the chaotic capital of Haiti, Analiesse Isherwood (’11, Behavioral Neuroscience) came bearing gifts for the Christmas toy giveaway in the church. Boy. She saw the boy on the dirt street in Cité Soleil, naked but for a scrap of undefinable cloth. Plastic bottle on a string. Sitting in the passing tap-tap with her mission team, Analiesse Isherwood had the sack filled with toys – real, American toys – she had spent all her spare dollars on.

She was here to help boys much like that boy, nearly naked, playing with a bottle on a string.

“In my head I had seen this picture of a child accepting this toy and being emotional and touched and overjoyed at having this toy,” Isherwood says, describing how the dolls and stuffed animals and trucks and balls were lovingly pyramided at the front of a church packed with Haitian children and their parents who had assembled for prayer and gifts from an American medical mission team. But instead of a touching moment, Isherwood says, the toy giveaway “ended up breaking out into a mob, and we had to be escorted out by security, shoved into our tap-tap and driven away as fast as we can.”

As she was hurriedly stuffed into the tap-tap (think pickup truck with a tall canopy and benches in back), Isherwood remembers looking over her shoulder to see people throwing punches in a scrum over the toys.

And this was before the earthquake. Two weeks before. “I remember walking away confused at the face of poverty,” Isherwood says.

Read the rest of this story on the website for Window Magazine.

AS to show Sherlock Holmes 2 outdoors Thursday

"Sherlock Holmes 2: Game of Shadows" will play outdoors Thursday, May 17, in an Associated Students Films event scheduled for 9 p.m. on the Communications Facility lawn.

This event is free for the WWU community and the public.