In the Media

Tuesday, March 26, 2024 - KGMI Radio

Researchers at Western Washington University (WWU) are teaming up across the border to analyze COVID-19’s impact on travel.

WWU’s Border Policy Research Institute postdoctoral fellow Andréanne Bissonnette says that their next project will be done in conjunction with Simon Fraser University’s Pandemics and Borders Team.

“We’re focusing on equity and travel measures,” said Bissonnette. “The aim of [this] specific project with Simon Fraser University is to give decision makers real data and a real understanding of what’s been going on along the US/Canada border. There’s an absence in either country of a willingness to do a ‘lessons learned from’ this issue.”

Tuesday, March 26, 2024 - Cascadia Daily News

Western Washington University will receive an additional $2.07 million from the state Legislature to expand programming and increase academic outreach, among other smaller expenditures.

The largest buckets of funding from the state’s operating budget went to expand the electrical and computer engineering program ($445,000) and for academic access and outreach programming ($400,000). Western also received $500,000 from the state’s capital budget.

Wednesday, March 20, 2024 - Los Angeles Times

The innovations produced in the pressure cooker of Taiwan’s industrializing economy were shaped by the unique demands of Taiwanese culture at the time, according to Shih-Fen Chen, a business professor at Western Washington University who has conducted extensive case studies of Taiwanese businesses. He sums up the differences between American and Taiwanese 7-Elevens with another aphorism:

“In the U.S. you don’t need 7-Eleven to have a good life,” Chen said. “In Taiwan you cannot have a good life without 7-Eleven.”

Tuesday, March 19, 2024 - The Guardian (U.K.)

When Cameron Whitley was diagnosed with kidney failure seven years ago, the news came as a shock. But the situation was about to get worse. His doctor decided the diagnosis meant Whitley’s hormone therapy had to stop.

As a transgender man, now 42, who had taken testosterone for 10 years, the impact was brutal.

“Not only was I struggling with this new diagnosis that I’m in stage four kidney failure, now I’m being told that I can no longer have hormones,” said Whitley, an associate professor in the department of sociology at Western Washington University. “I cannot describe how horrible that moment was.”

Friday, March 1, 2024 - WGN Radio (Chicago)

Michael Miller, Economics Visiting Assistant Professor, Western Washington University and Professor Emeritus at DePaul University, chats with John about disabled Americans being underutilized in the workforce, and why we should care about the decline of the U.S. dollar as reserve currency.

Friday, February 23, 2024 - Cascadia Daily News

To Western Washington University students, Richard L. Hodges might be best known as the Director of Voice Studies — but to the rest of the U.S., he’s a versatile opera performer, writer, director and composer.

Described as a “powerhouse baritone” by the Wall Street Journal, Hodges’ career has taken him to cities including Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Detroit and, most recently, the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.

Now Hodges is gearing up to perform in the ensemble of “X: The Life & Times of Malcolm X,” the same show he performed at the Met in November 2023. A reboot of the 1986 opera by Anthony, Thulani and Christopher Davis, the production “imagines Malcolm as an Everyman whose story transcends time and space” according to the Met’s website.

Wednesday, February 7, 2024 - Bellingham Herald

We have all been told that going to college and earning a degree is a lucrative investment to make for your future. Although earning a degree in general can have positive effects on your annual income, other factors such as where you get your degree from and what field you received your degree in can also have an impact.

Wednesday, January 31, 2024 - Crosscut

Kristen B. French is a professor of elementary education at Western Washington University who has been teaching a tribal-sovereignty course to future educators since before the new state law, and has worked with University of Washington faculty to develop their curriculum for future teachers.

Over the years, students called this curriculum transformative because they hadn’t learned the material in their own schooling.

French is a registered member of the Blackfeet tribe in Montana and a descendant of Gros Ventre in Montana and Eastern Band Cherokee in North Carolina. She works with other Indigenous professors in Washington to teach the course, which includes an exploration of issues like climate change and salmon restoration that are important to local Indigenous nations.

“Being in community together is also showing our students that this work has to be done in community with each other and we’re modeling working with tribal partners,” French said.

Wednesday, January 24, 2024 - WGN Radio (Chicago)

Michael Miller, Professor Emeritus at DePaul University (and now at WWU), joins John to talk about the disconnect between how the public perceives the economy and the statistical data that shows the economy doing fine.