by Shannon Goss | WWU

Courtesy of Dave Wilhite

Lisa Megard, pictured racing in Bellingham Bay, participated in the Whidbey Island Race Week in Oak Harbor from July 12 to 17. Megard raced on a 1Design 35/Carroll Marine (35 ft. sailboat) named Extreme with owner/boyfriend John Gerity and a crew of eight, all from the Whatcom County area.

Western Washington University’s faculty and staff summer travels might make wish you had an extra ticket out of Bellingham.

Max Barahona, an instructor in the Communications Department, and wife, Judith White, a Spanish instructor in the Modern Classical Languages Department, are spending most of their summer in Paris. Barahona and White are students at La Sorbonne in the Cours de Civilisation Francaise, improving their French and knowledge of French culture.

Lisa Megard, coordinator of programs and web communication in the Career Services Center, participated in the Whidbey Island Race Week in Oak Harbor from July 12 to 17. Megard raced on a 1Design 35/Carroll Marine 35-foot sailboat named “Extreme” with owner/boyfriend John Gerity and a crew of eight, all from the Whatcom County area. The annual regatta hosted 94 boats and over 500 racers from the Pacific Northwest and Canada for five days of racing, live music, friends and fun. This was Megard’s seventh year participating.

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This is the first story in a summer series looking at the WWU Faculty Senate and its role on campus.

by Matthew Anderson | WWU

Photo by Matthew Anderson | WWU

Above: 2008-09 Faculty Senate President Matthew Liao-Troth, right, sits next to WWU President Karen Morse during the recent Faculty Senate dinner in the Solarium. Liao-Troth takes over for 2007-08 Faculty Senate President Jeff Newcomer. Next to Liao-Troth is his wife, Sarah. Next to Morse is her husband, Joe.

With the recent negotiation of a contract between Western Washington University and the United Faculty of Western Washington faculty union, the dynamic of governance on campus is shifting.

Just how will the Faculty Senate, the voice of the faculty, adjust? What is the senate’s role?

“The Faculty Senate has absolute say over all academic matters,” says Matthew Liao-Troth, chair of the Management Department and the Faculty Senate president for the coming year.

With the new contract in place, the faculty union now holds sway over matters of employment and working conditions, two items that once were under the Faculty Senate’s aegis, Liao-Troth says. Everything else, he adds, still is under the jurisdiction of the Faculty Senate.

That means the 30 senators elected from across the colleges represent and speak for faculty interests in matters of academics such as curriculum, budgeting and planning and technology, among others.

“We give the president and provost an awful lot of advice,” Liao-Troth says.

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The event brings in notable guests and attracts national attention. Pulitzer Prize winners have presented. But how is the Bellingham Visual Journalism Conference put on? And who’s responsible?

by Matthew Anderson | WWU

Attendees walk through the doors in scores, prepared for a professionally presented and useful conference on the world of visual journalism.

They aren’t disappointed.

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photo by Mick Cunningham | WWU

Street images such as this one are still common in Belfast today, 10 years after the signing of the Good Friday Peace Accords that effectively ended the civil war in Northern Ireland.

Western Washington University Associate Professor of Sociology Mick Cunningham is researching how years of conflict in Northern Ireland has reshaped the country's cultural perceptions of its families.

"How does growing up in a context of conflict - with all the experiences that occur within wars - impact family life? How does it change roles within the family, and destabilize them? That's what this research looks at," Cunningham said.

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Crowder

by John Thompson | WWU

Western Washington University Professor of Sociology Kyle Crowder has received a two-year, $141,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health to continue his investigation into the effects of neighborhoods on families.

More specifically, Crowder's research, done in conjunction with his collaborator, Scott South at the State University of New York at Albany, looks at how the neighborhood in which you live changes your opportunities and outcomes, especially in adolescents.

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Millie and the Mentshn, a self-described "chamber klezmer" band comprising five area musicians—three of whom are Western Washington University professors—is trying to capitalize on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

The local quintet is one of just five bands from the United States—and only 20 worldwide—to capture an invitation to the inaugural KlezFiesta music festival in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

The nine-day festival takes place this fall, meaning Millie Johnson and her four mentshn (sounds like "mention" and is the plural for "mentsh," which in Yiddish means "a person of good character") have only a few months to raise the $6,000 they think it’ll take to fly them the 13,930 miles to Buenos Aires and back.

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by John Thompson | WWU

Deaf children with cochlear implants are better able to understand and develop certain types of social-reasoning skills, according to a new study by Western Washington University’s Kimberly Peters.

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