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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photo by Matthew Anderson | WWU

Walter Schwede, a professor of music at Western Washington University, points out a trouble spot in a piece he’s playing with freshman art major Angela Evans during a recent lesson in Schwede’s office in the Performing Arts Center. Schwede recently was named Educator of the Year for 2008 by the Washington chapter of the American String Teachers Association. Like Evans, some of Schwede’s students aren’t music majors but love to play anyway. “It’s unusual to have as a non-music major somebody with her skill level and background,” Schwede said.

by Matthew Anderson | WWU

According to Western Washington University music professor Walter Schwede, his recent award from the state chapter of the American String Teachers Association is another in a long list of examples that WWU’s relationship to the state’s public schools is paying off in spades.

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Story and photos by Matthew Anderson | WWU

There's a tree in the entryway to Pat and Robert Lundquist's Eldridge home that's darn-near bursting with ornaments. Balls, beads and other baubles in variegated shades of purple are marshaled just-so all around the tree, from top to bottom. The everlasting green of the faux branches is hardly visible behind the scads of birds and butterflies. And that's just how the Lundquists love it.

Pat, who works as the assistant to the dean of the College of Fine and Performing Arts at Western, has been decorating this 1940 home with her husband, a private piano, composition and voice instructor, since they moved there 32 years ago. Lights strung along the eaves complement the cottage-style feel of the home, which looks older than it is, Robert says, because it was built by middle-aged people with a penchant for the classic look.

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