There’s an intriguing collection of books on display now at Collins Memorial Library. It’s called Science Stories, and the exhibition is appropriately named—they are, after all, stories about science. But these aren’t typical books; instead, artists from the Pacific Northwest have taken scientific research by faculty members at Puget Sound and other nearby schools, and interpreted that work into an array of imaginative “artist books.”
Soon after the first cases of COVID-19 were reported in the U.S., Allie Highsmith ’22 started hearing people call it the “the China virus,” the “kung flu,” and other xenophobic names. As a double major in Chinese language and culture and sociology and anthropology, Highsmith wanted to study how people cope with anti-Asian sentiment during the pandemic. Soon after she submitted her summer research proposal, a gunman killed six Asian women in Atlanta, bringing the subject of hate crimes directed at East Asian Americans into the national spotlight.
Marshall Casebeer ’22 didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about the rights of North African women or anti-corruption efforts taking place in the Middle East—but he does now. As an intern with the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations, Casebeer works with Reconnaissance Research, a think tank dedicated to building ties between the United States and Kuwait to tackle issues like authoritarianism and refugee crises in the Persian Gulf. Through the program, he's getting to conduct research with far-reaching implications for the region.
On the rooftop of Thompson Hall, Adam Schmidt ’23 emerges in a white jumpsuit, a wide-brimmed hat with a mesh face veil, and thick protective gloves. Carefully, he approaches the hive, a 5-foot-tall stack of wooden boxes located behind a greenhouse near the roof’s edge. Schmidt, a molecular and cellular biology major, isn’t interested in these bees for their honey—he wants to study their brains in an attempt to understand the progression of neurodegenerative diseases in humans.
Tacoma, Wash. – University of Puget Sound will launch a Master of Public Health (M.P.H.) program as part of its ongoing commitment to preparing graduates for leadership in a rapidly changing world. A search for a director for the new program will be conducted this summer, in anticipation of enrolling the first class as early as fall 2021.
Tacoma, Wash. – University of Puget Sound’s School of Music has named Tracy Doyle as its new director. Advocacy, equity, and community engagement are at the heart of her work as a musician, educator, and leader, and her artistry and innovative thinking will enhance the School of Music’s commitment to guiding students toward outstanding achievements in performance, scholarship, and teaching. Doyle will begin her tenure on July 1.
Tacoma, Wash. – University of Puget Sound Provost Laura Behling, Ph.D., has been appointed to the inter-institutional peer-mentoring network for the ASCEND Project, a $1 million grant-funded National Science Foundation (NSF) initiative to support the advancement of mid-career STEM women faculty members across colleges and universities.
Tacoma, Wash. – In June, the Archives and Special Collections in the University of Puget Sound’s Collins Memorial Library were awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grant to support the creation of primary resource digital toolkits for use in university classes and research. The grant is part of $40.3 million in new funding from the CARES Act supporting essential operations at cultural institutions across the country.
McMaster’s 34 years of service in the U.S. Army include multiple tours of duty and 13 months as a national security advisor in the Trump White House. His talk will draw from his best-selling book Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam and his soon-to-be-released book Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World.
