TACOMA, Wash. – University of Puget Sound mourns the passing of President Emeritus Ronald R. Thomas, who died at the home he shared with his wife, Mary, on Vashon Island, Wash., on Monday, April 17, 2023. He was 74 years old.

It’s 6 a.m. in Tacoma’s North End neighborhood, and everything is quiet except for the whistling of a group of white-crowned sparrows high in a tree at the end of an alley. Down below, Amanda Dougherty ’24 is watching the sparrows through her binoculars. She has an app pulled up on her phone to help identify the birds by their song, and she notes how many birds she sees in her notebook. Once she’s made her notes, it’s off to the next street on her route.

Browns Point Lighthouse Park is remarkably silent on a Tuesday morning in late July.

The gentle waves of the Puget Sound, tamed further by the embrace of Tacoma’s Commencement Bay, are barely audible. The hum of cars on nearby WA-509 fades as you walk down from the parking lot to the shore. Even the seabirds, hanging low and lazy in the sky, don’t break the peace. Everything at Browns Point is serene, right down to the quaint little art deco lighthouse.

The quiet makes the sudden excited energy from two barefoot college students seem all the more out of place.

In early August, with the summer sun high overhead downtown Tacoma, Chloe Pargmann-Hayes ’24 climbed the steps of Tollefson Plaza with a paint roller in hand to help put the finishing touches on a massive mural. This was the culmination of months of work to create the city’s first piece of public art honoring the Black Lives Matter movement. Pargmann-Hayes helped make the project a reality through her role as the project’s communications intern. Now, she was assisting the artists with the final touches.

Kris Hay, who has worked in Career and Employment Services for more than 20 years, has compiled a collection of recipes from chefs and restaurants in Tacoma—specifically, ones that thrive on local, sustainable ingredients. She wanted her cookbook, called Tacoma Aroma: Savor the Flavor, to benefit the region so 25.3% of proceeds (a wink to the 253 area code) will be donated to nonprofit organizations like Pierce County’s Emergency Food Network. Here, Hay recommends some of her favorite spots close to campus.

TACOMA, Wash. – College Success Foundation (CSF), a national nonprofit organization that helps students from low-socioeconomic backgrounds achieve their dream of a college education, recently relocated its Tacoma regional office to the campus of University of Puget Sound. The foundation hosted an open house event Aug. 25 for local principals and school officials, community leaders, and more, to show off the new space. 

On a typical weeknight, you can find Capriana Jiang ’23 at the Neighborhood Clinic in Tacoma’s Hilltop neighborhood. Each night, the free clinic sees about a dozen patients. Jiang is a clinical support volunteer, helping clients fill out their intake forms, checking their vitals, and keeping exam rooms clean and well stocked.