Puget Sound faculty members are mentors, researchers, and impact-makers, shuttling smoothly between the world of their classrooms and the wider study halls of the globe. They are constantly learning and adapting so they can best serve the students they teach as well as make meaningful contributions to their fields. And despite their institution being a relatively small one — with just 175 full-time faculty members — their work has long fingers
and a very wide reach.
KUPS, Puget Sound’s nationally recognized campus radio station, has always had a countercultural streak, playing music well outside the Top 40 and giving airtime to voices you don’t typically hear on commercial radio. So, it may come as no surprise that the station itself arose from a prank. In the spring of 1966, first-year Rockwell Smith ’69 and a few co-conspirators hijacked the carillon system — normally used to broadcast the sound of bells — to play seven-and-a-half minutes of sound effects, including a cacophony of train whistles and car horns.
Sophia Haynes ’27 spent three weeks this summer researching one of these species: the striped plateau lizard. Living and working out of the Southwestern Research Station, located about 5,400 feet above sea level, Haynes studied how the cold-blooded lizard thermally regulates in the heat of the Arizona mountains, and more specifically, whether the lizards take refuge in trees when it’s hotter in order to regulate their temperature.
Dear Loggers,
Welcome to this special issue of Arches. As you flip through these pages, you’ll find a vibrant celebration of the traditions, people, and places that make the University of Puget Sound so deeply special to all of us. Whether it’s the crisp autumn air under the giant sequoia, the hum of collaboration in Collins Memorial Library, or the lifelong bonds formed in our residence halls, we all have our own unique list of what we love about this remarkable place.
When I walk across campus, I am often reminded of the generations of Loggers who have shaped this remarkable university from its earliest days to the present. Some of their stories are preserved in the names of our buildings and gathering spaces, others in the pages of Tamanawas and The Trail, while countless others live on through the relationships they forged, the lives they touched, and the example they set.
In an athletic life that has spanned decades, the latest chapter for Robert Harper ’67 may be his most surprising yet. In the early 2010s, after selling the mutual fund company he helped found, Harper decided to try out CrossFit. He had spent a lot of time on the road during his business career. “I figured I’d just kind of burned my body,” he said from his home on Mercer Island, Wash. “And so, when we sold, I said, ‘Well, I should get in shape.’”
Coming out of college on a softball scholarship, three things were true about Tara Brown Clark ’93. First, she had absolutely no idea that she was creative. Second, she had no idea that an adult onesie would one day change her life. And third — and most importantly — she never imagined how many women she would end up lifting up, including Olympians.
In 1968, when he was 20, Louis Slangen ’69 left his family’s farm in the Netherlands for America. He brought along two suitcases, $200, and a game plan. After spending his senior year as an exchange student at the University of Puget Sound, his plan was to go on to earn an MBA, work in the United States for a few years, and return to the Netherlands. But the best laid plans often go awry — and sometimes, he says, they turn out even better.
Bree Beal ’97 and Lauren DiMaggio Jorgensen ’06 were quintessential theater kids. Jorgensen remembers belting out songs with her Fisher Price microphone, while Beal would dress her stuffed animals in costumes and have them perform short plays she created.
Now, these Loggers form the backbone of BEAT Children’s Theatre in Bend, Oregon.
When Northwest Repertory Singers (NWRS) gather to rehearse, the room fills with laughter, harmony, and an unmistakable bond that connects many University of Puget Sound alumni. This season, that shared energy feels even more special as NWRS celebrates its 25th anniversary and honors a legacy rooted at Puget Sound.