Don Scott ’91 came to Puget Sound as a student without having seen the campus before. “The fall of my senior year, an admission counselor from the university visited my high school in Great Falls, Mont.,” he recalls. “I absolutely fell in love with everything that she had to say. Puget Sound was a stretch school for me, but it all came together—and those four years were a truly transformational experience for me.”
Ariela Tubert, professor and chair of the Department of Philosophy, has long been interested in the ethics of artificial intelligence. Since 2022, Tubert and her spouse, fellow philosophy prof Justin Tiehen, have shared the James M. Dolliver National Endowment for the Humanities distinguished professorship to study the intersection of humanities and artificial intelligence.
We’ve been seeing stories in the media lately about the value of higher education—and in particular, the value of the liberal arts. Do you encounter that debate in your role as well?
The word “sustainability” gets tossed around a lot and has many different meanings. How do we define it at Puget Sound?
From my perspective, when I look at the history of this institution in addressing sustainability and environmental justice, I think we approach this from the common understanding of the term: We look to meet our present needs without compromising future generations. We focus on three central pillars: environmental conservation, social responsibility, and promoting economic development and growth.
Just south of campus, Erik Waterland DPT’05 runs Waterland Performance, a physical therapy practice he founded in 2019. Waterland has been practicing physical therapy for nearly 20 years; he also works with Puget Sound students as an adjunct professor in the School of Physical Therapy. We asked him what older adults can do to stay in shape.
For Stephanie Cox, books are an essential teaching tool. This spring, not long after the “interim” tag was removed from her title as the head women’s soccer coach, she held a book club with her players. They discussed Brené Brown’s The Gifts of Imperfection, to better understand how they needed to rely on each other and embrace their vulnerabilities.
Professor of Computer Science David Chiu taught his first class at age 22, in grad school, and immediately fell in love with teaching. Since coming to the university in 2014, he’s taught everything from introductory to advanced classes, and in 2022, he received the President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. We talked with Chiu about the golden age of dial-up internet, his research on data management, and creating an inclusive, student-centered classroom experience.
At age 22, just months after graduating from Puget Sound, Jennifer Cramer-Miller ’87 experienced a sudden, life-threatening disease—one that would lead to four kidney transplants over the next 20 years. In a book published this August, Cramer-Miller chronicles the uncertainty, her will to survive, and her determination to find joy. What follows is an excerpt from that book.
