Puget Sound's first Taiwan Culture Night brings Chinese community together

For some of Jeff Tepper’s geology students, the lakes around Puget Sound offer fertile ground for summer research.

What’s it like to start college in the middle of a pandemic? We reached out to our fellow members of the Class of 2024 to see how things are going.

Chlöe Brew ’21 explores ancient gender roles and power structures with the help of two very different Greek goddesses.

Under ordinary circumstances, Dana Levy ’21 has a lot going on. 

Levy is double majoring in English and gender and queer studies (GQS) with a minor in music. He’s also a violinist and active member of the Puget Sound LGBTQ community. (Levy identifies as transmasculine.) 

Last summer, however, looked like it would be pretty quiet. The coronavirus had nixed any prospects for a summer job, and by early June, the California native was, he says, “sitting around, twiddling my thumbs.” 

“It feels good to help,” Zoe Love ’23 said over a Zoom call from her childhood bedroom in Evergreen, Colo.

Like a lot of current students, Zoe is trying to make sense of everything that’s going on. Thrust into her old life when COVID-19 seemed to change everything overnight, she moved back in with her parents when Puget Sound classes went online a week before spring break.

Called Handshake, the career search platform launched in January, replacing LoggerJobs. Sue Dahlin, associate director of career and employer engagement, says the platform is more than a place to find career and internship opportunities. “It’s a hub for all things related to the career search,” she says.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began its domination of the global news cycle in February, the virus has served as a framework around which to discuss a host of other topics. One of the most notable: the shortcomings of the American health care system, specifically the limited number of ventilators. In March, the American Hospital Association estimated that up to 960,000 Americans could become sick enough to require ventilation—but the United States only had about 200,000 machines.

Kaela Hamilton ’20 presented her senior thesis research in biology in late April from a room in her boyfriend’s house in Tempe, Ariz. Using her laptop and Google Meet software, she showed a series of slides about her research on the composition and distribution of epiphytes on bigleaf maple trees while her advisor, Assistant Professor Carrie Woods, and about two dozen faculty members and students watched from their respective homes.

Dining and Conference Services staff members do their best to meet the needs of students