EduCoug wouldn’t presume to suggest that Cary Anderson has been around as long as the Compton Union Building (which, can you believe it, once had parking right out front!), but he’s seen the CUB change along with a lot of other things on the Pullman campus. Cary, an information technology specialist for the college, was honored this fall as a 25-year WSU employee. But he came to campus for the first time in 1977 as a journeyman union painter working on an addition to Bustad Hall.

Cary recalled the changes in a recent note, which read in part:

“The changes I have seen across the campus include beautiful walkways that have been put in where barely a small dirt path used to be going from Cleveland Hall to the CUB. Also I’ve seen the main road system repaved on Stadium Way and changes made at crosswalks and traffic lights. Also deep trenches dug on Stadium Way to accept the fiber optic cabling that now lies beneath the asphalt. There used to be trailers set up close to the Columbia/Chinook apartments that students rented but they were hauled away sometime in the late ’80s. I believe the name of the trailer court was OB Court (it’s a vague memory now). Included in the remodels on campus, and more recently completed, is the CUB building, which has been a huge upgrade for faculty, staff, and students. I can remember that building being very dark, crowded, and dreary. Now it’s nicely decorated with wide walkways, seating areas, restaurants, printing facilities, banking, movie theater, ballroom, Bookie, etc.”

Stacy Mohondro, assistant to the dean, was also recognized as a Quarter Century Club member at WSU Pullman. She began as a campus operator and worked for awhile at the WSU Foundation, but has spent most of her time being indispensable to College of Education administrators.  She came to the college in1986, working first for Dennis Warner when he was chair of what was then the Department of Educational and Counseling Psychology. The current search for a new dean is Stacy’s third. She helped out in 1991 when Bernard Oliver was hired, and in 1998 when Judy Mitchell came on board.

College of Education members who previously joined the Quarter Century Club are Arreed Barabasz, Lynn Buckley and Ruby Latham.

Kudos
When WSU neuroscientist David Rector spoke recently about the art of writing grants, he noted that, five years ago, it would have been unusual for a graduate student to write a grant.  He would be impressed by education doctoral candidate Cara Preuss’  100-page federal grant application, which landed $30,000 with which to document the skills of Latino child care providers.

Associate Professor Gordon Gates has been appointed to Educational Administration Quarterly’s Editorial Board by the executive committee of the University Council for Educational Administration. … Interim Associate Dean Corinne Mantle-Bromley has accepted an invitation to to serve on the Association of Colleges for Teacher Education’s Committee on Research and Dissemination.

Dressed for sustainable success
As an adjunct faculty member at WSU Tri-Cities, Yi-Chien Chen Cooper integrates arts into the education curriculum. She was inspired when Academic Director Liza Nagel mentioned needing a dress made from recycled material for an upcoming fund-raising event.  Cooper decided to have students at her private art studio make dresses as a pilot program and teach about the results.  The young designers presented their creations at a Richland Moon Festival style show.  Joining them on the runway and in the video was Cooper’s 3-year-old daughter, Katherine, whose Dillard’s bag dress was made two hours before the show.

Bad news for clock watchers
WSU Pullman has announced that it will no longer replace classroom clocks that stop working.  While it is true that watches, phones and computers can also provide the time, this marks a cultural shift after generations of students and faculty have tried– more or less often in their academic careers — to mentally speed up the slow-moving hands on the clock.