Archive: stories

  Once they were migrant and seasonal farm workers. Soon they’ll launch careers in health care.   CAMP, the College Assistance Migrant Program, is a federally funded program designed to help young people from migrant and seasonal farm worker backgrounds enroll in — and succeed at — the nation’s colleges and universities. Eastern’s program, led…

Along with his students, an EWU chemist takes his place among the quantum vanguard. Few recent scientific developments are as promising to contemplate, or as maddeningly difficult to comprehend, as quantum computing — a process in which the 1s and 0s of traditional digital processing are replaced with the exponentially more capable quantum bits, or…

Kelsey Hatch-Brecek, EWU’s new director of alumni relations, shares her Eastern story.   I am thrilled to be back at my alma mater as the new director of alumni relations. And since every Eagle has a story, I’d like to share my Eastern journey with you.  Back in 1999, I was a senior in high school…

Auriana Mitchell brings a youthful perspective to Eastern’s 130-year-old governing body.  Beginning in the 1970s, the nation’s higher education governing boards gradually began to acknowledge that student voices deserved a place at the table. Though the state of Washington was a little late to the game, for just over two decades its regional university boards…

Travel restrictions fail to deter Eastern’s determined geologists.   Covid-19’s disruptions over the past year-and-a-half haven’t just affected indoor learning at Eastern, they’ve also upended many of the outdoor experiences that make higher education in the magnificent Inland Northwest so rewarding. Happily, organizers in EWU’s geosciences program found a way to preserve perhaps the premiere…

After a year-and-a-half long pandemic-induced hiatus, Eastern’s interim president celebrates students’ return.   On a near-perfect, end-of-summer Tuesday in September — less than 24 hours before the university’s much anticipated return to in-person instruction — Eastern’s interim president, David May, took the stage in Showalter Auditorium to deliver an emphatic message: “We are back!” “There…

A new, NSF-supported project aims to unravel one of nature’s enduring mysteries.   For decades, biologists have grappled with questions involving nature’s way of distributing plants and animals: Why, in short, are some species found all over, while others barely budge from their ancestral homes? The search for solutions is more complicated than one might…

The pandemic isn’t over, but Eastern is celebrating its return to ‘near normal.’ By Melodie Little Back in March 2020, just a week after the EWU men’s basketball team learned its appearance in the NCAA Tournament had been canceled, the university announced there would be a one-week extension of Eastern’s typical week-long spring break.  The…

Joddie Gleason, Eastern’s new women’s basketball head coach, aims to elevate a program in search of titles.   Helping student athletes flourish both on and off the basketball court is the goal for Joddie Gleason, who in November made her debut as head coach of Eastern’s women’s basketball team. Gleason comes to Eastern from Seattle…

For one of the world’s most accomplished athletes, nothing has come easy. By Charles E. Reineke It was raining as EWU student and Team USA Paralympian Jaleen Roberts settled into the starting blocks at Tokyo’s Olympic Stadium — a light but steady downpour, just like the PNW showers she’d trained in back home.  The 2020…