Archive: stories

David May, Eastern’s Interin President, leans into challenging times.   By Dave Meany It’s March 10, 2021. David May is sitting in the president’s office, his office, on the second floor of Showalter Hall. It’s been exactly 365 days since then-Provost May made what would be one of the most consequential recommendations of his professional…

A Big Sky Tournament Championship, and a third March Madness appearance, cap a Covid-plagued season to remember. By Paul Delaney   Last March, after EWU’s men’s basketball team won the Big Sky Conference regular season title, it seemed only a matter of time until the Eagles punched their ticket to their third NCAA Tournament berth.…

Eastern’s head basketball coach accepts the top job at the University of Portland. By Charles E. Reineke Following Eastern’s Big Sky Conference Tournament championship — and a spirited near-miss against the University of Kansas in the first round of March Madness — men’s basketball head coach Shantay Legans announced he was leaving EWU for the…

A snowy seed-sowing session ushers in a prairie’s revival.   Prairie Restoration Project, a multi-year effort aimed at transforming a plot of now fallow Eastern-owned farmland back into its original native Palouse prairie state, got a big boost earlier this winter after a team of faculty, staff and students braved the elements to complete a…

A 10-year, $500,000 gift aims to encourage ‘experiential learning’ at the Catalyst.   EWU research to be conducted at Spokane’s new Catalyst building — the zero-energy engineering marvel featured in the Fall/Winter edition of Eastern magazine — got a big boost earlier this year. The McKinstry Charitable Foundation, headquartered in Seattle, announced in February a…

With cautious optimism, Eastern plans for resuming in-person instruction this fall.   More than a year has passed since the onslaught of Covid-19, a year that has brought unprecedented heartbreak and hardship to people across the globe. From the beginning of the pandemic, Eastern has worked diligently to protect the health of its students, faculty…

Eastern students and alumni are used to attacking rims at Spokane Hoopfest. Now they’re bringing the backboards.   Hoopfest, the massive three-on-three basketball gathering that modestly bills itself as the “Best Basketball Experience on Earth,” now counts EWU as a major sponsor. To celebrate, three university design students, Matthew Barden, Tannor Glumbick and Delaney Umemoto,…

Since 2016, Eastern admissions staff members have partnered with Spokane Public Schools and local-business donors to bring red and black Eagle sweatshirts — and big, beautiful smiles — to local fifth graders.   The hoodie project, started five years ago by an anonymous EWU alumnus, involves Eastern staff and students visiting regional elementary schools, handing…

An EWU program pairs mathematics-education students with the children of health workers.   Eastern students studying to be teachers have had a unique perspective on the upheavals wrought by the coronavirus. They’ve experienced pandemic disruptions both as students and as educators. This double whammy is an unfortunate but potentially profitable experience, says Carlos Castillo-Garsow, an…

When Madison Flint, a senior English major at EWU, sat down to fill out the Winter 2021 Student Satisfaction Survey, it occurred to her that Eastern’s anticipated post-pandemic reopening would likely not come soon enough for her to benefit. “I wish that students who have been enrolled at EWU for the past year could continue…