CHSS Western Today News

When this longtime WWU staffer retired in 2022, she made sure to leave a legacy for future students

2 weeks 5 days ago
When this longtime WWU staffer retired in 2022, she made sure to leave a legacy for future students thomps94 Wed, 02/28/2024 - 11:11am Dee Dee Lombard retired in 2022 after 37 years at WWU Dee Dee Lombard retired last year after 37 years of service to Western. This image was taken on her first day of work at the university in 1986.

In 2022, DeeDee Lombard retired from Western after 37 years of service to the university. Now, she’s partnering with the Philosophy Department to help support current and future students with a new scholarship. We talked to Dee Dee about her time at the university, and why it meant so much to her to leave a legacy for future students.

How did you get your start at Western?

My aunt (Prof Barbera Unger) was teaching in the Finance/Marketing department at Western and had been encouraging me to check out employment at the university for several years. In 1985 I applied for a position in the Cashiers Office and was hired that spring. While on maternity leave in 1986 I applied for an administrative position in the Chemistry Department and started there in September, 1986.

When did you move to Philosophy?

I transferred to the Philosophy Department in 1993 to take on a higher-level administrative position (Secretary Supervisor) and ended my career as an Administrative Services Manager. This job change was perfect for me and my 2 young children as it started out as a 9 month/6-hour position which allowed me to have time off in the summer and be with them before and after school.

What’s one happy memory from your time in philosophy, or something you miss about the job?

I enjoyed working with the Philosophy Club officers on their annual Philosophy Student Conference, advising transfer students during summer session, mentoring students throughout the year, and helping in the scholarship process every spring. I was blessed to work with so many fantastic Professors and students/majors while working in the department—I was always treated with respect and felt like part of a family.

What have you been up to during retirement?

I have been spending time with family and friends, but especially love the extra time I have with my grandkids, Billie Annemarie (8) and Matthew (6). I’ve been able to help with school field trips, picking them up after school, having sleep overs, and vacations together.

I have also been enjoying traveling; Napa/Sonoma/Sierra Foothills, Las Vegas and a trip to Switzerland/France/Luxemburg/England where my husband and I were finally able to celebrate our 40th Anniversary, my 65th birthday, and retirement (which all happened during Covid). We are organizing an Alaska cruise this year and will be taking a train trip to Banff, Canada in the fall.

How did you first get the idea to start a scholarship in your family’s honor?

I volunteered for the scholarship department for several years screening student applications and while working in the Chemistry and Philosophy departments I helped in the scholarship process and knew how important scholarships are to students to be able to continue their education.

When my aunt, Barbara Unger, passed away in 2019 she blessed me with some money and I thought she would be pleased for some of that money to go to students at WWU where she and I both worked.

Are there any particular hopes that you have for the scholarship?

My hope is that it will give students a little peace of mind knowing that they are getting help with a small part of their education and to be able to list it on applications if they decide to continue their education after WWU or on a job application. Our family feels blessed to be able to help in a small way to help students in their educational career at WWU .

Plans for the DeNora Lombard Family Scholarship in Philosophy were finalized this quarter, and the first annual award will be given out in the spring. The scholarship is made possible by a generous gift from the Lombard family, along with support from the Philosophy Department and other donors. Those wishing to contribute in honor of DeeDee can do so by going to the Western Gives page and searching for the Lombard Scholarship.

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Get paid to speak your language! Linguistics seeks speakers of languages not taught at WWU

1 month 1 week ago
Get paid to speak your language! Linguistics seeks speakers of languages not taught at WWU thomps94 Mon, 02/05/2024 - 10:07am

Did you grow up speaking a language other than English? Is that language not taught at WWU? Are you interested in learning more about your language?

Linguistics is the scientific study of language. Through detailed interviews with language speakers, linguists explore the sounds, grammar and meaning of the world’s languages. The Linguistics Department at WWU is seeking a language consultant for Spring 2024. If this work sounds interesting to you, reach out to us!

Language consultants should expect to participate in several interviews a week with researchers at WWU throughout Spring Quarter, 2024, about 10 weeks. They will be paid a rate of $30/hour.

This position will be in-person at the WWU main campus in Bellingham.

If you’re interested in learning more, contact the research team at virginia.dawson@wwu.edu.

Contact: Virginia Dawson, virginia.dawson@wwu.edu

Hours/Week: 6-10 hours/week

Pay Rate: $30/hour

Job Hours: Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2 p.m. to 3:50 p.m., plus additional time as needed.

Job Duration: 04/02/2024-06/14/2024

AA/EO.  For disability accommodation, please contact Sara Helms, 360-650-3914, helmss@wwu.edu

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WWU grad student Wilson Sackett researching Jewish prayer books in Germany

1 month 2 weeks ago
WWU grad student Wilson Sackett researching Jewish prayer books in Germany thomps94 Thu, 02/01/2024 - 10:44am WWU grad student Wilson Sackett has been awarded a Graduate Research and Creative Opportunities Grant to study Jewish prayer books in Germany.

Sometimes, the journey your research takes you on leads you to uncover unexpected and hard-to-answer questions. Wilson Sackett, an English graduate student at WWU, discovered this when a research trip to Germany to study Jewish prayer books shifted and complicated his studies and opened new possibilities. 

Last spring, Sackett was awarded Western’s Graduate Research and Creative Opportunities Grant to study Jewish prayer books in Germany. In particular, Sackett was interested in how Jewish prayer books in America differ from those in Europe. The year before, Sackett had investigated the effects and influence of Christian arguments about death and mourning on contemporary Jewish practices in America. He wanted to extend this research to investigate whether Jewish mourning practices and beliefs in Europe shared a similar Christian influence.  

As part of his trip, Sackett spent three weeks in Frankfurt and Mainz, where he researched at Jewish libraries at Goethe University of Frankfurt and visited different places in the cities where prayer books were being used, such as the Westend Synagogue. Sackett chose to research in Frankfurt and Mainz because of the cities’ large and active Jewish populations.

During his trip, Sackett observed that while the prayer books in use were structured much like those in America, that “three to four individuals have constructed most of the ways Jewish people are practicing in that area.” This realization shifted Sackett’s research into a case study on those historical thinkers and the ways they have shaped the religious practice of Jewish people in Frankfurt.  

Reflecting on how his research has changed over the summer, Sackett said, “This trip forced me into a conversation about translation and translation studies. Before the summer, that was not the case at all. I started looking into how prayers are being translated, the history of those translations, and why communities are using the translations they are using.” 

While at first, Sackett was mainly interested in Jewish Ashkenazi mourning practices and traditions, by spending time with the prayer books in use in those communities, Sackett began paying close attention to the translation choices different versions were making. One Jewish theorist who was central in Sackett’s understanding of the importance of translation is Franz Rosenzweig. According to Sackett, Rosenzweig saw the prayerbook as “the central cultural text to any living Jewish community” and that the translation that a community uses is the “way in which a culture shares its own world with another.”   

Sackett’s advisor for this project is WWU Associate Professor of English Jeremy Cushman. On working with Cushman, Sackett said, “He’s super supportive and he’s extremely knowledgeable as well. He has an openness to the topic, knowing that the topic is a fairly uncommon one. [Cushman is] helpful, understanding, encouraging—always thinking about how the project can push academic boundaries in some really helpful ways.” 

Sackett also noted that the English Department as a whole has been supportive of his research, and he’s grateful for the faculty’s openness toward religious textual studies.  

This fall, Sackett also received a Ross Travel Grant from Western to attend a Rhetoric and Religious Traditions conference at the University of Memphis, where he was part of a panel with Cushman on rhetoric practices and religion. Sackett presented a paper on the Shema prayer, which will be part of his thesis. 

Currently, Sackett is working on his thesis project and making his own prayer book.

“I’m using my summer research to think about all the decisions that would go into my own prayer book, [including] curation, design, translation, essay writing, and publication,” he said. 

Sackett said he plans for this prayer book to be used within Jewish communities while also serving as a rhetorical account of his translation choices, explaining how he arrived at his particular translations for the Hebrew prayers.

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Research recap: Students working on new research in anthropology and environmental sciences

1 month 3 weeks ago
Research recap: Students working on new research in anthropology and environmental sciences thomps94 Thu, 01/25/2024 - 10:02am Anthropology grad student Jack McBride scans a monkey skull as part of his research into the roles of twins in primate evolution.

Western’s faculty and students are engaged in exciting research and scholarship across a variety of fields, from marine science and climate change to teaching, the humanities, and the arts. Want more research news? Go to Western's News Archive, and select "Research" from the category dropdown menu.

Brandon McWilliams: Let's talk empirical ecocriticism

How do the stories we read change the ways we engage with the environment? What does an adventurous solarpunk story about a tea monk and a robot on a moon called Panga tell us about ourselves? These questions are at the heart of Brandon McWilliams's (they/them) boundary-breaking and interdisciplinary research at Western. 

McWilliams is working towards their master's degree in environmental studies. Last spring, they were awarded Western’s Graduate Research and Creative Opportunities Grant to research the effects of hopeful climate fiction on climate anxiety and intent to act. As part of their study on hopeful climate fiction, McWilliams had 20 participants read A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers over the summer and conducted a series of interviews and surveys before and after participants finished reading the book.  

Brandon McWilliams

Before graduate school, McWilliams used to work with youth climate clubs in Seattle. During that time, they noted that the kids they worked with were very engaged with climate justice, but the kids were also very jaded.

“Something about how we’re talking about climate change isn’t working.” They were curious about the ways storytelling intersects with our behavior and wanted to learn more about “how the stories we consume impact our actions in the world,” McWilliams said. 

To investigate and understand the effects of our narratives about climate change, under the direction of their advisor, Professor of Environmental Studies David Rossiter, McWilliams is working and researching within a new field of ecocriticism: empirical ecocriticism.

According to McWilliams, empirical ecocriticism uses social science methods to test the claims of ecocriticism and is a way of empirically studying the theoretical claims of ecocriticism. 

McWilliams is already noticing some emerging themes from their study. They mentioned that people crave hopeful narratives, but participants struggle to imagine humans actually creating a future like the one in "A Psalm for the Wild-Built." Alongside their thesis research, McWilliams taught an environmental studies class in fall quarter on speculative climate hope. 

While McWilliams is still writing their thesis, they have plans to publish their research findings and help contribute to this understudied and newly emerging field. McWilliams stresses the importance of making their research accessible to a more general audience. 

“If you’re doing this stuff it needs to be applied,” they said, “Otherwise why are you doing it?” 

Jack McBride: Digging deep into primate evolution

Jack McBride is a second-year Anthropology master's degree student who focuses on litter size in primates. Specifically, McBride investigates the evolution of primate reproduction by focusing on twinning in American monkeys. Understanding the origin of twinning, and more about life history variation in general, has implications for conservation efforts, our understanding of habitat fragmentation, and human health and lifestyle.   

McBride was awarded Western's Graduate Research and Creative Opportunities Grant for his work on litter size in primates, which funded his coursework specializing in R, a program he can use to process large amounts of data into a digestible format.   

Under the direction and support of his advisor, Associate Professor of Anthropology Tesla Monson, McBride spent last summer in Washington D.C. at the Smithsonian, where he collected 3D scans of almost 600 primate crania, primarily African and Asian colobine monkeys as well as some American monkeys. All these scans will be digitized and used both by students here at Western and hopefully elsewhere in the future. McBride’s time in D.C. was funded by Dr. Monson’s Leakey Foundation grant. McBride will present his research at the annual American Association of Biological Anthropologists Conference in Los Angeles. 

McBride got his bachelor’s degree in biological anthropology at University of Washington before coming to Western. Since beginning graduate school here, he says, “I’ve felt really, really supported by my mentor--it’s been an awesome experience. I’ve learned to be proactive about what it is I need. Western’s Department of Anthropology is so responsive, and I’ve gotten a lot of good hands-on lab experience while here.” 

As a teaching assistant, McBride says that one of the greatest parts of his experience as a grad student at Western has been his opportunity to teach.

“It’s given me practical experience, and I’m really keyed-in when it comes to the field of anthropology—ready to move forward,” he said.    

As for his time outside the lab, McBride loves scifi books and has a cat named Goose. During his time as a grad student in Bellingham, McBride he has enjoyed running the Padden Mudfest, put on by the Greater Bellingham Running Club. In the coming year, he will apply to doctoral programs in anthropology across the nation and hopes to be on faculty somewhere in the future.   

For more information about graduate programs at Western, visit gradschool.wwu.edu.  

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Pacific Northwest Film Premiere and Panel Discussion to Explore Feminism, Women’s and LGBTQ+ Rights on March 8 

1 month 3 weeks ago
Pacific Northwest Film Premiere and Panel Discussion to Explore Feminism, Women’s and LGBTQ+ Rights on March 8  thomps94 Tue, 01/23/2024 - 10:33am Screening of 'Love Letters' follows the remarkable love story of professor, feminist scholar and Bellingham native Catharine R. Stimpson and musicologist Elizabeth Wood Elizabeth Wood, left, and Catharine R. Stimpson, right, at the West Side Highway docks in New York City, 1977. Photo by Martha Nelson, courtesy of Elizabeth Wood.

Western Washington University in partnership with CASCADIA International Women’s Film Festival will host “‘Love Letters’: A Film Screening and Conversation with Catharine R. Stimpson, Elizabeth Wood, and Greta Schiller,” in celebration of International Women’s Day, on Friday, March 8, at 7:30 p.m. in the WWU Performing Arts Center Mainstage. 

The event is free and open to the public, but seating is limited with advanced registration and tickets required. Ticketing via the WWU PAC Box Office will be open from Monday, January 22, 2024, until the venue reaches capacity. 

“Love Letters” follows the remarkable love story of professor and feminist scholar Catharine R. Stimpson and musicologist Elizabeth Wood, and includes the story of Wood’s landmark 1970s legal victory in Australia to gain custody of her children. Both women, now in their 80s, recall a time when the desire to live authentically and openly, and to love unapologetically, was itself a radical act. Wood and Stimpson are motivated to tell their story now, as once again a younger generation rises to battle the forces of the patriarchy that seek to suppress their fundamental human rights. The screening will be followed by a moderated panel discussion featuring both the main subjects of the film, Stimpson and Wood, and the award-winning film director and producer Greta Schiller.  

Stimpson is a pioneer in the study of women and gender, a founder of feminist criticism, the first director of the Barnard Women’s Center, founding editor of "Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society" (University of Chicago Press), and a former professor and dean of the Graduate School and vice provost for Graduate Education at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.

Sponsors

This event is sponsored by Western Libraries Archives & Special Collections; CASCADIA International Women’s Film Festival; the Western Foundation; WWU’s Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; and LGBTQ+ Western.

She has authored, edited, or co-authored myriad works, including the novel "Class Notes," and the selection of scholarly essays "Where the Meanings Are: Feminism and Cultural Spaces." She has served as the chair of the New York State Council for the Humanities and the National Council for Research on Women, the director of the Fellows Program at the MacArthur Foundation, and as the president of the Modern Language Association. She is currently dean emerita and professor emerita at New York University and co-chair of the National Advisory Council of Creative Capital. Born in Bellingham, Stimpson has honored Western Washington University with the decision to donate her archival papers to Western Libraries Archives & Special Collections. 

Wood is one of the founders of new directions in modern musicology, and also a writer and novelist. An Australian by birth, Wood is the author of a 2-volume history of Australian opera, and a series of award-winning critical studies of Ethel Smyth, the British composer, writer, conductor, and suffragette. Wood also co-edited the path-breaking collection "Queering the Pitch: The New Lesbian and Gay Musicology," and she co-authored the article on lesbian and gay music for the New Grove Dictionary of Music. Wood currently chairs the advisory board of HUB, a musicology and ethnomusicology research center at the Elder Conservatorium of Music and University of Adelaide, South Australia, where an international research fellowship in musicology has been established in her name. 

Schiller is the co-founder of Jezebel Productions, a nonprofit women’s production company, and her films have screened at the most prestigious international film festivals over the last 35 years. Her work brings histories of marginalized groups into the cultural narrative, including the Emmy Award-winning "Before Stonewall." She is a recipient of the Townsend Harris Medal, and also has the rare distinction of being awarded two Fulbright Fellowships, in addition to being in the Communications Alumni Hall of Fame. 

The panel conversation will be moderated by Audrey Sager, who founded the New York City law firm of Sager Gellerman Eisner and whose practice focused on matrimonial law. Sager is a fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers and was a vice president of the Women’s Bar Association of the State of New York. She is also president of the Board of CASCADIA International Women’s Film Festival. 

This event is sponsored by Western Libraries Archives & Special Collections; CASCADIA International Women’s Film Festival; the Western Foundation; WWU’s Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; and LGBTQ+ Western, and is intended for all participants, including those with apparent or non-apparent disabilities. For more information or for disability accommodation(s) (such as ASL interpretation, etc.) please contact Center for Pacific Northwest Studies Archivist Ruth Steele, at Ruth.Steele@wwu.edu or (360) 650-7747. Advanced notice is appreciated and sometimes necessary to arrange for some accessibility needs. 

Tickets can be obtained online, or by visiting or calling the WWU PAC Box Office. For more information about ticketing, please contact the WWU PAC Box Office at (360) 650-6146. 

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