The finish line

The finish line The call came from Japan as Masahide Nishimura was finishing up his degree in Chinese Studies at Pacific Lutheran University a decade ago. His grandfather, Jisaburo Nishimura, 92, had had a stroke. Masahide felt he needed to come home and support his…

New endowed chair created

New endowed chair created A new endowed chair has been created in the School of Education and Movement Studies – The Jolita Hylland Benson Endowed Chair in Elementary Education honors Jolita Benson. It has been funded by Dale and Jolita Benson through The Benson Family…

What to do with a whale skeleton?

What to do with a whale skeleton? Dragging the arched five-foot jawbones of a gray whale out from the corner of a chicken coop in Lakewood, assistant professor of biology Mike Behrens saw the bones just didn’t match up. Laying out three of the jawbones,…

Lemkin winners

Passing the torch They may have started with inquiry and then put their words to paper and even presented their findings to anyone who would listen. But beyond their meticulous research, Raphael Lemkin Essay winner Emily Marks ’10 and second place recipient Adam Griffith ’09…

Newspapers get SOAC’ed

Maybe ‘reincarnation’ is a better word For the School of Arts and Communication Week the changing newspaper business was on top of people’s minds. To kick-off the week, News Tribune Publisher David Zeeck, Puyallup Herald Managing Editor Heather Meier, seattlepi.com reporter Monica Guzman and Mast…

Polar adventure

‘Lofty’ is just a word to crush For as far as the eye-can see white follows the landscape, lightly bleeding into a calm blue sky. Wind can make or break success and even determine survival here. There are no animals and the conditions often make…

Cousins

Lute Roots Run Deep By Barbara Clements Whenever admissions counselors were preparing to visit Brett Monson while he was in high school, they’d look at his application and then, inevitably, do a double take. Lute roots run deep for the Olsen clan. The five lines…

What’s next? Is it awesome?

What would be awesome? By Steve Hansen It would be easy to say that, over his career, PLU graduate Peter Parsons has found himself in the right place at the right time. He was on the Xbox development team when there were fewer than a…

Hong Hall

Hong Hall: Speaking the language of community (in French, or Chinese, or whatever) Just because you live in Hong International Hall doesn’t mean you have to be fluent, or even conversational, in a foreign language. But it does help to have an interest. After all,…

MFT program reaches the community

Teaching by Practicing By the time the class of about 20 students in the Marriage and Family Therapy program at PLU graduate, they will have provided 10,000 hours of community service.“Everyone that we see here is from this community,” said Renee Johnson, a second-year MFT…