Dean’s Area

Clouds blanket the Rogue Valley, from where I write this morning, but I still believe I am going to win the bet with my husband for no “real” snowfall in Pullman before November 1.

Sometimes academia can be rough. We have real challenges with staffing shortages, equipment needs, and turnover without the ability to be fully nimble in our responses.

Fall is in the air. It is true. I try to hide that fact from my husband, but the small herds of students moving around a now vibrant campus, after the quiet days of summer, tell the whole story. At the College of Veterinary Medicine, we welcomed 137 new veterinary students, 143 new undergraduate students, […]

I just returned from a whirlwind trip to Philadelphia to attend some parts of the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) meeting. I am always reminded of the amazing differences between East Coast and West Coast cities—architecture, history, food. I am grateful for the very real diversity of our country. It is a constant reminder of […]

Summer is finally here. The days are long, wow! Early morning light creeps in at 4 a.m., which I love, but it does awaken the quail that sit on rooftops throughout our neighborhood and “kaa” to, evidently, announce their availability to the lovely female quail. We seem to have a number of bachelors near us. […]

I am just beginning to learn the “seasons of academic life” here at WSU.

Watching clouds move over high-rise buildings in the dense urban landscape of Seattle. A very different sort of place than the cattails in my Palouse backyard. Two parts of Washington state, both important, both with their roles to fill.  My thoughts circle around how we work together statewide to train the veterinary specialists we need […]

Feeling good this morning, I rode my bike to work for the first time this spring (electric bike, before you get too excited). I had that experience of conversing with myself about all the reasons it would be easier to drive –biked anyway – and was rewarded with a beaver sighting in the South Fork of […]

When I arrived on the Palouse, I remember the quip — if you don’t like the weather, just wait a few hours.

Staring out at the rolling hills, an admittedly gray day in the Palouse, I reminisce about sitting on a hillside, at our evening camp, overlooking the Serengeti Plains in Tanzania and watching zebra and wildebeest wander by. It was pretty special. Some of the most spectacular moments were sitting with Felix Lankester, Paul G. Allen […]