Letter to Campus

Coming together during challenging times

Dear Faculty and Staff: There’s no doubt navigating the challenges of this past year have been incredibly difficult for all of us. COVID‑19, the need to support students, family caregiving responsibilities, financial worries, systemic racism, and political division are among the stressors in our lives as we approach the one‑year mark of the pandemic. Yet […]

Categories: Letter to Campus

Next steps in advancing ONEWSU concept

Dear Faculty and Staff: We hope this note finds you well as we all continue to deal with the challenges of COVID‑19. It is encouraging to see signs of progress in the effort to get the pandemic under control in the United States—not the least of which is getting vaccines into the arms of Americans coast […]

Categories: Letter to Campus

Standing together against antisemitism

To our WSU community: We are shocked and horrified by the antisemitic graffiti and damage to the Holocaust memorial at Temple Beth Shalom in Spokane on Monday. While this desecration did not take place on our Spokane campus, we join our Jewish friends and neighbors as well as the greater community in denouncing these acts in […]

Categories: Letter to Campus

Black History Month calls us to ponder shared humanity

Dear Faculty, Staff, and Students: “My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.” Those words of famed South African cleric and anti-apartheid and human rights activist Desmond Tutu seem particularly appropriate to ponder as we celebrate Black History Month throughout February. For even as we recognize the enormous achievements and […]

Categories: Letter to Campus

Working toward an in-person WSU experience

Dear Students, Faculty, and Staff: Navigating the challenges of COVID‑19 together as a Cougar community has taught us much about the resiliency of the human spirit. We have sacrificed individually and collectively while simultaneously adapting to a redefined world, a world requiring new pathways to pursue our goals and hopes and dreams. Your own courage […]

Categories: Letter to Campus

Signs of hope surround us

Dear Faculty, Staff, and Students: There’s no doubt our lives have been upended to varying degrees during the past 10 months. COVID‑19. Racial injustice. A roller-coaster economy. Political upheaval and related violence. Diminishing availability of vital health and social services. Devastating natural disasters from coast to coast. In such a gloomy environment, it’s easy to lose sight […]

Categories: Letter to Campus