Throughout the COVID-19 crisis, the WWU Alumni Association and WWU Foundation have organized several virtual events with compelling, thought-provoking discussions, many featuring WWU alumni and faculty.
Here are just a few:
Confronting Systemic Racism: Perspectives from WWU Students and Alumni of Color
“It is absolutely necessary for protests to happen if you’re going to get politicians and government agencies and all of the machinery of government to react. It is part of the puzzle.” — Jesse Moore, ‘05, political strategist and former White House speechwriter.
How to Get a Job in the Worst Economy Since 2009 via LinkedIn
“I built these habits of connecting with new people every day, every week, for the last ten years, and that’s how you get to over 18,000 connections, and then, with the Kevin Bacon principle, I’m connected within two degrees of almost everybody on the planet at this point.” —Kent Lewis, ‘94, founder and president of Anvil Media
What It Will Take to Bring Our Country Back to Health
“Only through solidarity—only through Dakotah (Lane) going and getting an education coming back to serve his people, only by Rachel (Clark, ‘13) going and working in New York and making a difference, only when you’re side-by-side, shoulder-to-shoulder with people who are oppressed, do we fully become human beings and only then do we ever make a hell of a lot of difference.” —Frank James, ‘73, public health officer
COVID-19 and Cross-Border Connections: Implications for the Cascade Region
“We have two different jurisdictions (the province of British Columbia and the Canadian federal government) with different border restrictions, and if policy shifts at the federal level, but not on a provincial level, it’s going to get more confusing for cross-border travelers.” —Laurie Trautman, director of the Border Policy Research Institute
Lessons in Remote Learning
“In higher education, our students were often facing enormous challenges with food stability, financial stability, housing stability, and mental health and I saw a growing understanding from college faculty and those who work with students that less is often more.” — Elementary Education Professor Matt Miller
Pandemic Election: Fraud, Voter Suppression, Media and the 2020 Presidential Contest
“Journalists are focusing on helping people vote. There is much more news coverage about access to voting, and understanding voting systems, and we’re seeing this unfold amidst this change in election methods.” —Journalism Professor Carolyn Nielsen
Our Pandemic Future: Human Behavior and the Environment
“Some of the drivers of what is causing these spillovers from animal species into humanity includes the environments we live in, how we raise our food, and then how we’re changing and impacting natural environments and animal populations.” —Community Health Lecturer Steve Bennett
The Economic Impacts of COVID-19
“I see this [COVID-19] as something solvable in a fundamentally different way than terrorism after 9/11 or economic problems that come from demographics or a business cycle or a housing crisis. This is solvable with stronger and more strategic testing.” —Hart Hodges, director of the Center for Economic and Business Research