Friday was my favorite day in the annual cycle of events at WSU. The annual Showcase is Washington State University’s celebration of faculty, staff, and student achievement. This daylong series of events provides a great look at various points of pride for Cougar Nation.
And both WSU Extension and CAHNRS had a remarkable showing throughout the day. At the Showcase Poster Session, CAHNRS and WSU Extension faculty, students, and staff accounted for no less than one-third of the 300 posters on display. This poster session is a great way to communicate to the rest of our university colleagues the incredible work that is being done in CAHNRS and WSU Extension. I was particularly impressed with the diversity of our posters, ranging from “Advanced Proteome Analysis of Arogenate Dehydratase Knockout Mutants” to “Assessing the Clothing Needs of Adolescent Girls.” To encourage participation, we had a little contest to see what department would have the most posters (scaled by faculty size). Amazingly, Plant Pathology; Apparel Merchandising, Design, and Textiles; and Horticulture and Landscape Architecture all finished in a virtual dead heat for this honor.
In the afternoon, CAHNRS had an outstanding showing at the Showcase for Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities with our students receiving 3 of 4 awards in the Applied Sciences category; 2 of 3 in Arts and Science; 3 of 5 in Organismal, Ecological, and Evolutionary Biology; and 2 of 5 in Social Science.
Later on in the afternoon, it was time for the Distinguished Faculty Address, which was given by CAHNRS’s own Dr. B.W. “Joe” Poovaiah, Regents Professor, Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture. Dr. Poovaiah gave a fascinating and passionate talk on his three-decade research program focused on calcium/calmodulin signaling in plants, clearly communicating the benefits of his program to a general audience.
The day concluded with the Celebrating Excellence Recognition Banquet where faculty and staff award winners and faculty promotions are recognized. The list of College recognitions during the event is too long–hence, a topic for another blog post.
Congratulations to all of the award winners. All of these recognitions provide further evidence of the outstanding work our faculty, staff, and students are doing under some difficult budgetary times.