In honor of Veterans Day, the Veterans Resource Center and EWU Libraries has a display in the JFK Lobby from November 10th through 14th, focused on art as a medium for processing the armed services. The display includes photographs, graphic novels, and other materials from the Global War on Terror or GWOT era veterans. There is also a message wall for all to post messages, photos, and memories of loved ones who served.

The display will be accessible during library hours.

EWU Libraries is honoring Hispanic & Latine Heritage Month, September 15-October 15. We have a curated heritage resource display in the JFK Lobby: recent fiction, non-fiction, graphic novels and children’s books. All materials are available to check out!

This collection includes materials documenting the development of the Cheney campus, starting from the Benjamin P. Cheney Academy in 1882. Contact Jennifer Griffith at jgriffith6@ewu.edu.

Her new work “Knots” is a semiautobiographical graphic novel (that takes place in Cheney, WA!) that was named a School Library Journal Best Book of 2024.

Cartoonist Colleen Frakes | Image by Lee Scheinbeim

Series Events:

Cartoonist Colleen Frakes at EWU’s JFK Library | Wed., May 21,  2 pm – 3 pm

Refreshments will be served following the presentation.

320 Media Lane, Cheney, WA 99004 | 509.359.7888 | ewuliboffice@ewu.edu 

EWU Event Flyer

Anyone Can Make Comics | Cartoonist Colleen Frakes at Cheney Public Library| Wed., May 21, 4 pm – 5 pm

610 First Street, Cheney, WA 99004 | 509.893.8280

SCLD Event Flyer

Frakes Book Signing with Question & Answer Session at Paperbound Books | Thurs., May 22, 1 pm – 3 pm

107 F. Street (Mason Jar Building), Cheney, WA 99004 | 208.284.0197 | info@paperboundbooks.com

Norah is the good kid. Good at pleasing her parents and being a good sister. Good at school. Good at, well, almost everything. So when Mom’s work brings her to a new town leaving Norah and Dad behind, no one thinks twice. After all, Norah’s a mature sixth grader who can take care of herself…right? But things spiral out of control after a botched home dye job goes wrong and being the good kid quickly gets a little…hairy. Before long, one small tangle becomes a knot of epic proportions, and Norah soon realizes that the only way to untangle the mess she’s made is to find her voice and ask for help. (Amazon.com)

Frakes grew up on a prison island (really!) then moved to the mainland to attend The Center for Cartoon Studies. She was awarded a 2007 Xeric Grant for her first graphic novel Tragic Relief and in 2009 won an Ignatz Award for her second book, Woman King. Her new book Knots (Harper Alley) was awarded the Junior Library Guild Gold Standard. Colleen has created comics for The Nib, Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Dark Horse, and many others. She currently lives in Seattle with her spouse, daughter and a cranky old cat.

Made possible by EWU’s College of Professional Programs, Library & Learning Commons, Spokane County Library District, and Paperbound Books.  

Where does truth lie? Artists enrolled in ART 313: Art Through Time explored the notion of hidden truth–a conceptual thread referencing the Hermeneutics of Suspicion that weaves throughout Modernism. Painting, sculpture, photography, collage, digital illustration, and textile-based practices were employed to navigate this theme. Additionally, the artists engaged in scholarly research as a creative process to bolster their approach to making.

Visitors are invited to pause with the work–reflect–and consider the same prompt issued to the artists: what, to you, is hidden truth?

Special thanks to the artists of ART 313, and instructor Marc LaPointe for facilitating this applied learning experience!

The EWU Curriculum Center houses a wide variety of books and materials, including children’s and young adult fiction and non-fiction, comics and graphic novels, curricula for core and elective disciplines from preschool through 12th grade, books on CD, children’s magazines, teaching kits and tools, and more. The collection serves not only EWU Education and Children’s Studies students and faculty, but also local teachers, homeschooling families, and other members of the community. The collection is heavily used – its roughly 30,000 titles make up less than 10% of the circulating books in the JFK library, but account for over 30% of the library’s book circulation activity in an average year – and in recent years has been toured as a model space by directors of similar centers at public and private universities in the region.

The Center’s collections are improved every year by the purchase of new award-winning and recommended titles for all age groups and subject areas, including a commitment to growing the Center’s collection of bilingual materials and materials in languages other than English. Recent diversity audits of the picture book collection have helped broaden the Center’s representation of race and ethnicity, and of gender identity and sexual orientation. The Center’s long-term goal is to address representation along other axes of diversity, as well, including disability and socioeconomic status, so that the children and teenagers served by the Center’s collections see themselves, their families, and their communities reflected in the books they read.

The Center annually hosts dozens of instruction sessions for EWU undergraduate and graduate courses, and has a long history of welcoming visiting K-12 class field trips, preschool storytelling events, EWU student club meetings, and other gatherings for organizations and groups in the community. If you are interested in touring the Curriculum Center, in learning more about its collections or spaces, or in finding ways to help support the Center’s mission, please contact the Education and Children’s Studies Librarian, James Rosenzweig, at jrosenzweig@ewu.edu or at 509.359.4262.

We need your opinion!

Visit our “furniture lab” demo space, and try out various seating and writing surfaces.

Provide your feedback by completing a short survey accessible via QR code.

This  experience closes on January 30, 2025.

Have questions or need an accommodation? Call 509.359.6201.

EWU’s Gender, Women’s and Sexuality Studies Department (GWSS) invites all to experience the return of the Activist in Residence (AiR) program in Winter 2025. AiR programming consists of four workshops, and related art exhibit in JFK’s Secrist Gallery, January 15 to February 19, 2025.

2025 Activist in Residence is Jacob Johns, a Hopi and Akimel O’odham environmental defender who has worked tirelessly to protect water and prevent the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Jacob also expresses his activism through his art.

Learn more about Jacob Johns online.

2025 AiR workshops will take place on the following Wednesdays from 3 pm – 5 pm in the WAGE Center (Monroe 207):

• January 15: “Breaking Free from the Non-Profit Industrial Complex”
• January 29: “Indigenous Wisdom and Climate Policy: A Path to a Sustainable Future”
• February 5: “Reclaiming the Narrative: Transforming Trauma into Artful Resistance”
• February 19: “Weaving the Future: An Organizing Model Rooted in Traditional Knowledge and Collective Vision”

Series Flyer

For questions or accommodations, please contact Lili Mackin, lmackin@ewu.edu, or visit the WAGE Center, Monroe Hall 207.

Students investigated the many written components necessary to create text for art shows, gallery exhibits, and museum collections. Throughout this project, students created their own narratives to describe the visual art in the exhibit, understanding that narratives take both visual and textual form.

On display now through January 10, 2025.

Wed., Nov. 13 | JFK Library, Lower Level, AUX Classroom | Noon – 1:30

Watch this thought-provoking and timely lecture  by Dr. Mark Finney, Executive Director of Thrive International.

As the number of displaced people hits historical levels around the world, Dr. Finney presented how local communities are essential in creating solutions.

Displacement is driven by wars, political and religious oppression, economic disparities, and population shifts. While numbers are typically measured in terms of nations or continents, people always leave a specific place in search of another local community to call home. Federal and state governments are important players in addressing the current crisis, but so are cities, small towns, neighborhoods, and other local communities such as faith groups and local nonprofits.

Migration is a global issue, yet it always manifests in the face of a new neighbor and the story of a potential new friend.

Dr. Mark Kinney, Executive Director, Thrive International

Made possible by the Jeffers W. Chertok Memorial Endowed Professorship, EWU Libraries, and the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences.