Eastern’s new RCU status will open doors for grants, research collaborations.

For decades, innovations and discoveries from EWU faculty researchers have brought big benefits to our state and region. Now, for the first time, those contributions have earned Eastern’s inclusion in the Carnegie Foundation’s classification of research-intensive colleges and universities.

Since its introduction in 1973, the Carnegie Classification has become “foundational in a variety of research and policy uses nationwide,” according to a recent report by the American Council on Education.

But even as its prominence has risen, the report continued, so have concerns that the classification was failing to account for the important work done at regional institutions — particularly those, like EWU, that do not award doctoral degrees.

A classification line-up change aims to fix this. Instead of just including colleges and universities with “high” and “very high,” levels of research and PhDs awarded, this year a third category has been introduced: Research Colleges and Universities, or RCUs.

Eastern qualified for RCU status after its annual research and development activities exceeded the $2.5 million spending threshold required by Carnegie. University research administrators say the recognition is a big step forward.

“It’s so huge,” said David Bowman, dean of Eastern’s College of STEM. “In one sense, it’s an acknowledgement of what we already do — student-centered research that is based on the teacher-scholar model. But more importantly, it opens up opportunities for us to obtain new resources, new grant possibilities, and new collaborations and research opportunities for our students.”

Eastern was notified of its RCU designation earlier this year. The official announcement came in April.

“We’re just so pleased,” Bowman added. “Eastern is an institution that has long prized quality teaching. And in our STEM fields especially, we teach through doing research with our students: hands-on, engaged research.

“That’s what the RCU classification means to us, an acknowledgement and endorsement of that work. It’s fantastic.”

One of Eastern’s most prominent faculty members, Stuart “Stu” Steiner, in June was awarded the Trustees’ Medal, the university’s most prestigious  faculty accolade.

Steiner ’01, an associate professor of computer science and electrical engineering, is the founder and director of EWU’s Center for Network Computing and Cybersecurity. The center is home to a nationally prominent program that has placed Eastern students at the forefront of international efforts to make digital technologies less vulnerable to attacks.

The Trustees’ Medal is the university’s highest form of recognition for faculty achievement. Since 1978, it has honored teaching excellence, significant contributions to scholarship and research, and accomplishments in the development of academic programs and curricula. The award consists of a silver medallion and a $1,500 cash prize from the EWU Foundation.

Steiner, who has served on the Eastern faculty for more than 20 years, has a reputation for operating an inclusive program that opens doors for all students. This commitment to the university and his “unwavering support” for students was cited in the multiple endorsements that supported his Trustees’ Medal nomination.

In a letter signed by more than 60 Eagle undergraduates, for example, Steiner was credited for significantly advancing their academic and personal development.

“His larger-than-life presence can be felt in every corner of the campus, and we have always known that we can turn to him with any concern, however big or small,” the letter said.

On a professional level, his students’ experiences include helping small Washington cities, among them Liberty Lake and Kittitas, fend off cyberattacks. An Eagle team coached by Steiner also earned a national title for EWU at the 2023 NCAE Cyber Games in Florida.

His contributions to the university aren’t limited to academic work. In addition to serving on the EWU Foundation board, Steiner and his wife, Shirlee, have contributed significant scholarship support for students who are underrepresented in the cybersecurity field. Steiner also works to engage next-generation students by organizing cyber camps, regional competitions and mentoring activities.

Beyond the EWU campus, his work has earned the attention of the federal National Security Agency, which tapped him to mentor faculty members at other universities as they work to establish their own cybersecurity programs,

“In all my time working in higher education, I can think of few people with both the passion, the expertise and, most critically, the commitment to the institution that Stu Steiner embodies,” said David Bowman, dean of Eastern’s College of STEM. “I can think of no person more deserving of EWU’s highest honor.”

The itpa protein plays a crucial role in several metabolic processes that are essential to human life. Severe defects in ITPA are uncommon, but the results can be devastating.

Infants born with a rare ITPA abnormality, for example, face the risk of a lethal neurological condition known as Developmental and Epileptic Encephalopathy 35. Few diagnosed with the disorder live past their third birthday. Even patients with less severe ITPA deficiencies can experience dangerous side-effects to medications prescribed for other conditions — including life-threatening conditions.

Nick Burgis, professor and chair of chemistry, biochemistry and physics at EWU, is perhaps the nation’s leading authority on the ITPA protein and the genetic processes it regulates. Together with his colleague Yao Houndonougbo, also a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at Eastern, Burgis is using that knowledge to pursue development of first-generation molecular-level treatments for ITPA-related disorders.

Burgis’ and Houndonougbo’s efforts recently received an important boost from the National Institutes of Health, which last month announced a three-year, $350,000 “research enhancement” award that will extend the agency’s previous support for the two scientists and their students.

The focus of the work supported by the grant, says Burgis, is to identify a molecule that can restore the ITPA’s proper functionality. To do this, he, Houndonougbo, and their students will deploy a battery of digital and biochemical tools to look for promising molecules among a virtual and physical library of 300,000 molecules housed at UCLA.

As part of this effort, Burgis — along with two, yet-to-be-named Eastern undergraduate researchers — will travel to Southern California to conduct the molecular hunt with Robert Damoiseaux, the professor of molecular and medical pharmacology who directs UCLA’s Molecular Screening Shared Resources Laboratory.

The hoped-for outcome, Burgis says, is a molecular-drug therapy that would benefit all at-risk populations: both infants with encephalopathy as well as older populations with less severe forms of the ITPA deficiency.

The project is funded by the NIH’s National Institute of General Medical Sciences.

For students with mental health challenges, the availability of assistance is key.

Eastern students typically find their collegiate experience to be an exciting time of personal and intellectual growth; a demanding but joyful four-year sojourn that they will long remember fondly.

But it’s also not unusual, at EWU as elsewhere, for students to find themselves caught up in mental health and substance-abuse challenges.

At Eastern, staff and faculty members are committed to ensuring that struggling students have access to the assistance they need. Now, a new federal grant will expand existing mental-health wellness and help-seeking opportunities for such students, particularly those who may be at risk for self-harm.

It’s not unusual, at EWU as elsewhere, for students to find themselves caught up in mental health and substance-abuse challenges.

The three-year, $285,000 Garret Lee Smith Campus Suicide Prevention Grant, awarded to the university last fall by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, is helping EWU counseling and wellness staff enhance suicide-prevention training and skill-building programming across campus.

“Because of this grant, 10 staff and faculty members have already been trained as Mental Health First instructors,” says Laura Gant, associate director of wellness services. These courses, she says, teach university faculty and staff how to better identify, understand and respond to signs of mental illnesses and substance-use disorders. The training can also help mitigate hesitation in starting conversations about potential problems.

Thanks to the grant, she adds, there will now be additional training opportunities: “More faculty and staff will know how to connect students to these services.”

In addition the grant funding will make possible a campus-wide collaboration to create a comprehensive, coordinated and sustainable plan for addressing mental health promotion and suicide prevention on campus.

“Poor mental health can impede students’ ability to persist and complete college,” says Gant. “Expanding education and resources is essential to providing support to students at EWU.”

An EWU biologist explores the foundations of bone regeneration.

Scientists have long known that the bones in our bodies are constantly repairing and rebuilding themselves, this thanks to an extraordinary regenerative process that is essential to maintaining mobility, organ protection and other critical skeletal functions.    

The molecular-level mechanism behind our bones’ remarkable “remodeling” ability, however, is less well understood. Learning more, says Jason Ashley, an associate professor of biology at EWU, could one day lay the groundwork for therapies to assist the more than 50 million Americans who suffer from a host of pathologies related to bone degeneration — most notably osteoporosis.

   Ashley’s efforts recently received a big boost in the form of a four-year, $480,000 federal grant from the National Institutes of Health. The funding will allow him and his student research team to continue their exploration of how certain “signaling” proteins regulate the initial stages of the remodeling process. More broadly, it will also provide funds intended to help EWU develop “expanded research capacity” in both molecular biology and other disciplines.

Ashley says the scale of the federal grant represents a potential game changer, paving the way for new and exciting avenues of discovery. “To put it simply,” he says, “research is expensive. You can only do the experiments that your budget allows. When you get a budget the size of this award, it just really opens up possibilities that you couldn’t even consider before.”

Support for pricey material costs are just one benefit, Ashley adds. “My hope is that through this funding, grad students working on this project are going to be under less pressure to supplement their income with outside employment. That will allow them to become more focused on our research.”

The grant will also expand outreach to potential undergraduate researchers: “So we accomplish research goals, but we are continuously expanding the education piece as well.”

Ashley says the scale of the federal grant represents a potential game changer, paving the way for new and exciting avenues of discovery.

Instruction and research aren’t always considered complementary, Ashley continues. But, as a scientist who has long placed a special emphasis on teaching, he’s bullish on both at Eastern.

At EWU, he says, faculty success is not contingent on bringing in grants like his own. “You are not judged solely on your ability to bring in grant funding. You’re judged on your ability to teach. So, if you’re a good teacher and you want to do research, this is the place you should be.”

The project, Fringe Regulation of Notch Signaling in Osteoclasts, was awarded through the NIH’s Support for Research Excellence Program (R16), with funds provided by the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research.

A new educational partnership will take experiential education to new heights.

Since it was founded during the Second World War, Fairchild Air Force Base, located just up the road from EWU’s Cheney campus, has been a critical part of our nation’s air defense system. Now it is poised to be a vital partner in education.

Earlier this spring representatives from Fairchild gathered with EWU faculty and staff to celebrate the finalizing of a formal “Educational Partnership Agreement,” one that officials say will provide important experiential learning opportunities for EWU science, technology, mathematics and engineering students.  “This will be a mutually beneficial partnership, one with far-reaching impacts,” said EWU President Shari McMahan during the ceremony.

The signing event was especially gratifying for Stu Steiner, the EWU assistant professor of computer sciences who played a key role in making the agreement a reality.

The relationship will pave the way for further interactions with Department of Defense installations such as Fairchild Air Force Base.

Steiner leads the university’s Center for Network Computing and Cybersecurity. He says the partnership idea originated after EWU cybersecurity students began working with the National Security Agency as part of its National Security Innovation Network. That relationship, he added, paved the way for further interactions with Department of Defense installations such as Fairchild Air Force Base.

Initial discussions with Fairchild were, not surprisingly, centered around cybersecurity. However, after a few meetings, Steiner says, Air Force officials suggested expanding the agreement to include C-STEM students.

“We’re focused on the experiential learning,” says Steiner. “So if Fairchild needs a new fuel pump created, we’re going to invite mechanical engineering students to work on it. If they need design work, we’ll let the design students work on that. There are plenty of projects out there.”

After the ceremony, Col. Chesley Dycus, commander of the 92nd Air Refueling Wing at Fairchild, offered his own insights.

“There are a lot of problems that the Department of Defense and, more specifically the Air Force and team at Fairchild, need help with,” Dycus said. “This helps us get academic — and a lot of other perspectives — involved to help us with those problems. And, hopefully in doing so, maybe help us recruit some of those students into the Air Force.”

In collaboration with No-Li, Eastern’s craft brewers make their mark internationally.

Universities, EWU among them, are more typically associated with the consumption, rather than the production, of malted beverages. For the past year Eastern’s innovative program in craft brewing has been working to change that. Now the whole wide world of beer is taking notice.

The Craft Beer Industry Professional Certificate at EWU, according to program director Chris Cindric, is designed “to educate and enhance the knowledge and practical skills of students, and to provide professional development for the greater community in craft beer.” Part of this mandate includes introducing students to local craft-brewing professionals, who, through activities such as guest lectures, facility tours and internships, generously share their experiences and expertise with aspiring Eagles.

Spokane’s No-Li Brewhouse and its owners John and Cindy Bryant have been among the most supportive of these community partners.

Spokane’s No-Li Brewhouse and its owners John and Cindy Bryant have been among the most supportive of these community partners. Not only did the Bryant’s make a significant cash contribution to help the certification program get rolling, they’ve committed members of their No-Li team to working with program students on a variety of projects. Perhaps the most consequential of these — certainly the most tasty —  has been a recent collaboration that has produced a distinctively Eastern brew.

The beer produced by the partnership, a Belgian-style dubbel, or “double” ale, is appropriately named “E Dubbel U.” The malty brown tipple, replete with the fruity esters so prized by traditional Belgian brewers, was a big crowd-pleaser at the No-Li Brewhouse this summer. More recently it made an even bigger splash on the other side of the world, scoring a bronze medal at the prestigious Asia International Beer Competition held in Singapore.

The honor represents the first time a collaboration between a collegiate program and a professional brewer has been so honored internationally, says No-Li’s John Bryant. 

“Winning an International Brewing Medal in collaboration with Eastern Washington University is a testament to not only the brewing talent in Spokane, but the brewing education that the region provides,” Bryant says. “This award gives validation that students participating in the Eastern Washington University brewing program can get their brewing certificate and create world class beer.”   

]]> https://www.ewu.edu/magazine/news/movement-researcher/ Thu, 04 Jan 2024 20:50:18 +0000 https://www.ewu.edu/magazine/?post_type=stories&p=2595 A scholar of global migration is named EWU’s Chertok Endowed Professor.   Kassahun Kebede, an associate professor of sociology at EWU whose work on immigration and refugees has attracted international acclaim, was honored in October as Eastern’s new Jeffers W. Chertok Memorial Endowed Professor. Kebede, who has served as an instructor and researcher in both...]]>

A scholar of global migration is named EWU’s Chertok Endowed Professor.

Kassahun Kebede, an associate professor of sociology at EWU whose work on immigration and refugees has attracted international acclaim, was honored in October as Eastern’s new Jeffers W. Chertok Memorial Endowed Professor.

Kebede, who has served as an instructor and researcher in both Ethiopia and the U.S., is a noted scholar who has also provided expertise to prominent international organizations including the World Bank, USAID, and OXFAM-America. His contributions include providing crucial insights into the realities of rural lives and livelihoods in his former homeland of Ethiopia, a nation where conflict and climate change have made desperately needed development initiatives difficult to sustain.

The Chertok Professorship was established to honor the life and legacy of Jeffers W. Chertok, a cherished EWU professor and administrator who died in 2004. It is funded through gifts from private donors, including the Daniel and Margaret Carper Foundation, and a match from the state of Washington. It is focused on supporting Chertok’s predominant area of scholarly interest: classic social science theory with an emphasis on the origins of thought.

At EWU, Kebede helps students engage with issues related to rising levels of cross-border migration, medical sociology and anthropology, while teaching courses that grapple with “social problems on a global scale.”

“This is a testament to the power and promise of this country for me,” he says. “As an immigrant coming here and becoming the endowed professor, it is a dream come true.”

During his two-year term as Chertok Professor, Kebede says he intends to focus on initiating meaningful discussions related to the often highly fraught issue of immigration and refugees. He also plans to work with administrators to establish an EWU migration research and outreach program.

“There are a lot of misconceptions about refugees and immigrants — particularly refugees. So, this professorship will provide a chance to really dispel some of those misconceptions and misunderstandings about global population movements,” says Kebede, who himself immigrated to the United States as a young adult.

Kebede earned his doctoral degree at Syracuse University in 2012, and became a faculty member at EWU three years later.

Given his own background, he says being honored as the Chertok Memorial Endowed Professor is particularly gratifying and meaningful.

“This is a testament to the power and promise of this country for me,” he says. “As an immigrant coming here and becoming the endowed professor, it is a dream come true.”

Spokane’s historic SIERR building sees new life as a high-tech center for the health sciences.

In its day, the Spokane and Inland Empire Railroad was among the most popular regional “interurbans” in Washington, using its electric rail cars to connect thousands of passengers to points between Spokane and Moscow, Idaho.

Cars eventually doomed the service. But its gorgeous, expertly restored rail-repair facility remains in downtown Spokane, a red-brick landmark that — thanks in part to EWU’s participation — is now home to new forms of community service.

Earlier this fall EWU’s new School of Nursing, along with its Department of Communications Sciences and Disorders, set up shop in the building, officially known as the Spokane and Inland Empire Railroad building, or SIERR. For both programs, the move promises to up the ante on collaborative learning experiences.

Earlier this fall EWU’s new School of Nursing, along with its Department of Communications Sciences and Disorders, set up shop in the building, officially known as the Spokane and Inland Empire Railroad building, or SIERR.

An Oct. 24 ribbon cutting and open house event brought together many of those responsible for both the SIERR restoration and Eastern’s move to the facility. Among them was Dean Allen, chief executive officer of McKinstry Co.

Allen — a visionary health-care advocate and developer of energy efficient buildings — was the force behind turning the 70,000-square-foot building into, first, an LEED-certified office space and, now, a state-of-the-art health science education center. He had long championed the redevelopment of the aging SIERR structure. McKinstry purchased it for its own Spokane home in 2006, and it soon became a model of efficiency, demonstrating that historic buildings can, as Allen says, “be gentle on the environment and serve as exemplars for others to follow.”

More recently, Allen said he was determined to move his company’s operations out of the building to make way for a health-sciences focused “innovation hub.”

“The hardest thing about this project,” Allen told visitors at the ribbon cutting, “was explaining to the people of McKinstry that we wanted to make a real impact in health education. And that to make a difference in rural health equity, we needed to leave our building.”

For Eastern students and faculty (who are joined at SIERR by programs from UW and Gonzaga) being under one roof will indeed provide great opportunities to collaborate, said Lindsay Williams, an EWU lecturer and off-site placement coordinator. “Our classrooms are fantastic — and our technology works all the time. I also like that we are all together,” she said.

David Bowman, dean of the College of Science, Technology and Mathematics and interim dean of the College of Health Science and Public Health, thanked political leaders for their support, while emphasizing the impact Eastern’s nursing graduates will have in the region. And yet, he said, SIERR, and the work happening there, will be much bigger than one program or even one university.

“The vision for this building is really interprofessional,” he said. “It is truly a place for collaboration.”