Eagle Excellence: May 2026

Congratulations to Aspire Mentoring and Other Awardees
Eastern’s community engagement efforts were highlighted at the Partners in Community & Campus Engagement’s annual symposium for students and institutions, held in late April at Gonzaga University.

At the PICCE symposium, Eastern’s Aspire Mentoring Program was awarded the Community Innovation Award. The award recognizes outstanding initiatives or projects that contribute to the improvement of our community through innovative solutions or approaches.

Mindy Breen holding the award and standing next to President McMahan. — President McMahan presented Mindy Breen with the EWU Engaged Faculty Award.

Additionally, President Shari McMahan presented the EWU Engaged Faculty Award to Mindy Breen, professor of design and department chair, and recognized Eastern’s two 2026 Student Civic Leadership awardees, Alesia Levchenko and Haylee Simpson. Mark Este, director of community engagement, and Kayla Glenn, Aspire mentor and social work graduate student, presented BOB-Burst of Brilliance talks, while computer science senior Andrick Carroll-Sanchez presented a poster on the Aspire program.

Student with Aspire informational poster. — Andrick Carroll-Sanchez presented an informational poster about Aspire.

Students Make a Difference Through Alternative Service Breaks

EWU’s Office of Community Engagement charted its first Alternative Service Breaks under Mark Este’s leadership. Five students gave their time during spring vacation to participate in two distinctly different volunteer efforts on opposite ends of the country.

The community engagement team kept the trips affordable, with students paying just $150 and $250 to help cover travel expenses and lodging.

Mark Este and his three student volunteers with another. — Este and the student volunteers connected with other members of the community while helping with the Habitat homes.

Three students, June Carter, Celeste Landre Dorra and Emmy Landre Dorra, traveled with Este to Central Texas, near his hometown of Curlew, where Este tapped into his connections to borrow an unoccupied Airbnb. The students volunteered for the San Antonio Food Bank and Habitat for Humanity in Kirk County – helping a community that was impacted by devastating flooding on July 4, 2025.

“We got to do some really cool work with 10 new build homes that were going to folks whose houses had gotten destroyed, washed away or weren’t livable,” Este says.

Two other students, Nancy Hammock and June Carter, went with Maddy Halverson, community engagement specialist, to Orcas Island, Washington, where they stayed in the ranger station and assisted with several projects. The volunteers helped with trail maintenance, learned about conservation and wildfire prevention, and readied the park’s popular camping areas, which provide a crucial source of revenue to preserve the park.

“By the end of the trip, they had created three new networking connections within state parks, which is really cool,” says Halverson, adding that the rangers encouraged the student volunteers to reach out if they were ever looking for a state park job.

Career Center Kudos

The EWU Career Center is giving students an insider glimpse of some of our community’s workplaces through its ProVisits program. This past academic year, the CC team took groups of students to JOYA Child & Family Development, iHeartmedia, KHQ, First Interstate Bank, Northern Quest Resort & Casino and the Davenport Hotel where they learned about different types of professional jobs and the degrees it takes to land them. A trip to the Museum of Arts & Culture is scheduled for June 2 and will wrap up the ProVisits for the academic year. The team is already lining up workplace visits for the 2026-2027.

More than a dozen students standing behind a KHQ anchor station. — Students enjoyed learning more about careers at KHQ.

The ProVisits are posted on EagleSync, where students who are interested in learning more about a featured employer can register to attend. Transportation is provided to the location, where students learn more about company backgrounds and employment opportunities while networking with professionals and executives within the companies.

Student Brilliance

Rebecca Hunton submitted this write-up about Bea Smith, a Visual Communication Design student who helped to revive a century-old printing press and uncover its history.

Project to rehab the press with an overhead shot and students working with lettering pieces. — This student collaboration preserved a piece of history.

Smith, a work-study technician in Design’s 4D Lab, explored the history and function of an antique piece of equipment the department inherited: a Chandler & Price Printing Press, dating back to at least 1912. Smith contacted Archaeological and Historical Services at EWU, discovering original pressed items dating back to Eastern Normal School, as well as additional hardware to be used with the machine.

Back in the Catalyst building, Smith then worked with 4D Lab technician Kirk Reinkens and senior lecturer Sonja Durr’s Typography 1 class to develop new hardware: 3D-printed 30-point and 60-points fonts to use in the antique press. Bridging centuries of technology, Durr’s students then made letter-pressed greeting cards.