WSU Digest – for the week of May 3 On the Calendar

A groundbreaking ceremony and reception for the new Washington State University Education Addition, adjacent to Cleveland Hall, will be held at 4 p.m. May 5. WSU President V. Lane Rawlins and Provost Robert C. Bates will join Dean Judy Mitchell and other representatives of the College of Education as speakers at the event. The new three-story building, to be constructed in what is now a parking lot, will help meet the needs of the state’s educational system and the growing number of students studying at the College of Education. For more on the groundbreaking, see https://wsunews.wsu.edu/detail.asp?StoryID=4530. For more information about the building plans, click on https://wsunews.wsu.edu/detail.asp?StoryID=4537.

The Washington State University Board of Regents will hold its regularly scheduled meeting on the Pullman campus May 7. For more on the meeting, see https://wsunews.wsu.edu/detail.asp?StoryID=4538.

Washington State University Spokane will kick off the commencement season for the WSU campuses May 7. State Sen. Lisa Brown will address graduates and their friends and family at a 2 p.m. ceremony in the Spokane Opera House, 334 W. Spokane Falls Blvd.

Three speakers — Washington’s governor, a pioneering biotechnology scientist and an orthopaedic surgeon — will speak at Washington State University’s 108^th spring commencement. It will be held at May 8 in WSU’s Beasley Performing Arts Coliseum on the Pullman campus. At the 8 a.m. ceremony, Gov. Gary Locke is scheduled to address business, economics and education graduates. Stephen Fodor, a WSU graduate and the founder, chairman and chief executive officer of the Santa Clara, Calif., biotechnology company Affymetrix Inc, will speak at the 11:30 a.m. ceremony to agricultural, human, and natural resource sciences; engineering; architecture; nursing; pharmacy; sciences and veterinary medicine graduates. At the 3 p.m. ceremony, Dr. Ed Tingstad, a WSU graduate who is the orthopaedic surgeon for both WSU and University of Idaho men’s and women’s intercollegiate athletic teams, will address those graduating in liberal arts. For more on the ceremonies, see https://wsunews.wsu.edu/detail.asp?StoryID=4506. For more on some special graduates and their stories, click on https://wsunews.wsu.edu/viewTips.asp?id=51

In the news

It’s only spring, but the charges and counter-charges in the presidential election campaign have already reached a high level of intensity. Why do campaigns increasingly resort to negative tactics that voters say they do not like? Bruce Pinkleton, associate professor in the Edward R. Murrow School of Communication at Washington State University, said the answer is quite simple: Negative campaigning often is effective. Pinkleton has researched the relationship between negative campaigning and voter decision-making for years. He has concluded that, while voters claim these tactics make them less interested in going to the polls, the links between voter apathy and negative campaigning haven’t been proven. That doesn’t mean, however, that the tactics don’t carry risks. Sometimes negative campaigners can go too far, sparking a voter backlash. Pinkleton is available at 509.335.2795 or pink@wsu.edu