News

Property crime in Tacoma saw an increase in reports from 12,113 in 2011 to 12,889 in 2012. The three areas of Tacoma with the most reported property theft are South Ninth Street and Tacoma Avenue South, Pine Street and South 45th Street, and 72nd Street East and East M Street. Despite the increase in property crime in the city of Tacoma from 2011 to 2012, the incidence of property theft on campus is lower this year than it was last year. Although Tacoma residents reported 153 car thefts in Tacoma...

The Peer Allies program is a new club on campus with the purpose of supporting victims of sexual violence. Sexual violence is a pervasive issue on college campuses throughout the United States, and Puget Sound is no exception; according to the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, 19 percent of undergraduate women will experience attempted or completed sexual assault at some point in their college careers. In 2012 there were three reported cases of forcible sexual offense on campus, up from one reported case in 2010 and two in...

A complete redesign of the University’s website is currently underway. The new website aims to include new interactive features such as an Instagram photo wall where students can add their stories to the combined history of Puget Sound. “About every four years, we refresh the Puget Sound website, which allows us to take advantage of current trends in communications and technology in order to best convey what Puget Sound is all about to our primary site visitors—prospective students and their families,” Assistant Director of Communications Sarah Stall said. The page’s...

This week on campus was International Education Week, a chance for students to learn about various cultures all around the world. By learning about each other’s cultures, students learn to foster the kind of tolerance and understanding between people that can strengthen a community. Many students were excited about learning more about International Education Week and what it represents. “I am always interested in learning about other cultures,” freshman Lydia Bauer said. “I think it’s a good opportunity for people to learn about other nations as well as people from...

The Puget Sound Faculty is currently discussing the inclusion of a new curriculum requirement that would address issues of knowledge, identity and power. This new requirement would be an overlay approach that would not add a new core requirement, but would rather seek to embed shared language and frameworks of diversity into existing classes in order to equip students with the ability to engage with diverse local and global communities. In the fall of 2012, the Faculty Senate charged the Committee on Diversity (CoD) to see how other institutions have...

Students returning to campus this fall noticed two big structural changes on campus. First, the completion of Commencement Hall; and second, the construction and renovations beginning made on Wheelock Student Center. These projects are just two components of the Master Plan that President Ronald Thomas was charged with developing when he assumed the office in 2003. Students may not be familiar with the Master Plan, but it has thus far affected every aspect of student life and, as a 20-year plan, will affect the campus for many years to come....

The Tamanawas Yearbook has been a staple of the Puget Sound community since 1920, but it is in danger of being discontinued. Rising print costs and the increase of social media usage has made many feel that yearbooks are obsolete. Print media as a whole has been criticized by proponents of online journalism as burdensome and costly. Yearbooks have endured, however, and as a form of commemoration they remain popular. “A physical yearbook has a certain permanence that an online yearbook simply does not,” yearbook editor-in-chief Marissa Croft said. “It’s...

As of Oct. 1, Americans can register for insurance plans under the Affordable Care Act. Students seeking health care insurance of their own will have to navigate an online health market to find coverage, which will take effect beginning in 2014. The Affordable Health Care Act, also known as Obamacare, calls for widespread reforms to the healthcare system that are supposed to increase the accessibility and affordability of health insurance, reduce the number of uninsured people and lower the costs of healthcare. For students not covered by their parents’ health...

After the economic downturn of 2008, the former spaces of businesses were left empty. In response, cities began to allow artists to fill the spaces temporarily without paying rent. This initiative gave rise to Spaceworks Tacoma, a program launched in 2010 that matches creatively inclined entrepreneurs with commercial building property owners. The program gives artists without the financial means required to get a business off the ground an opportunity to test the profitability of an idea. Spaceworks then matches the entrepreneurs with property owners who donate the space. “Property owners...