It is Catalina Ocampo Londoño’s first year teaching here as a Visiting Professor in the Spanish department. She’s come here by a rather circuitous route; she was born and raised in Colombia, went to school in Virginia and Boston, and in between getting her various degrees (her dissertation is still in the works), she has lived in Pittsburg, Minneapolis and now Tacoma. Ocampo Londoño is interested in melding various art forms. She is teaching a class on the essay as an art form, while her dissertation looks at the history...

Tomorrow, 12 students will pile into a Puget Sound Outdoors (PSO) van at the crack of dawn to drive the 19 hours to Burlingame, Calif. From there, they will start a five-day backpacking trip in Death Valley National Park, the hottest and driest of all national parks in the United States. The craziest part about the experience is that for two nights of the trip, the campers will separate to adventure completely alone. This spring break, PSO will embark upon three trips. The Death Valley trip focuses on giving students...

Professor William Dasher, known as “Dasher” to anyone who is remotely familiar with him, teaches one of the hardest courses at Puget Sound: Organic Chemistry. On the days when there is a test in O Chem, Oppenheimer gets ready early so that students can get their caffeine fix before the 7:30 a.m. start time. The average grades on the tests are shockingly low for a Social Science major. Despite teaching such an intimidating course, Dasher does not take himself, or anything else for that matter, too seriously. He is a...

Imagine this: sitting outside on a sunny day, drinking mimosas and basking in a kiddie pool while Chaka Khan and Rufus’ “Tell Me Something Good” wafts through the air. Your best friends are all around you, everyone is dancing, the day feels endless and just when you think it can’t get any better, someone fires up the barbeque. You are on top of the world. My point is if you want to have a great sophomore, junior or senior year, rent a house. Not only are the on-campus housing options...

Monday, Oct. 24 was an unusually clear night in Tacoma. From the top of the tower in Thompson hall, all that was visible was the orange glow of sodium streetlights, the ever-present cloud of steam rising above the port and the stars. The stars were exactly what brought me up there. I had tagged along with a group of students and Physics professor Tsunefumi Tanaka to take advantage of the uncommonly cloud-free sky and see what lies beyond our atmosphere through the lens of our university’s telescope. Our observatory is...

Last Saturday, the Rotunda was transformed into a bustling market place showcasing the do-it-yourself creativity of the Puget Sound student body at the biannual Student Market. On display were tie-dyed tennis shoes, vegan baked goods, rocks wrapped in wire, those ubiquitous feather earrings, bee balm, homemade pasta, canned pickles and more. The vendors were as varied as their goods. Preston Van Buren of The Hive Minders, the on-campus apiary, wore bee antennas with considerable aplomb while recent graduate Liz Bird had her business cards on display along with her jewelry....

First, I must confess. Due to scheduling problems, this entire interview happened in cyber-space through good ol’ University of Puget Sound Webmail. I have never met Professor John Wesley, an Associate Professor of the English Department, who is currently teaching his first semester at Puget Sound. Luckily, Professor Wesley’s training makes him well-equipped to express himself eloquently and wittily through the written word. Professor Wesley also has the distinction of being the resident professor at Trimble Hall. This means his family, which includes three small children that you may have...