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The humanities’ newest major, cinema and media studies (CMS), allows students to explore different modes of expression and their effects on a world increasingly dominated by mass media. “This new major should be especially relevant to incoming students,” department chair Eric Ames said. 

College of Arts & Sciences Dean Stacey explains that there is an important civic, political, social, and cultural element to an education and that you can get that in a wide variety of majors.

The department of American ethnic studies (AES) takes pride in its strong focus on issues of social justice, equality, and civil rights — especially as it pertains to those U.S. groups that have been historically subjected to exclusion and marginalization. 

UW graduates go on to work in a range of careers, whether it be law, medicine, or video game design. But it may surprise you to know that students in all three of these careers have majored in the same subject: English.

“Might a singular focus on zero emissions lead to the neglect of climate adaptation policies that have less media appeal? As we enter the third decade of the 21st century, climate policy should pay attention to two important but neglected issues: how the electric car industry will source inputs — such as copper, cobalt, nickel and lithium — and, because climate change is already underway, how prepared countries and cities are to adapt to different dimensions of climate change,” write Nives Dolšak, professor of marine and environmental affairs at the UW, and Aseem Prakash, professor of political science at the UW.

Owen L. Oliver, senior studying American Indian Studies, has developed an Indigenous walking tour of the UW.

Whether you want to run a marathon, eat more healthfully or just get off the couch a little more, “for the majority of people, setting a goal is one of the most useful behavior change mechanisms for enhancing performance,” says Frank Smoll, professor of psychology at the UW. “It’s highly individual.” But goal-setting strategies will help you stay the course.

It’s a moth, it’s a plane, it’s … the Smellicopter, a little drone that senses odors with an onboard moth antenna. Seriously, that’s the scientists’ real name for their creation, a system that monitors the electrical signals sent from the antenna of an actual moth, allowing the drone to lock onto the source of a scent and navigate toward it. The UW’s Melanie Anderson, a doctoral student in mechanical engineering, and Thomas Daniel, professor of biology, are quoted.

Battles of grammar, for the most part, play out in English classrooms and in the pages of style guides. Rarely do arguments over split infinitives and Oxford commas venture beyond the walls of academia. But one linguistic phenomenon lands in the limelight every so often, and it’s a word you know well: the pronoun “they” — along with its derivatives “them” and “their.” Kirby Conrod, a lecturer in linguistics at the UW, is quoted.

Glennys Young, professor of history and of international studies and chair of the Department of History, was featured in a Spanish TV documentary about Cold War-era interrogation program, and the new Burke Museum was honored.