In the past couple years Peter Hedlund (BA, 2019) has moved to Seattle, where he got his first 1-bedroom apartment and got a good job as an accountant. He also joined the Democratic Socialists of America and marched in the Black Lives Matter protests. He has enjoyed going on many hikes. He casually dated an incredible woman for three weeks that had a big impact on him. Unfortunately, he was fired from his job as an accountant after 15 months but got a new job at a grocery co/op last week. He read The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk, started therapy, adopted a cat named Quill, drank coffee, got hit by tear gas, bought In a Silent Way by Miles Davis on wax, and played chess with his dad a lot. He has gotten vaccinated and decided he would like to be an educator. He is looking forward to the rest of his twenties.
(BA, 2019): Leslie Cogley
Right after graduating in June 2019, Leslie Cogley (BA, 2019) got a job as the sole Grant Writer for an anti-human trafficking nonprofit in Seattle, WA, called REST: Real Escape from the Sex Trade. She is thankful to her mentors and Professors in the English department, including Jeremy Cushman, Tony Prichard, and Donna Qualley.
(BA, 2014): Nick Thacker
Nick Thacker (BA, 2014) is pursuing an MA in Political Science at San Francisco State University. He is focusing on Marxist political theory and writing a thesis on the political thought of Pier Paolo Pasolini. The department awarded him the Wasserman Prize for the Best Graduate Paper in Spring 2021 for an essay on the Italian Communist Party and the Historic Compromise in the 1970s. He presented a paper on populism and the journalistic writings of Pier Paolo Pasolini at the 2021 meeting of the Western Political Science association.
(BA, 2015): Maddie Erickson
Maddie Erickson (BA, 2015) graduated with an MS in Library and Information Science from Simmons University.
(BFA, 2017): Spencer Johnson
Spencer Johnson (BFA, 2017) graduated in May with his MFA in Fiction from Emerson College, and was hired on as Affiliated Faculty teaching Writing and Comp there as well.
(MFA, 2017): Joanna Roiggordon
Joanna Roiggordon (MFA, 2017) will be attending Indiana University, Bloomington’s Rhetoric & Composition PhD program in the fall of 2021.
(MFA, 2018): Rebecca Beardsall
Rebecca Beardsall’s (MFA, 2018) memoir My Place in the Spiral, a book started in Brenda Miller’s class, launched in January 2021. Visit the website at http://www.rebeccabeardsall.com/book/my-place-in-the-spiral/.
(BA, 2017): Riley Jessett
As of this last year, Riley Jesset (BA, 2017) is the director of the primary science lab at Carson Academy of Science, a public school in Milwaukee, WI. In this unique program, scholars as young as three years old and as old as ten spend two hours a week doing hands-on, culturally relevant science work. They completed their Master’s in Urban Early Childhood Education at Cardinal Stritch University in 2019.
(BA, 2019): McKenzie Grenz
McKenzie Grenz (BA, 2019) started a new job at People For People, a non-profit that provides transportation to senior and disabled people, Meals On Wheels in Yakima County, employment and training programs, and 2-1-1 information and referrals.
BA, 2019: Ian Brumbaugh
Ian Brumbaugh (BA, 2019) is the Administrative Assistant in the College of Nursing Clinical Performance Lab at Seattle University.