Discovery

We could tell you what’s in WSU 19, but then we’d have to shoot you.

WSU 19 is the adjunct culture added to Cougar Gold cheese that gives it its more-than-cheddar taste. It was developed by N.S. Golding (hence Cougar Gold) at WSU in the early 1940s and has been used ever since.

“WSU 19 is our secret ingredient,” says Russ Salvadalena, manager of the WSU Creamery. “We are willing to share all of our other experiences and ingredients, but we don’t share WSU 19.”

On a recent Tuesday morning he took me through two chlorine foot baths, past the ice cream flavor vats and into the culture room where WSU 19 is stored and incubated.

“We keep this pretty much under lock and key when no one is around,” he says, removing a small plastic bottle from inside a “refrigerator” set to an internal temperature of 100 degrees.

Every day or two, for the past nearly 70 years a WSU student has transferred a portion of WSU 19 to a new nutrient bath in preparation for a new batch of cheese. The process is similar to how bakers will sometimes use the same sourdough starter for generations, Salvadalena said.

The subject of WSU 19 surfaced recently because Salvadalena got a call from a couple, Al and Susie Howell, who had a can of unopened Cougar Gold dated Oct. 1987. Their daughter, Teresa Howell Hoffman  ’80, had given it to them and they’d never gotten around to opening it. When they finally opened it earlier this month at the creamery, it tasted great.

And for that, we can thank WSU 19.

Cougar Gold is created with two cultures, a lactic starter and WSU 19. Some cheddars leave a bitter aftertaste, but not Cougar Gold, not even after two decades or more in a tin can.

Golding, a professor of dairy husbandry, began working on the problem of how to can cheese in the 1930s. At that time, the problem was a buildup of carbon dioxide over time, causing the cans to explode. When WWII started, the government got interested in food packaging as well, and, along with the American Can Company, gave Golding a grant to further his research.

Golding asked cheese-making colleagues from around the world to send him their bacteria cultures, Salvadalena said, and ended up making a “bacteria cocktail” that did indeed limit the production of carbon dioxide in the can. He named it WSU 19.

John Haugen, assistant creamery manager, says WSU 19 is no longer necessary to prevent explosions. The lactic starter WSU uses now will create a cheese that can ripen in a can. But, without WSU 19, it would be just another cheddar.

And for that, we can thank Dr. Golding.

Links

Alumnus has stash of aged Cougar Gold (WSU Today, Sept. 13, 2007)

How Cougar Gold Made the World a Better Place (Washington State Magazine, Winter 2004)

Oldest Cougar Gold cracked opened, still tasty (WSU Today, Aug. 14, 2010)

WSU Creamery

Gallery :: The Cheesemaking Process at WSU (Washington State Magazine)

‘Race to the Top’ faulty

(from WSU Today, Aug. 14, 2010)

The federal government’s Race to the Top program for improving American education won’t work because it’s based on a faulty assumption, according to a WSU expert in teacher development.

“There is no one national version of a quality teacher,” said Associate Professor Jason Margolis. “Successful teaching depends on where teachers are, how well they understand the thinking and culture of their students, and how well they use that information to help the students learn.”

Journal commentary

Margolis is a WSU College of Education faculty member in Vancouver. He makes his case in “Why Teacher Quality is a Local Issue (And Why Race to the Top is a Misguided Flop”), a commentary published in the journal Teachers College Record.

“The concept of ‘winning the race’ with ‘better teachers’ as foot soldiers is based on false premises, specious science and a general disregard for who students and teachers are and how they actually engage in learning in schools,” he writes.

Washington is among the states competing for grants from the $4.35 billion in Race to the Top Fund, created by the U.S. Department of Education to encourage reform and innovation in public schools.

Identify and replace

In his 2009 speech announcing the program, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said that “states and districts should be able to identify effective teachers and principals … and improve or replace ones that aren’t up the job.”

Duncan offered no definition of an effective educator, Margolis noted, but did say that states refusing to link high-stakes test results to teacher and principal evaluations would be banned from the money pool.

“What I see happening is that states are gaming the system. They play the federal game to get lots of money,” said Margolis. “You can play around with tests in order to improve scores, but there’s no evidence this will advance learning.”

Downplay the tests

If the Obama administration really wants to improve education, it should downplay tests and insist that teachers and principals not be passive recipients of outsiders’ ideas, Margolis argues. Instead, they should be active collectors of information about their students, and constantly plan and adapt how they teach.

Without that shift in approach, Margolis fears for the future of the country. “Our education system has become too regimented, and we’re forcing students to think inside of little boxes,” he said. “As a result, we’re losing our innovative edge; we’re losing our imagination.”

Link

06-22-10 Teachers College Record – Why Teacher Quality is a Local Issue (And Why Race to the Top is a Misguided Flop)

By Julie Titone, Communications Director for the WSU College of Education

The Seattle P-I’s Strange Bedfellows blog has a fun take on a new book by WSU historian Jeffrey Craig Sanders. Quothe the lede:

“Seattle business interests battling Greens and neighborhood groups over a downtown development project. No, this isn’t a story about the tunnel replacement for the Alaskan Way Viaduct. In Seattle & the Roots of Urban Sustainability: Inventing Ecotopia, historian Jeffrey Craig Sanders examines the creation of Emerald City fault lines that continue to dominate local political debates.”

Calling the book “a good primer on how our city’s complex politics came to be,” the blog highlights how Sanders sees a recurring cast of characters in many of Seattle’s development disputes.

“Some of the protagonists in the Commons fight are still active in the tunnel controversy. Sanders writes about Frank Chopp, who, prior to becoming the ultra powerful speaker of the state House of Representatives, was a vocal neighborhood activist who once built a geodesic dome in a rented parking space and railed against poor people being pushed out by gentrification. John Fox of the Seattle Displacement Coalition also makes an appearance.”

Read more here.

And kudos to the P-I for soldiering on in its second year of a purely digital life. Kara Swisher’s BoomTown says the “paper”–sorry, old habits die hard–is drawing 4 million unique visitors a month. A spokesman reports profitability is around the corner.