

Join us every second Tuesday of the month from 6:30-7:30pm for Grit City Think & Drink.
Grit City Think & Drink brings scholars and experts from various disciplines face-to-face with the public in a comfortable, lively atmosphere, either virtually or in person. The evening begins with a presentation or lecture (often interactive) followed by giveaways and a moderated Q&A. Grit City Think & Drink is free to the public and open to all ages.
Sponsored by the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences and hosted by UWT Associate Professor Jim Gawel. Click on each title for more information and the option to add it to your calendar.
Upcoming Events
October 10, 2023
6:30PM - 7:30PM
Morotopithecus, Ekembo, and Friends: collaborative research on the adaptive environments of our earliest ape ancestors and all the other critters they lived with
Location: 7 Seas Brewing, 2101 Jefferson Avenue Tacoma, WA 98402
Sponsored by 7 Seas Brewing!
Kirsten Jenkins, Tacoma Community College
Description
The REACHE (Research on Eastern African Catarrhine and Hominoid Evolution project) embarked on something that had never been done in paleoanthropology (study of human and ape evolution) before; gathered several independent and interdisciplinary research groups to use similar methods and share data for reconstructing past environments to create a regional model of how early apes evolved. What our team found upended decades-old paradigms on what it means to be an ape and calls into question narratives on the origins of later bipedalism in our lineage. This work is made possible by thoughtful relationships both within our research groups and the local communities where we work.
Kirsten Jenkins (PhD - U Minnesota; BA -WWU) is a Biological Anthropologist and Archaeologist at Tacoma Community College where she teaches courses on bioanthropology, archaeology, primates, and human osteology. Her research interests are in reconstructing predator-prey relationships of fossil apes and fossil humans. Kirsten has been studying fossil site formation in eastern Africa on various projects spanning the last 20 million years of human and ape evolution since 2009.
November 14, 2023
6:30PM - 7:30PM
City of Tacoma v. Andrus: Tacoma’s Battle to End Federal Recognition of the Puyallup Tribe
Location: 7 Seas Brewing, 2101 Jefferson Avenue Tacoma, WA 98402
Sponsored by 7 Seas Brewing!
Danica Miller, UW Tacoma
Description
Dr. Miller examines the ruling City of Tacoma v. Andrus as a defining point in the Puyallup Tribe’s fight for treaty rights and as precursor to the nationally renowned Puyallup Tribe Land Settlement of 1990. The Boldt Decision further emboldened the Puyallup Tribe to continue their self-advocacy and self-determination through Federal action. The Secretary of the Interior, working under the Indian Reorganization Act, began working with Puyallup tribal citizens to put their former trust land back into trust status. The Secretary's actions were met with hostility from Tacoma settlers. In response, Tacoma filed City of Tacoma v. Andrus (1977) to halt the Secretary from any further trust action with some statements from the plaintiff side suggesting that the Puyallup Reservation no longer existed, and thus the Puyallup Tribe no longer existed. It didn’t go well for Tacoma.
Danica Sterud Miller (Puyallup Tribe of Indians) is an Associate Professor of American Indian Studies at University of Washington Tacoma, which resides on her ancestral lands. Her research focuses on textual constructions of Indigenous sovereignty and Federal Indian law. She is also the Co-Director of the UW Center of American Indian and Indigenous Studies (CAIIS), which is dedicated to offering structural support and resources for Indigenous faculty, students, and staff.
MISSED A RECENT GRIT CITY THINK & DRINK? You can find past 2023 Talks on our Grit City Think&Drink Youtube Channel.
2023
SEPTEMBER 12: Carrots, sticks, and competition – how feedback can contribute to inequalities with Dr. Anna Lovász, Assistant Professor of Economics at UW Tacoma. Watch on YouTube
2022
APRIL 11: New Studies on an Old Poison: Arsenic in Shallow Lakes with Dr. Jim Gawel, Associate Professor of Environmental Chemistry and Engineering at UW Tacoma. Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmemoAe-iGU
DECEMBER 13: Outdoor Recreation in the Smartphone Age with Rachel Fricke, PhD student in the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaKNVvKIhC0
NOVEMBER 8: Red snow and pink glaciers: How snow microbiomes help shape the future of alpine snow and glaciers with Robin Kodner, Associate Professor of Environmental Science, Western Washington University. YouTube: https://youtu.be/a8SJnH84Tcg
OCTOBER 11: Reflections on four decades of economic development in a Mauritania village with
Katie Baird, Professor of Economics, UW Tacoma. YouTube: https://youtu.be/oOpmfVWevFU
APRIL 12: You and the UW Sustainability Action Plan: How can we make it real for all of us? with Marilyn Ostergren, Interim Director, UW Sustainability. YouTube: https://youtu.be/Kj37XemWNPs
MARCH 8: Getting to Net-Zero and Beyond: What are the stakes and what will it take? with Chris Forest, Professor of Climate Dynamics, Pennsylvania State University; Director, Center for Earth System Modeling, Analysis, and Data. (Note: This presentation was not recorded.) Click to view slides provided during the presentation.
FEB 8: They Never Can Jail Us All: My Life in the Freedom Struggle with Michael Honey, UW Tacoma. YouTube: https://youtu.be/bOZ2lOJ3q_Y
JAN 11: The Power of Direct Cash Payments: After stimulus checks and Child Tax Credits, are we ready to embrace a Guaranteed Income? with Anne Aurilio, Federal Campaign Director, Economic Security Project. YouTube: https://youtu.be/xnBK3C4Vmwg
2021
DEC 14: The Politics of Matching, Messaging, and Making the First Move in Online Dating with Riki Thompson, UW Tacoma. YouTube: https://youtu.be/H5FmVpQ4iO4
NOV 9: If Furniture Could Talk: Culture, Power, and Politics with Ali Modarres, UW Tacoma. YouTube: https://youtu.be/rSFZsNpYQt4
OCT 12: Low Cost, Engineered Materials for Enhanced Contaminant Removal in Urban Stormwater with Jessica Ray, UW Seattle. YouTube: https://youtu.be/qwikEz7YbIA
SEPT 14: Barcoding the Sound: Genetic approaches to Quantifying Salish Sea Crustacean Diversity with Kristin Hultgren, Seattle University. YouTube: https://youtu.be/uW6uBjx-MUQ
AUG 10: Dogs, Rats, and Goats! Oh My!: On the Wonderful World of Nonhuman Humanitarians with Ben Meiches, UW Tacoma. YouTube: https://youtu.be/O-f7Ym8pW-4
JULY 13: Global Themes in World History since 1500 in Five Images with Libi Sundermann, UW Tacoma. YouTube: https://youtu.be/RQPa2sB7FJ4
JUNE: Cancelled
MAY 11: Transnational and spatial stories of becoming Nisei in pre-WWII Tacoma with Mary Hanneman and Lisa Hoffman, UW Tacoma. Youtube: https://youtu.be/Q5q_bcXCyuA
APRIL 13: Stand up for the earth while you sit down to dinner: Understanding the connections between our food, climate change, and antibiotic resistance in the environment with Jenny Jay, UCLA. Youtube: https://youtu.be/RDFargL0taA
MARCH 9: More than a meal: Exploring the diverse ways that fish contribute to society with Julian Olden, UW Seattle. YouTube: https://youtu.be/VNL9DtPu7Ro
FEB 9: Gender Justice and Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and Two-Spirit People with Charlene Aqpik Apok, University of Alaska Fairbanks; Executive Director, Data for Indigenous Justice; Director of Gender Justice & Healing, Native Movement. YouTube: https://youtu.be/trEOoEbBYWY
JAN 12: When Should We Restrict Hate Speech? A Social Justice Response to Escalating Hatred in the US with Chris Demaske, UW Tacoma. YouTube: https://youtu.be/IOAentjBAn0
2020
DEC 8: From Black Lives Matter to Black Wives Matter: Exploring How Pornography Has Sexualized Social Justice Movements with Carolyn West, UW Tacoma. YouTube: https://youtu.be/hqZLU4dKjIQ
NOV 10: Save the Whales: Using Citizen Science to Conserve Alaska’s Critically Endangered Cook Inlet Belugas with Alison Gardell, UW Tacoma. YouTube https://youtu.be/4KCvmggb9V8
OCT 13: Enhancing Inclusivity and Access Using Evidence-Based STEM Teaching Practices with Shannon Seidel, Pacific Lutheran University. YouTube: https://youtu.be/SDUS4X5vnZI
SEPT 22: All Districts Are Gerrymandered, But How Matters! with Jim Thatcher, UW Tacoma. YouTube: https://youtu.be/Y0WWUXRrvD0
SEPT 9: A Tale of Two Plagues: The 1918 Flu Pandemic and the COVID-19 Pandemic of 2020 with Anna Groat Carmona, UW Tacoma. YouTube: https://youtu.be/T5sgZSWWIZ0
AUGUST: CANCELED
JULY 14: Volcanic Ecology: Just Add Water with Carri LeRoy, The Evergreen State College. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4PGfi-QCbI
JUNE 9: The Rise of Chinese Wine: A Political Economy Story with Cynthia Howson, UW Tacoma and Pierre Ly, University of Puget Sound.
MAY 12: The Social Value of Property in the Quest for Affordable/Attainable Housing with Anaid Yerena and Rubén Casas, UW Tacoma; Flavia de Ávila, Federal University of Sergipe, Brazil. YouTube: https://youtu.be/g925eueF7W4
APRIL 14: Global Competition of Social Messaging Platforms with Huatong Sun, UW Tacoma. YouTube: https://youtu.be/atrsRYifFVQ
MARCH: CANCELED
FEB 11: Smokey Bear: Friend or Foe of our Forests? with Maureen Kennedy, UW Tacoma
JAN 14: We Are Puget Sound - Stories of Hope with Mindy Roberts, Washington Environmental Council