Our Place in Walla Walla #16: Higher Education

Our place enjoys and benefits from a vibrant higher ed sector.

Yesterday, Whitman students along with students from our two local higher education partners, Walla Walla Community College (WWCC) and Walla Walla University (WWU), along with area residents joined hands for the Spring Tri-College Community Day. More than 200 students helped 14 local organizations.

Christian Gachet ’22, Community Engagement Coordinator in the Career and Community Engagement Center (CCEC), who came to Whitman as a transfer student from WWCC, has a wonderful observation about the importance of the day. “This is a unique opportunity for all colleges in Walla Walla to exchange experiences, ideas, knowledge and passion for their community by offering the opportunity to create bonds between the students of all the colleges.”

Jonathan Simons, Assistant Director for Career Mentoring Programs in the CCEC, who worked at WWU before coming to Whitman, added “Tri-College Community Day is one of many ways that our valley benefits from its colleges. When the energy, creativity and passion of college students meets community need, great things happen and the community is better for it.”

This annual opportunity to bring students together is a wonderful reminder that our community is fortunate to have three excellent and distinct institutions of higher education within just a few miles of each other. Walla Walla Community College, selected as the top community college in the nation, helps area residents prepare for rapid entry into the workforce and offers English language acquisition, high school completion, enrichment classes, short certificates, and two- and four-year degrees, according to Director of Outreach Melissa Rodriguez. Walla Walla University is a private institution based in College Place with branch campuses throughout the Pacific Northwest that is part of the global Seventh Day Adventist education system.

Their collective impact on the Walla Walla Valley is significant. The three campuses are among the 11 largest employers in Walla Walla County creating nearly 1,600 jobs for area residents (out of about 31,000 total jobs in the county).

They bring thousands of students to the region, along with students’ families and friends. (Our local tourism office is happy to have them—so much so that last year they created a set of opportunities for families visiting their scholars!). Brad McMasters, who has lived in the valley since 2002, shared, “I’m neither an alum nor associated with any of the institutions but I look forward to the school year beginning and the students returning because I associate Walla Walla with the positive energy and optimism that is brought by the young adults”—a sentiment I heard from several people while working on this piece.

In addition, together the campuses annually host hundreds of visiting scholars, cultural groups, athletes and guests from around the world, creating an infusion of perspectives and backgrounds not found in the local area. Nearly all of these events are free and open to community residents.

With all of this impact, is Walla Walla a “college town”? In a terrific 2018 column for the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin, Patrick Jones, Ph.D., Executive Director of Institute for Public Policy and Economic Analysis at Eastern Washington University, explored this question. His answer? “Yes and no.” (It should be noted that Jones is a Whitman History major…)

Rent.com begs to differ, including us on its list of “best college towns in Washington,” noting our touch of sophistication.

One of the advantages of having three local campuses is the wide range of collaborative possibilities.

For a long time, Whitman and WWCC have worked together on the Gateway Program, which is “designed to encourage Walla Walla Community College students, particularly those from low-income, first-generation or other diverse backgrounds to pursue a liberal arts education.”

Recently, and expanding on this partnership, Whitman signed the Associate of Arts (AA) – Direct Transfer Agreement (DTA) agreement, which allows students who earned an AA Degree at any Washington State community college, including WWCC, to transfer to Whitman to complete their Bachelor’s Degree in two years. Registrar Jonathan Barnett points out, “by signing the DTA it shows Whitman’s commitment to see all students who are academically ready to become a Whittie and obtain a great education.”

Similarly, the Reciprocal Program is an agreement between Whitman and WWU that lets students from both institutions enroll in one course per term at the other institution without paying any of the general fees.

Partnering with the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (CTUIR) is another area that touches multiple campuses. Whitties probably might know that Whitman has a formal Memorandum of Agreement with the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation that was signed in 2017 and then reaffirmed in 2022 that identifies each entity’s interests and goals for the relationship. What Whitties might not know is that the WWCC Water and Environmental Center also has a close relationship with CTUIR through the Tribes’ Tribal Fisheries Research Program, which led to the construction of a huge laboratory and administrative center in the building in 2011. Alexa Maine, who leads the Tribes’ extraordinary lamprey propagation lab there, regularly supervises Whitman-funded student interns and last semester even taught a section of Biology on our campus.

These interactions can also be less programmatic. You can easily find alumni from all three campuses working both at their alma mater and also at the other schools. (As a wonderful example of this, late last week Whitman alumna Jennifer Lopez ’13 announced the launch of the alumni network for Walla Walla Community College, where she works as their inaugural Alumni Relations and Donor Engagement director!) Many couples are employed by two (or all three) institutions. Just this week, the powerful new exhibit in the Stevens Gallery, “Sweeter Than the Onions: Narratives of Resilience in Walla Walla’s Queer Community,” created by David Nord Award recipient and Assistant Director for Career Readiness & Employer Engagement Nikki Brueggeman, highlights connections between queer students at Whitman and WWU over the years.

Taken together, WWCC President Chad Hickox recently observed, “I think that we have reached critical mass in the area, with cultural, intellectual and economic benefits to our partnerships, collaborations and even just our co-location. We are all working on equitably serving all parts of our community, changing lives and preparing our students to be happy, healthy and productive members of our community.”

Having many active and ambitious learners in our community presents other advantages for the region.

Amy Schwab, Commissioner of the Port of Walla Walla—the lead economic development entity for our county—contemplates the possibilities of more students remaining in the area after completing their degrees.

“Our valley’s strong education sector contains the seeds of our future economy. Students and graduates can consider how they can bring together complementary talents to create new, innovative organizations that will power future economic opportunity and value-creation. We need graduates to look beyond just landing a job, to look at how they can develop entrepreneurial enterprises using their fresh ideas and energy and create real advancement opportunity with great jobs for future waves of graduates who want to grow their lives right here.”

Given Commissioner Schwab’s invitation to graduates to stay in the area, one final contribution that higher education makes to this community is to the wine sector—the Community College through its Institute for Enology and Viticulture and Whitman through our many alumni who have gone into this sector. Accordingly, our next column will explore this aspect of our place, right after Walla Walla celebrates the annual Spring Release Weekend.

Cheers!