Jenny Stratton

My role in the Career and Community Engagement Center (CCEC) is multifaceted.  I work alongside Dr. Jess Hernandez to assist students who are applying to nationally and globally competitive fellowships, scholarships, and grants.  My speciality is in the details, helping applicants with proofreading and fine-tuning for a well-articulated and compelling story.  I also manage logistics for the Center's Career Coaching program, ensuring that every student has the opportunity to connect with our professional coaching staff, maximizing their access to advice and resources for planning ahead (whether that's next semester or after graduation)! 

The unexpected jouney that landed me in the CCEC is one of my favorite stories.  I attended a small liberal arts college in the Midwest but graduated without certainty about what came next. After earning my M.S. in Plant Biology from the University of Illinois, I found my dream job working in a series of herbaria across the country (at the Illinois Natural History Survey, Knox College, and Colgate University) before finally landing at Whitman with my husband, Professor of Computer Science John Stratton.  While volunteering in Whitman's Anderson Herbarium (a delightful hidden gem of a collection, where I still catalog plants once a week and help mentor students), I was invited to join the Fellowships and Grants team in late 2018.  Our team became part of the CCEC in early 2021, and I've had expanding opportunities to play a role in Whitties' lives ever since.

Whether you already have a plan for what you want to do with your life or you're a bit unsure, I like to remind folks that it's good to keep an open mind about your future. As someone once said, "The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't."