Whitman College Announces Upward Together Campaign

Delivering on Big Goals for Generations of Whitties

While Upward Together publicly launched this week, more than $138 million is already raised— thanks to more than 13,500 donors. Serrurier and Perrine took a moment to celebrate the success of the campaign so far, including more than $50 million in gifts for scholarships and aid and $15 million toward building a junior-senior residential village for a vibrant community of connection and support for students.

“That sense of accomplishment, that feeling of having delivered on big goals for our future students—those are the moments and those are the impacts we will create and deliver with this campaign,” said Perrine.

Additional gifts include $10 million from Kathie Weingart and the late emeritus professor Walt Weingart for need-based financial aid enabling Whitman College to begin meeting the full financial need of all Washington state first-year students. Nancy and Greg Serrurier (Parents ’11) provided a $5 million gift to strengthen Whitman’s Career and Community Engagement Center, including funding career coaching staff and internships to enhance students’ preparation for successful and meaningful graduate outcomes.

Whitman has also seen nearly $18 million in gifts and pledges for faculty support, academic programs and student-faculty research.

“Faculty at Whitman have always been dedicated to creating a transformative experience for students,” said Sharon Alker, the Mary A. Denny Professor of English and General Studies, who serves as a faculty representative on the campaign committee. 

“Investments in the academic program from the campaign will assist us to sustain and strengthen vital existing programs and to build powerful new programs so that students will carry the transformative intellectual impact of a Whitman education into the world. We are also excited at being able to extend the reach of that experience to a broader range of students,” Alker said.

Alker joined fellow members of the campaign committee at the Thursday evening launch event including President Bolton, Chair of the Whitman College Board of Trustees Joe Davis ’80, former board Chair John Stanton ’77, Trustee Gordon Keane ’68, Trustee Charley Rosenberry ’81, Trustee Drew Shoals ’05 and Trustee Jonathan Sposato ’89.

Students and young alumni were also part of the program and spoke about the profound effect their Whitman education has had on them.

“My time at Whitman was transformative—since the moment I walked onto Ankeny Field as an anxious 19-year-old,” said Klaudia Kyjovska ’22. “I learned from the best professors across several departments, captained the soccer team and built relationships that will last a lifetime. Now at work, I’m surrounded by Whitties helping others build businesses—I hope to build one myself someday.”

Going Upward: Collaborative and Collective Effort

The theme of the campaign—Upward Together—references the collective effort to rise to meet the needs of the talented students of today as well as the rapidly changing needs of tomorrow’s students. It’s also a nod to one of the core attributes that connects students of today to alumni for generations—the collaborative nature and sense of community that is so strong at Whitman.

“Our campaign name reflects our shared aspirations, and the ways this campaign will elevate the heart of our mission, a mission that has been carried by a strong community across generations and that is felt in the bonds among students and colleagues today,” said President Bolton.

Upward Together is just Whitman’s second major campaign launch in the last forty years and the first in memory to kickoff on campus in Walla Walla. The campus campaign launch will be followed by regional event celebrations at T-Mobile Park in Seattle and in San Francisco, Portland, Pasadena (Southern California), Denver, New York and Washington D.C. Learn more and register for a regional campaign event.

Campaign Chair Serrurier ended the evening with a call to action for attendees, alumni, parents and friends.  

“With this campaign, we create our legacy,” Serruier said. “Now we, together, will write the story of the next volume of Whitman’s history. We stand with those college leaders who have come before us, and we take another ambitious step forward, with new leaders, in service of a new generation of students.“

To make a donation and learn more about the campaign, visit whitman.edu/upwardtogether.

Photography by Kim Fetrow ’96 of Kim Fetrow Photography