Whitman Stories

Frontline workers in the medical and emergency response industries are getting a boost in access to personal protective equipment (PPE) and hand sanitizer thanks to the generosity and expertise of Whitman College faculty, staff and alumni.

Whitman offers President’s Scholarships and talent-based scholarships in theatre arts, fine arts, debate and music. For the fine arts award, recipients have to at least minor in the Art Department. Now a sophomore mathematics and English double major, with an art minor, Sylvie Corwin included images of painted mailboxes in her art portfolio, and received a talent-based President’s Scholarship to study at Whitman.

Archie and his friends are a long way from where they started as innocent teens in the pages of comic books. And along for the ride is Evan Martin ’16, a film and media studies major, who has served as a writer’s assistant for the “Riverdale” TV show on The CW since December 2017.  

Before Whitman College announced the move to online teaching in March in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Sams and Thayne had already made the decision to shift the course to an online format out of concern for the safety of students and the CTUIR community.

Kirtley has been sending out weekly video messages to students during this time to help them feel connected despite the recent shift to distance learning.

Senior theater major Haley King '20 went to her thesis advisor with an idea to do her senior thesis project on special effect make-up. When the production, "Playing with Fire: (After Frankenstein)" came on the table for the 2019/2020 season, King was able to make her idea a reality.

Even before COVID-19 hit Washington and forced the closure of Whitman College’s Walla Walla campus in March, Zidane Galant-LaPorte was already talking about the novel coronavirus in her health and illness class, led by Associate Professor and Garrett Fellow Alissa Cordner.

The chemistry department partnered with a Salem, Oregon, distillery to lend expertise and develop a quick recipe for much-needed hand sanitizer, preparing the correct portions of glycerin, hydrogen peroxide and water in batches on campus.

Citing her own experience conducting a study during the 2016 election cycle, she wrote that while 65 percent of kids surveyed knew that a woman has never been elected president of the United States, only 25 percent mentioned gender discrimination as a factor.

She joined host Jessica Rolph for a discussion on executive function in babies, including the famous "marshmallow test," and how parents can boost such development.

"Even when we're not in the middle of a pandemic, most people with anxiety disorders grapple with trying to distinguish between excessive fears to threats that aren't real, or what's called false alarms," explained Armstrong, who researches anxiety-related disorders and phobias. "Now we're being told those fears that once seemed irrational are rational. The alarm isn't false."

In response to the growing COVID-19 pandemic, on March 12, 2020, President Kathleen Murray announced that Whitman would move to online learning for the remainder of spring semester. With classes restarting March 30, Whitman’s faculty and staff had only two weeks to move their material and prepare students — and themselves — for the unprecedented shift.