Whitman Stories

About 435 goats are spending a week as welcome guests of Whitman College. Their objective? Graze about two acres of land near the school's athletic complex. This is the first time Whitman has used goats for vegetation management.

She has traveled to the border on numerous occasions over the last year to offer pro bono legal assistance to refugees fleeing from Central America's violent Northern Triangle that includes El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Working with the nonprofit organization Al Otro Lado ("the other side"), Noone plans to visit Tijuana, Mexico, twice this month to deliver letters of support to families awaiting asylum decisions.

Thomas Witherspoon, Whitman’s incoming vice president of diversity and inclusion, will focus on providing leadership in advancing and ensuring an inclusive learning community, serve as a member of the president's cabinet, and help students, faculty and staff envision ways to create a positive experience for every member of the Whitman community.

A 2019 Core Grant from the Sherwood Trust will enable Whitties to gain an understanding of and practice in nonprofit consulting.

"Perfect Version" is available this month through Hardly Art. Shapiro and her bandmates Gretchen Grimm '12, Lydia Lund '12 and Annie Truscott '12 met as students at Whitman before ascending Seattle's rock scene.

Raymond and Elsie Gipson DeBurgh Chair of Social Sciences and Professor of Sociology Michelle Janning looks back on her year of teaching courses incorporating digital guest speakers on various topics, and how the experience sparked questions beyond how well that format facilitated student learning.

Whitman’s newly named Department of Hispanic Studies is alive with energy. For the 2019-2020 academic year, the department, formerly known as Spanish, has a new name, revamped existing courses and several newly created courses. The name change was many years in the making, but it was an external review conducted in 2018 that proved to be the catalyst for the changes.

Lauren Mendoza came to Whitman from Minneapolis, Minnesota. "I heard about Whitman at a Colleges that Change Lives college fair. I love the Pacific Northwest and I’m a huge backpacker. I wanted easy access to the outdoors. I visited Walla Walla and I really liked it."

From native plant gardens buzzing with honeybees to flowering shrubs to “celebrity” trees and all the flora and fauna in between, the campus brims with natural beauty. Maintaining its luster for everyone to enjoy is a team effort.

As a researcher and instructor in the Department of Chemistry at Whitman College, Dalia Biswas has worked with more than a dozen undergraduate students on different aspects of her research molybdenum-catalyzed transformation of CO. She's seen how much the exposure to research helps students connect what they learn in the classroom to a real career.

Whitman College President Kathleen Murray today announced the appointment of Thomas Witherspoon as the college’s new vice president for diversity and inclusion.

Aliyah Fard '22 came to Whitman through the Summer Fly-In Program available to first-generation and working-class students. The connections she made during that program allowed her to start on campus already knowing familiar faces around campus. As a social media intern, Fard helps run fun campaigns and come up with content for Whitman's social media channels. Fard is a first-year student from Denver, a soon-to-be environmental politics major, a social media intern and a Whittie.