Whitman Stories

The classes of 2008 and 2009 faced one of the most challenging job markets in decades, as the U.S. reeled from the impacts of the Great Recession. The Class of 2020 faces an equally uncertain job market, with hiring slowing and the unemployment rate rising in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Instead of their annual weeklong training camp, which hosted between 50-75 children ages 4-11 from across the Walla Walla Valley, this spring each player on the Blues Baseball team created their own video demonstrating techniques and teaching drills for children to practice at home.

President Kathleen M. Murray writes about how COVID-19 has reshaped Whitman College, and how students, faculty and staff rose to support our community.

As an advisor and historian, Associate Professor Jacqueline Woodfork works to build relationships and see connections with her students and subject.

Associate Professor Erin Pahlke joins psychology researchers to ask how much children really understand about politics — and how we can help make the rhetoric less frightening

A collaboration between Whitman College and the Washington State Penitentiary brings students from both institutions together to discuss relevant ethical issues in philosophy course.

Sam Perkins ’17 is an Idaho-based smokejumper for the U.S. Forest Service. But he also has a more global perspective to fire management. After graduating from Whitman College with his degree in sociology-environmental studies, Perkins received a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship and spent a year traveling the globe exploring how other cultures approach the environmental uncertainty of natural disaster.

Cross country star Whitney Rich ’20 finds room to explore a career in medical translation and passions for the environment and running at Whitman

Heather Wright ’99 is a research geologist with the Volcano Disaster Assistance Program, a partnership between the U.S. Geological Survey and USAID’s Office for Foreign Disaster Assistance. Based in Vancouver, Washington, the program works to prevent volcano-related tragedies by collaborating with scientists and public officials around the world.

Cancellation of the spring athletic seasons due to COVID-19 was a heartbreaking turn of events for the college’s scholar-athletes.

This spring, Evangelos Sarantinos ’20 was awarded a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship to study rare disease and caregivers around the world.

Cameron Conner ’20 believes strongly in the power of communities. He demonstrates that it in his actions, whether that’s volunteering as a wrestling coach at a Spokane, Washington, high school, becoming certified as an EMT, co-founding a nonprofit or helping the city of Walla Walla create a neighborhood-building program. Moving forward, he’ll dig deeper into what makes communities work as a recipient of the Thomas J. Watson Fellowship.