I have joined a campaign at my college to call for our endowment to be divested from the companies with the largest reserves of fossil fuels. We call for divestment in solidarity with people on the front lines of extreme resource extraction (like mountaintop-removal coal mining and fracking) and victims of climate change all over the world, present and future.

The divestment movement is a political strategy, not an economic plan to “bring down” the fossil fuel corporations. The objective of divestment is to help neutralize the fossil fuel industry’s influence by making it so unpopular and politically unattractive that accepting industry money is too costly for any politician. Counteracting the industry’s influence is vital to the success of any effective climate policy.

Divestment campaigns perform a powerful, nationwide political action that conveys a warning to our political institutions about the authenticity and depth of our commitment to a livable future. This action is meant to convey the seriousness of our demands for effective climate action from our elected representatives in a way standard pressure tactics cannot.

Divestment will not on its own lead to climate justice, especially given the amount of political inertia needed to be overcome and the wealth and entrenched power of the fossil fuel industry. But along with the combination of other tactics that are now being employed, divestment can make a significant contribution to climate justice.

The divestment movement is gaining traction. Four colleges have agreed to divest their endowments from fossil fuel companies and the City of Seattle has also moved to divest the city pension fund from fossil fuels. This may be a viable option for Whitman College as well, but only if we demand it.

Audrey Vaughan ’15

This column was contributed by Martha Sebald ’14

This past weekend, a few dozen students and student representatives crowded into Reid Campus Center for an informational hearing to help ASWC determine whether or not it will support divestment: an important conversation indeed. Here I would like to bring up an issue that was not fully addressed at the hearing.

Divestment needs to be more than making a motion and putting up a fight. Campaign leaders see physical divestment as not directly affecting fossil fuel companies, but rather as getting the issue out there and arguing that the first step towards a fossil-fuel-free campus is a divested endowment. Unfortunately, while divestment tends to focus on advocating for a movement to curb tendencies and affect our consumption of oil, we often see activism as an alternative to individual adjustment. It’s wrong to eschew our responsibilities to consumption and the environment by demanding that they change, without being willing to change ourselves.

Oil companies only supply oil because we demand it. Even as divestment campaigns demonstrate that we don’t support their practices, we do support their products. Transportation to and from Whitman was brought up at the hearing. Costs and consequences of transportation are huge, and the airplanes, cars and trains we take to fun and informative cultural seminars, conferences and study abroad trips don’t run on solar power. It’s important to recognize that our actions directly affect oil companies via demand. Our continued consumption and economic support only reinforces their influence and our hypocrisy.

We should focus on adjusting our own consumption rather than asking more of the Earth or for fossil fuel companies to adjust it for us. Proving to companies and communities that we can run a college without fossil fuels would be incredible and important. The divestment campaign has made it clear that divesting does not directly affect oil companies; surely there are more effective ways to both make a political statement and reduce fossil fuel demand.

Instead of making a purely political motion, the divestment campaign should focus on divesting locally. There are many important ways we could affect the demand for oil and gas within our own community, and energies currently going towards the divestment campaign could be redirected into pre-existing projects the CCC has, and new projects specifically divesting from campus.

Whitman already does its students and faculty a good service by not selling bottled water on campus, composting and supporting organic gardens and research. But to say we are maximizing our sustainable and green potential would be a mistake. Some students have suggested that the school invest in aquaponics in the future. Energies should be used for projects like this and other initiatives that reduce fossil fuel consumption on a local level, a statement in itself.

Divestment is an important campaign to pay attention to, of course, but eventually energies and resources should shift to efforts on a more tangible level. We can’t politely ask that everyone around us change, oil companies included, if we can’t take the first step and change ourselves.

by Ben Harris

Two weeks after the Power and Privilege Symposium, Michael Anderson is still talking about race. A first-year upper-middle-class white student from Portland, Michael is thrilled to have had the two-day lecture series confronting the issues of power and privilege. “I wasn’t sure at first if I’d have enough time to even attend a workshop, but then I realized I could probably watch the finale of ‘Girls’ on HBO Go anytime,” he said.

“I think the greater point of the symposium was evident: Talking about race only makes the problem more visible.” Michael mentioned a few instances in which he either left conversations about race or tried to change the subject. His primary struggle regarding the topic of race: white guilt.

“A lot of people don’t really get how hard it is to be white.” Since his race became salient to him—at about age 10—Michael has struggled daily with what it means to be white. “I get so sad realizing many of the things I take for granted as rights are actually privileges. Because not everybody who should have those rights actually has them … I try not to think about it that much.”

At this point in the interview, Michael began to weep white tears. “I struggle every day with the fact that I, as a white person, benefit from that discrimination; I, for no reason other than the color of my skin, have a lifelong advantage at the expense of others.” When asked what helps to ease the pain of white guilt, Michael said, “I try not to think about it. The more I can ignore the problem, the more I feel like it will go away.”

The Whitman community has really helped Michael to ignore the difficult aspects of racial diversity. “It’s just so white here,” he said. “Everyone goes skiing and rock climbing, people are either vegetarian or vegan and everyone listens to artists like Mumford & Sons and Bon Iver. All my friends are from Boulder, Palo Alto or Bellevue. Whitman is even on the white side of town. I don’t feel like I have to hide who I am here—I can just be myself.” He added that the main factor in choosing Whitman over BYU was the added middle-class whiteness of a liberal arts philosophy and general antagonism towards organized religion.

But despite all this, sometimes racial salience is still an issue for Michael. “In my psychology class, I always feel like the one Asian girl from Seattle is looking at me since almost all psychology studies have been done on young white people. I just wish she’d realize that it’s not me they’re talking about. I don’t like feeling like I represent my race. It’s not a comfortable feeling.”

After checking his iPhone 5, Michael suddenly left, saying he had to go play beer pong instead of going to do his gender studies homework. “I’m only taking it because I had a terrible registration time and my adviser said I needed distribution credit,” he clarified. “Trust me, I’m doing my best to ignore diversity, power and privilege so that problems like white guilt go away.”

Illustration by Eduardo Vazquez

This column was contributed by Mcebo Maziya ‘15

After much blood, sweat and tears from many Whitman student leaders, on March 27 the Power and Privilege Symposium kicked off with a smashing start. The thought-provoking workshops and compelling panels I attended made me realize that there are many students who care about issues of race and ethnicity on campus.

After Whitman’s 2006 blackface incident, many students realized that there needed to be a space where issues of race were discussed in constructive ways. Consequently, shortly after the infamous incident, there was a symposium held, suspending classes for that day.

However, after the symposium in 2006 there was a general attitude that racism on campus had been “solved.” Unfortunately, racism and other social “isms” are not mathematical equations that can be simply solved in a few days. We often fall into the trap of thinking that issues like racism can be eradicated by single actions, such as the USA’s first black president and the success of people of color like Oprah Winfrey. These single actions raise a red herring because they disrupt us from the arduous and critical processes needed to effect actual equality for everyone and not just for some people.

This is why ASWC and various student leaders have advocated that this symposium be held each year so that the conversations can continue on a yearly basis. Through increased exposure and continuous learning, I firmly believe that we can be able to embark on the journey of mental re-education and decolonization. I’m glad that the Power and Privilege Symposium is a space that can allow this process to take place for our community.

As a black African male at Whitman, I’ve found that many of my white peers have ceased to speak about race because there is a fear that they may offend non-white students. Firstly, racist and colonial actions remain whether or not I’m personally “offended.” For instance, even though I may not necessarily be offended if a white person gropes my afro, the socio-historical narrative displayed is still extremely problematic.

Second, although the fear of offending someone else is important, the silence about people’s identities creates more harm than good. This is one reason why the “colorblind” movement is so damaging. The fact that folks are willing to “look past” race implies that the color of our skin should be made irrelevant because of some underlying wrongness about it. Essentially, the phrase translates as “I’m willing to look past your alien skin to look beneath the surface.” While this seems noble on a superficial level, under scrutiny it implies that skin color, even if it looks green and disgusting, should be overlooked because people’s colors are not important.

In many workshops and panels I attended, such issues came to light and were discussed in complex ways. But because these workshops were only 45 minutes to an hour in length, we couldn’t arrive at more insightful social meanings or discuss the ways we all subconsciously reaffirm white supremacy. This is another reason why a dialogue should be continuous: Meaningful social change doesn’t occur overnight.

We are always subject to prejudice and quite often we are even more prone to exercising and articulating this prejudice in racist/sexist/homophobic/xenophobic ways that could ultimately oppress and disenfranchise various peoples. In other words, racism exists without racists. This reinforces that the conversations must continue so we can begin to obtain deeper and more nuanced perspectives about how we relate to and learn about one another’s multifaceted identities.

Even though this symposium is over, we must continue to speak about and debate these issues amongst ourselves in ways that can create a larger consciousness about the way race functions in society, but most importantly, about the ways other identities function in accordance with race to create various matrices of oppression. I have bad news: Oppression is definitely not over yet. So we should all hang in there and challenge it because it matters so much more than we could ever imagine.

To the Editor,

“For the last three years,” the recent ASWC press release on international travel reads, “there has been a ban on college funding going to any international travel.” That statement is remarkably incorrect. That statement overlooks $20,725 that ASWC has spent to fund the uniquely positioned Whitman Direct Action projects to Guatemala over the last three years. Almost $7,000 is a lot to drop on one club every year, but Whitman Direct Action has been one of the strongest enablers of the lifting of this ban than any other student effort through assiduous work with the college and serving as a guinea pig of sorts for international travel since 2005. I am appalled that there has been no recognition of WDA’s efforts in this process and only a severe, debilitating withdrawal of ASWC financial support from WDA. A budget cut by over 75 percent will
cause unethical compromises to not only WDA’s functionality but to our established Guatemalan partner community that is expectant of continued relations with the college.

We globally extend Whitman’s mission and values through cultivating a partnership of trust and reciprocation, and these cuts may result in tangible loss such as the inability to provide our planned water purification curriculum to help the community prevent, and recover from, water contamination. Rapid fund slashing and contradictory guidance on funding throughout the years do not promote the holistic learning and leading opportunities I believed our student government supported. I can only hope to see greater long-term consistency in ASWC’s priorities for its clubs as well as increased diplomacy when faced with the need to encourage decreased dependence on ASWC funding.

Natalie Jamerson ’13

Most Whitman students stay in Walla Walla for four years before leaving to pursue grad school or a career elsewhere. Students might hear about Whitman’s past or speculate about its future, but few of us get a chance to observe the college over the long haul. For people who have spent years working at Whitman, the changes over time are more visible. For this issue of The Circuit, we asked alumni, faculty, administrators and staff to reflect on the Whitman they know, and how it’s changed (or hasn’t) over time.

Gillian Frew ’11, media relations officer

It’s definitely a different experience being at Whitman as a student versus a staff member. It’s a different schedule, a different set of responsibilities, a different social circle. I don’t really go to student buildings anymore unless it’s for an assignment; I don’t know very many students and the interactions I have with professors are more colleague-client as opposed to student-teacher. There is a very cool alumni community in Walla Walla, though, which is something I didn’t realize as a student.
I think Whitman as an institution has always been really focused on the student experience, which makes sense given the fact that it’s a small liberal arts college. Everything we do as staff members goes toward enhancing that experience, or reflecting it to an external audience.

I also appreciate Walla Walla a lot more as a non-student. I feel more a part of the larger community as opposed to just the Whitman community, and I think I see the big picture more than I used to. I’ve definitely come to realize the cyclical nature of campus life, and how so many things stay the same year after year; it’s just the student body that’s constantly changing.

It’s kind of weird having conversations with my student interns about their classes, dorms, study abroad plans, etc., because it doesn’t feel like THAT long ago when that was all that consumed my life, too. Looking back, though, I think sometimes students just need to take a deep breath and realize that no matter how huge it may seem in the moment, their next big presentation or group project or test isn’t going to make or break the rest of their life. It’s really just about taking advantage of all the opportunities you have as a Whitman student, and enjoying it while it lasts!

Jason Arp, ’94, Assistant Director of Alumni Relations

How do you measure a place? I was a student at Whitman in the early ’90s and came back to work here in 2003.  Whitman has continued to change across all that time—the faculty has grown, the student body has grown, buildings have risen, the tuition has definitely risen and Whitman enjoys a place on the national stage of higher education that we never would have foreseen 20 years ago.

But is Whitman more different in the minds of students today than it was for students in the ’50s, ’60s, ’80s, etc? And how about for those alumni looking back at their time here fondly while at the same time seeing the school from the outside in? I speak with alumni all over the country. They tell me their stories and memories, but they always want to know if Whitman is the same place they love so much in their minds’ eye. For a long time I struggled with this question. Whitman is more prestigious than anytime in history. We have more programs, more opportunities to offer and a better sense of our direction as an institution of higher learning, but to me it hasn’t changed. I just couldn’t figure out a good way to articulate my thinking.

About a year ago I was having a conversation at The Green with someone I’ve considered a friend for over 20 years.  He was also my thesis adviser and favorite professor. We were talking about how the faculty, the administration and the student body have all changed—mostly how all three have gotten bigger and what that means for “The Whitman Experience.” He asked me, “How big can the school get before Whitman stops being Whitman?” At that moment I knew the answer to both that question and the earlier one. The measure is IN the stories. Whether it’s class of 1964, 1994, 2012 or soon-to-be-alumni from the class of 2013, the stories always demonstrate the same things. It’s the professor that gives a little extra effort to make sure you passed a test, the staff member that went out of her way to make sure you got into the dorms a day early because you had nowhere else to go, and the president that invited you into his home. It’s the classes in the professors’ homes and the time spent as equals with faculty and staff working through issues on campus. These and other examples are the measure of Whitman College, the reason students love being here amongst the wheat fields and why alumni are still SO interested in this place decades later.

Since that conversation a year ago, I’ve had no problem articulating to alumni about how Whitman is exactly the same as when they were students. Some of the names on the buildings and doors have changed, we’re higher in the rankings than we were and the world Whitman exists in is drastically different, but the place and people and experience are still the same. To its alumni Whitman will never be better than during those four years they attended.  We support this place with our energy and dollars because we know Whitman runs just like it did when we were here. We know how to measure this place.

Megan Medica, ’81, Trustee

Many aspects and parts of Whitman College have changed and continue to evolve as time goes by, ranging from new buildings and renovations to curriculum and people. The general physical structure of both the campus and educational core has remained similar since I graduated in 1981. To me, the footprint of the college looks and feels remarkably the same now as it did in the early 1980s, albeit new and renovated buildings and an extensive outdoor sculpture collection. Even with the Reid Center replacing the SUB, the additions of Hunter and the ultra-cool Fouts Center, as well as the “new” (now not-so-new) science building and renovations to the library and HJT, I still feel right at home each and every visit.

The overall stability and strength of the liberal arts curriculum also continues to enjoy a long history which I only see as strengthening in its continuation: rigorous coursework, small class sizes, phenomenal professors. And while departments and course offerings have changed and evolved due to differing student interests and demands, it is as common today to be invited over to a professor’s home for dinner and for conversation to follow a grueling final exam just as it was when I was a student. Further, innovative and challenging programs (Semester in the West and international study abroad) continue to be an integral part of the Whitman experience. On the horizon, however, I see the next wave of important cornerstone programs, studies and events coming from our Student Engagement Center as more students desire to have external experiences mesh with their interests and studies in preparation for life after Whitman while still attending Whitman. The evolution of the college, and its future, is largely a reflection of the interaction between the people who run it and those who attend it … it is a unique combination and catalyst of people and events that when put together over time is what drives forward progress. The Whitman community is blessed to have had—and continues to attract—incredible students, faculty and staff.

George Bridges, President

Whitman has a remarkable history of both continuity and change. Over the past decade our faculty and staff have exhibited the same continuity of commitment to offering an educational experience that is challenging, supportive and personal that faculty and staff have offered at Whitman for generations. Likewise, the campus culture remains friendly and welcoming just as President Stephen Penrose hoped it would be in 1934. Finally, the alumni today are as committed to supporting the school with their time, energy and treasure as they have for many decades. One of the most impressive features of Whitman alumni, regardless of their ages, is that their very best friends are often their former Whitman classmates. But like many colleges, Whitman has changed as the society has changed. Since 2000, the campus has become more racially and ethnically diverse. Faculty members are now active scholars in addition to being dedicated teachers. Advances in technology have dramatically changed how we acquire knowledge and the ways we connect with one another. New social media have transformed our interactions and the networks of which we are a part. Further, the contexts in which students learn and develop at Whitman are changing. Increasingly, experiences directly linked to the scholarly work of faculty or internships and service projects in communities supplement and enrich learning in our classrooms. There are more opportunities for our students to conduct research with faculty and to receive funding for internships than ever before. Finally, the appearance and facilities of the campus have changed in the last decade, with a number of renovations to academic buildings and campus facilities. The words that many alumni have shared at their reunions describe this pattern of continuity and change at Whitman quite well: “The campus looks very different now than it did when I was a student but it feels just the same—I am glad to be back.”

Noah Leavitt, Assistant Dean for Student Engagement

Both students and alumni tell us that community service and engagement is a critical part of their Whitman experience and an essential component of their education.

Accordingly, the past 10 years have seen a dramatic increase in the way the college helps students participate in the world beyond campus in ways that help them develop their personal values, their professional skills and their engaged citizenship. During the past decade, the college has worked to support students who wanted to “make things happen” in Walla Walla by creating student-led volunteer programs that assist but not direct students’ off-campus involvements, and then helping them see how those involvements are both personally satisfying and professionally relevant.

The next 10 years will see greater emphasis on helping students understand what it means to be active, thoughtful citizens, leaders and community members. We plan to do this by creating more opportunities for off-campus engagement, in more powerful ways and with more entrepreneurial zeal. We will strengthen students’ interaction with alumni and friends of the college, to allow them to understand how their experiences in Walla Walla (and elsewhere, of course) are valuable professional development assets. Finally, we will expand students’ exposure to the social and economic opportunities that exist for them coming out of Whitman with the fantastic education they receive and the experiences they have here.

Bob Carson, Professor of Geology and Environmental Studies since 1975

I came here in ’75. I was used to being on campuses where there was a lot of activism by students; there had been Earth Day in 1970 and Vietnam War protests in 1970, so this place seemed kind of passive. I think it’s still relatively passive; I think the students are relatively passive environmentally, and relatively passive about divesting. I think a few students, sometimes with overlap, do most of the things … in terms of being socially active. That is, it’s probably the same students that are into divestment, into stopping the coal trains, and Whitman not using as much energy … all that kind of stuff. It’s a relatively small group.

In terms of communication skills, the writing is getting better—noticeably better. I don’t know why. The oral communication I was disappointed in when I first got here, and it’s gotten better and better, sincerely. I think one of the factors is PowerPoint. I think it has helped a lot of people who weren’t very good with overheads or weren’t very good without any props at all.

Sports have had some interesting changes. In ’77 we killed the football program and we put the funds into other sports. In ’75 women’s soccer was just getting started. We’ve started a lot of new club sports while I’ve been here: women’s lacrosse, men’s and women’s rugby … because students in general—or maybe only Whitman students in particular—are multi-talented to an extent which I can hardly believe. When I compare them with what I know—which is not that much—about other universities, those students are either athletes or musicians or they write for the school newspaper, or they study. I just think that so many Whitman students just do it all: that’s one of the reasons they’re coming to Whitman, and that’s one of the reasons they like it when they’re prospective students.

I think perhaps because of my age or maybe the level of my voice or something like that, as the years have gone by the students have this initial anxiety about taking a class from me. How much have the students changed? It’s probably obvious to most people that I didn’t retire at age 65. But I just love it. We often say to each other, at least in the geology department, that Whitman’s the best thing that ever happened to us. The students are so wonderful, our colleagues in general are so wonderful. Walla Walla’s a nice town. I get to go out of town at least once a week if not three times a week on field trips, so I don’t even know why they’re paying me. I have so much fun. I mean, you gotta eat, but really—I think you students are very lucky to be here, most of you, and I know that most of the faculty are very lucky to be here.

Ruth Wardwell, Assistant Vice President for Communications

Since coming to Whitman in 2005, I have seen change, evolution and consistency.

To me the most significant changes are physical, including the addition of the Baker Ferguson Fitness Center and the Fouts Center; the renovation of the Sherwood Athletics Center and the expansions of Maxey Hall and HJT. The physical changes are reflections of evolutions in the student experience and the academic program, which I believe have become even better versions of themselves. I see consistency in the devotion of staff to delivering on the college’s brand promise; the fulfillment by faculty of the teacher-scholar model, plus their mentorship and engagement of students; the beauty of the campus and how well that beauty is stewarded; the involvement and support of deeply invested donors and alumni; the energy, aptitude, achievements and goals of Whitman’s remarkable student body; and the efforts of the college as a whole to maintain focus on the liberal arts.

But there is another aspect to change at Whitman that is an outside force – all that has changed for our entire campus community and our external stakeholders because of mobile technology and social media.

As an example, when I first arrived, land line telephones were featured in residence hall rooms. I recall discussions that year and the next – “Do we still need them?” was the refrain.

I focus on mobile technology and social media because of how fundamental they have become to my profession and work on campus. Though the web has been around a long time, it evolved the communications field by making what I’ll call a comparatively minor hit on the Richter scale. The web provided a new vehicle for pushing messaging out and conducting business. And it helped begin to even the playing field for print media versus electronic media – previously print had one shot once a day, whereas TV and radio could report at any time. But the Richter scale comparison relates to the impacts of mobile devices and social media. Combined these have completely smashed what once was called “the news cycle,” and ours is truly a 24/7 world and a 24/7 campus – and not just the library!

Many but not all members of our internal and external audiences “live” in the mobile/social media frame, which means we have to develop multiple communication strategies and tactics to deliver any given news or messaging. A perfectly written email with an important message does no good if the recipient rarely checks email but never logs off Twitter or Facebook. And the age of the mobile device wielding citizen journalist means we have far more to listen to!

So for me, changes in how the Communications staff and I do our jobs; how we have to think about communication – sending messages and listening via multiple channels – are just as significant as new buildings going up.

My thanks to The Pioneer and to [first-year] Jacqueline Rees-Mikula, who wrote the article about the Whitman Student Composers Concert in Chism Recital Hall on Friday, Feb. 22, 2013, featuring new musical works by five talented young composers.

Ms. Rees-Mikula’s coverage provided an excellent view of the background and purpose of the concert, produced twice yearly, once in each semester.