Author Archives | Lachlan Johnson

Opening the Vault: Pio Through the Ages

Since opening its doors in 1896, the Whitman Pioneer has had a long and diverse history of reporting on campus. While it began its life in an era when there were few enough students to cover each one’s comings and goings in a week’s issue, it gradually transitioned into a record of campus events and competitions and a calendar for annual traditions. In the 1960s it became a bastion of radical politics and the arts, agitating for reform on campus, before taking on a more formal air in the 1980s. Today, photographs and graphics play a large part in the paper, while quotes and hard news are the foundation of Pioneer reporting. We took a look into our archives to get some perspective on where today’s Pioneer is coming from. Here are some samples of headlines from the archives of Whitman’s oldest publication.

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1896, November
The Pioneer’s first issue was published 117 years ago. No pictures or quotations were included in the publication, and news was written in a narrative manner. News pieces include short snippets of information from the personal lives of students, such as when they changed their preferred flavor of tea—small-campus news at its best.

1898, June
Foreshadowing its future in addressing controversial issues around campus, The Pioneer publishes a list of “Gripes,” including the complaint concerning professors skipping class to pursue relationships. Despite The Pio’s reasonable request, no evidence can be found that the administration ever took serious steps to ban falling in love on campus.

1902, October 2nd
By the turn of the century The Pioneer was finding its place at the college, reporting on regular campus events such as sports meets, debate and glee competitions and social occasions. Once ASWC was founded, The Pioneer began regularly reporting on the organization’s meetings and goals. The relationship between the two organizations would evolve over the years, with the two bodies eventually being joined by financing and relations swinging between partnership and rivalry.

1912, Nov. 5, titled “Handsome Stags Get Together on the Whitman Wax”
Throughout the early 1900s The Pioneer reported on an array of campus competitions, sports, activities, social events and student elections. Though The Pioneer has only ever been published in English, the language used has changed significantly over the years. This description of a party provides a glimpse into slang used 101 years ago.

1921, Nov. 18 “‘Justice Must Be Meted’—Koed’s Kangaroo Kourt”
While profiling groups on campus is now a regular occurrence at The Pio, the practice took several years to develop. Then again, modern groups don’t have the acronym KKK or carry out vigilante hazing on campus.

1928, Nov. 16 “Tough Looking He-Men Seen on Whitman Campus”
Unfortunately, illustrations, pictures and graphics were nonexistent for the first several decades of publication. Front-page articles sometimes tried to make up for this through vivid language; this headline described a beard-growing competition in the late ‘20s.

1934, Feb. 16 “Coed Does Everything But Study in ‘Typical’ Evening”
Although today many articles printed in the Pioneer are technically feature piece rather than news on current events, it took several decades for the paper to begin to experiment with this type of reporting. Reports on student life from the paper’s past can provide insight into how the college has (and has not) changed over the decades.

1941 Jan. 8, “Serenades to Campused College Gals”
Despite some of the saucy articles printed by The Pioneer, for many years the campus had strict rules concerning morality. Girls who missed the bedtimes set by the college had the hours they could be out of the dorms restricted.

1949 Sept. 22, “Sidewalks of Whitman”
As Whitman entered a stage of building and development after WWII, The Pioneer kept up to date, covering construction around campus. Sometimes modernization conflicted with tradition, though radical projects such as sidewalks eventually were pushed through. By the time buildings such as Anderson Hall and the Science Building were constructed, change was less controversial.

1955 Sept. 15 “Tug of War Regulated By Executive Council”
In the ‘50s, annual tradition was the focus of the paper. From the tug of war at the beginning of every school year to homecoming to campus dances organized by the Greek system, traditions which have disappeared in the last 50 years were recorded in history by The Pioneer.

1962 Jan. 11 “Hike in Tuition, Board Announced by President”
As the 1960s began, The Pioneer gradually started covering more controversial issues. From rising tuition to sexual freedom and civil rights, The Pioneer took the lead on reporting issues on campus.

1967, April 27 “Vigils Upset Status Quo” AND “Y To Investigate Marijuana Arrest”
As student activism grew around campus, The Pioneer began to blur the lines between news and opinion. Reporting on traditions, clubs, competition and Greek life began to disappear as articles on the arts and activism moved to the front page.

1973, March 1 Front Cover
By the early ‘70s The Pioneer resembled an alternative newspaper such as Seattle’s The Stranger or The Portland Mercury. If dance, drama or activism weren’t on page one, it was often because it was taken up by a full-page illustration or photographs. Actual news was relegated to a small portion of the paper, as editorials and letters from readers dominated print space.

1983, Feb. 17 Front Cover
By the ‘80s The Pioneer had recovered its formality, and news—not opinion or the arts—was back on the front page. Though some comparisons may be made between the new format which was composed of uniform blocks of text and modern real estate pamphlets, the organization helped make the paper more professional. It was at this point that the paper began to be divided into concrete sections, such that the editorials which once composed the entire publication were restricted to a limited number of pages.

1989 Feb. 16 “Mascot change committee named”
Though The Pioneer once printed the Whitman Missionary on the front of every edition, the mascot fell out of favor towards the end of the 20th century and The Pioneer abandoned the tradition. While the Missionary is still technically Whitman’s mascot, it is no longer widely used or promoted by the administration, as the term “Whitties” and the Memorial Building have become informally accepted as representative of Whitman.

1994 Oct. 6 Front Page
Quotations began to appear regularly in The Pioneer in the 1990s, and articles began to focus on unique news events rather than regular events such as competitions and traditions.

2007 Oct. 11 Front Page
The quality of The Pioneer’s journalism increased dramatically in the new century. Not only had quotations become common practice, but the writing became more journalistic and formal. The layout, while still somewhat limited due to space, was a vast improvement over the last century’s.

2012, March 1
In recent years, The Pioneer has been winning major awards for college journalism. Two articles, one on Whitman’s sexual assault policy and the other on diversity on campus, won second and fifth place in a national competition, besting entries from larger universities with established journalism departments and majors.

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Storyteller Relives Civil Rights Movement

Members of the Whitman and Walla Walla community filled the Glover Alston Center on Monday, Feb. 25 to hear storyteller Kathya Alexander speak about the civil rights movement.

Kathya Alexander is a storyteller who gets her inspriation from growing up in the segregated South.

Kathya Alexander is a storyteller who gets her inspriation from growing up in the segregated South.  Photos by cade beck.

Drawing on both her personal experience growing up during the civil rights era as well as her work as a writer, actor, poet and playwright, Alexander presented a series of short narratives and songs to communicate the important role played by ordinary people who stood up for their rights in the ‘60s and ‘70s.

“I don’t think that people [who didn’t live through the civil rights movement] have a realistic [view of it]. It was more than Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks. People don’t know about ordinary people, college students, who basically changed this country,” said Alexander.

Alexander’s visit to campus was the third installment in the Intercultural Center’s Storyteller Series, which was funded through a cooperative effort between the Intercultural Center and the Black Student Union (BSU) as part of Black History Month. The event was organized by Intercultural Center Director Matt Ozuna and BSU president and Intercultural Center intern Alisha Agard.

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“There’s always the fear … of people not wanting to come because they’re not interested in the subject matter. Because the campus isn’t as racially diverse, it seems sometimes you have to really try hard to get people to come to events about ethnicity … I’m happy; there was a huge turnout and I was really surprised but [also] really satisfied with the turnout tonight,” said Agard.

Agard worked to spread publicity about the event throughout the Walla Walla community, and more than half of the attendees of the speech were from beyond the Whitman campus. Along with Whitman alumni and members of the broader Walla Walla community, several students from Walla Walla University came to hear Alexander speak on the civil rights movement as part of a philosophy course by Professor Linda Emmerson.

“The really good thing is how she can deliver her stories. Her method of doing that is kind of grasping,” said Walla Walla University sophomore Roger Williams.

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After the performance, attendees had the opportunity to ask Alexander questions and speak with her informally during a dessert reception. Alexander hoped her performance raised awareness of the important role played by normal people in bringing about civil rights.

“Youth … have the energy to really make changes in this country, and I certainly saw that during the civil rights movement. It was a lot of young people who got together and demanded change when older people were kind of complacent. I certainly think that youth today could take a lesson from that,” she said.

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Divestment Movement Continues to Gain Momentum

Campus Climate Challenge’s (CCC) campaign to encourage Whitman to divest from fossil fuels has gained traction on campus, but has met with new challenges as students and administrators disagree over the best way to use the investment to lower the burning of fossil fuels.

Students and administrators have raised concerns that divestment could lower the return on Whitman’s investment, hurting the college’s finances. Divestment efforts have also come up against advocates of “active shareholding,” a strategy whereby Whitman College would attempt to use its stakes in fossil fuel companies to pressure companies to stop exploring for new deposits of fossil fuels and instead invest in alternative energy.

“It’s pretty difficult to straddle two [positions], but what we’ve discovered is all of us on the campaign still want divestment and that’s still going to be our end goal. But we’re taking being an active shareholder as a step to divestment,” said sophomore Sierra Dickey. “We really need to be very clear to everyone who’s interested and everyone who’s involved about how things have been on the ground on campus and how things have been in [Memorial Hall] with the administrators. I think people are intelligent and can understand that there are big differences between each sector. We’re giving [active shareholding] a go [by] collaborating with administrators. It’ll let us know if that’s what we want to keep doing after this.”

Active shareholding has the support of Whitman Finance Committee Chair David Nierenberg, members of the Whitman Investment Company and Associated Students of Whitman College (ASWC) Finance Committee Chair senior Sam Sadeghi. ASWC itself has yet to take a stance on divestment; before passing any resolutions on the topic, it plans to hold a forum to give speakers in favor of and against divestment a platform to voice their opinions. After the forum, ASWC will consider whether to make a formal move in favor of divestment or active shareholding.

Proponents of active shareholding argue that divestment will not affect fossil fuel companies, as other investors will continue to support corporations which profit from fossil fuels. While some divestment activists agree this is true, they argue divestment will still be effective through influencing public opinion and stimulating media coverage of the issues. Those in favor of active shareholding believe that influencing public opinion is not enough, and fossil fuel companies will react to pressure from shareholders rather than public pressure.

“If you can get 30 of the colleges to combine and use their voice to say, ‘We don’t want you guys to continue exploring; we want you to invest in other forms of fuel,’ [that would make a difference],” said Sadeghi. “Bringing social change [through active shareholding] is more important than education. At some point we need to actually create social change.”

Earlier in the campaign for divestment, critics of the movement focused on how divestment could negatively influence Whitman College’s endowment and, through that, the cost of tuition. However, as active shareholding and divestment both require the college to use its finances to create social change, discourse around the issue has shifted. After meeting with CCC representatives, Nierenberg asked members of the administration to begin gathering data on how the endowment is invested and how much is invested in the companies targeted by divestment  This is a distinct break from the college’s history of refusing to consider social investment.

“We came into this meeting under the assumption that we didn’t want Whitman to hurt its financial standing, and if it did, we didn’t want to divest. [Nierenberg] was appreciative of that fact and also seemed to undercut that issue a little bit. It seemed like … [a decrease in finances] wasn’t his biggest concern with the issue of divestment, and that it was more that he wasn’t sure if that was the right tactic to take. Which is interesting, as a lot of the arguments against [divestment] have been that it would financially hurt us,” said first-year Marla Harvey.

The divestment campaign is the largest unified effort by CCC in the organization’s history. In order to deal with the large amount of interest and involvement, the campaign has been broken down into six breakout groups. The strategy breakout group designs the campaign’s overreaching goals and how to achieve them. It is supported by the research group, which looks into the college’s history, as well as the history of speeches given by important figures on campus, in hopes of finding information to help the campaign. The four remaining groups deal with different types of outreach: traditional media, social media, movement building (in charge of tabling, petitions and other events) and design (which makes stickers, posters and art installations).

“Outreach is really important because even if what we’re trying to get done is an actual divestment change that involves the administration and the trustees, the will for that change has to come from the student body. So that’s why the outreach is critical for what we’re doing, to make sure we’re involving people in the process and hearing their ideas,” said junior CCC member Jenni Doering.

Even as the campaign for divestment continues, the CCC plans to hold elections during the week of Feb. 18 to decide new leadership for the campaign. Previously the movement was organized by sustainability interns, but as participation grows the organization has decided that a more democratic approach to leadership is appropriate.

On the weekend of Feb. 23 and 24, the interns who organized the divestment campaign will be traveling to a divestment convergence in Pennsylvania. This conference—the first of its type—has been organized by Bill McKibben’s 350.org campaign in order to create greater solidarity and networking between activists.

Other climate activists who are not attending the conference were given the opportunity to attend a protest in Spokane, Wash. over Presidents’ Day weekend. Although not affiliated with the divestment movement, the protest in Spokane focused on fossil fuels and coincided with a large demonstration in Washington, D.C. which aimed to pressure U.S. President Barack Obama to take action against climate change.

“By getting involved in the larger regional issues, [attending the protest] will allow for organizers on campus to have connections with other schools that are running a campaign or staff members who have greater resources. Also, seeing environmental issues on a more regional scale can help people better contextualize the campaigns that they’re running. Sometimes I think divestment can come off as a little abstract, but when you’re meeting with people who are passionate about the same issues, it can help clarify that,” said junior Claire Meints.

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ASWC Fee Raised $14 For 2013-14 Academic Year

The ASWC Senate voted on Sunday, February 10th to raise the ASWC student fee an additional $14 for the academic year of 2013-14. The fee, now $350 per student, was raised to adjust for inflation and an expected decrease in student body size, as well as provide more funding for club sports and allow for contributions to the Lifecycle Fund and ASWC endowment.

ASWC Senate meeting, Feb. 10.  From left: Leann Adams, Tim Reed '15, Marcial Diaz Mejia '13, President Kayvon Behroozian '14, and Sam Sadeghi '13.

ASWC Senate meeting, Feb. 10. From left: Leann Adams, Tim Reed ’15, Marcial Diaz Mejia ’13, President Kayvon Behroozian ’14, and Sam Sadeghi ’13.

The ASWC Finance Committee settled on a fee of $350 after a three-and-a-half hour meeting earlier in the week. Their recommendation was eventually passed by the senate, though several senators attempted to amend resolution to raise the fee an additional $2 to $352/year.

“If you actually added [the goals for funding] up, it would $356, but we’re going to be making some hard cuts in finance committee to deal with that,” said ASWC Finance Committee Chair senior Sam Sadeghi.

Specific cuts were not mentioned during the senate meeting, and will be discussed during budgeting later in the year. However, possible suggestions for tightening the budget were mentioned.

President

President Kayvon Behroozian ’14

The ASWC green fund, which holds $1,000 of funding for green initiatives, could be combined with the contingency fund to allow flexibility in spending. This year, no requests concerning the green fund have been made, and the money has no been utilized. Should the fund be eliminated, requests concerning sustainability would still be financed through the contingency fund.

Another suggestion concerning efficiency was to encourage the Whitman Events Board to be more efficient with its funding, and ensure that only events which are well-attended and appreciated by the student body take place.

Dividing the student travel and development fund into two separate funds, one for development on campus and one for travel, could also help ASWC save money.

ASWC Senate meeting, 2/10 Students attending the meeting

Sophomore senator Tatiana Kaehler suggested giving the finance committee greater control over club budgets, so that funds are allocated as they are needed rather than granted as a lump sum at the start of each year.

Club Director Nick Chow raised concerns about the need for additional contributions to the lifecycle fund, which maintains equipment and technology used by ASWC and the campus media organizations, and the ASWC endowment. According to Chow, these funds have been neglected for the last three years. The finance committee aims to contribute $10,000-15,000 to the lifecycle fund and $5,000-$10,000 to the endowment, but Chow felt this was not sufficient, as an unexpected emergency could lead ASWC to fall back on the already-stressed funds.

ASWC Senate meeting, 2/10

Senior senator Fernando Medina encouraged raising the fee in order to provide scholarships for ASWC senators, so that financially pressed students could run for office. First-year senator Allison Kelly spoke in favor of raising the fee in order to provide ample funding for clubs and activities on campus.

The amendment to raise the fee to $352 failed, with five senators voting to raise the fee and ten voting against. Three senators were absent, and counted as abstaining. The senate then voted on the finance committee’s original proposal, which passed with fourteen voting in favor and one against.

“I thought [the fee] should be raised more to be allocated to developing student life, clubs, and conferences,” said Kelly, who voted against the final proposal. “I respect everything the finance committee does, they have a very hard job, and that the number they did come to is very reasonable.”

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