WARNING: This review discusses the end of “13 Reasons Why” and includes discussion of rape and suicide.

Since its debut on March 31, the Netflix original series “13 Reasons Why” has shocked parents and adolescents alike, subsequently sparking a massive online debate. The series, based on a book written by Jay Asher with the same title, tells the story of Hannah Baker (Katherine Langford), a high school student who records thirteen cassette tapes, listing off the people who caused her death by suicide. The show has been highly criticized for its scenes of graphic rape and scenes that glorify suicide.

Looking beyond the surface however, the show is very necessary. Suicide is taboo, and individual suicide cases are rarely discussed in detail. In this sense, the show helps shed light on mental illness and sexual assault; however, many critics believe that the show is just “too much.” By the end of it, the viewer can’t help but feel traumatized. It is gruesome. It is violent. And it is heart-wrenching.

The point of the show, overall, is not to shock the viewer with the final suicide scene. The viewer should feel horrible at the end, but not because of Hannah’s death. The viewer should feel guilty that they did not predict the series’ final reveal: Alex Standall (Miles Heizer), Hannah’s former friend and classmate, shot himself in the head.

“13 Reasons Why” is not a show about Hannah, it is a show about Alex.

Throughout the show, Alex shows many symptoms of being suicidal. Alex exhibits violent behavior when he fights Montgomery in the parking lot. He begins to abuse substances, as the viewer sees in the dramatic scene of him unconscious in the pool. Alex does not have a plan for after graduation, he withdraws from his friendships and is obviously the most depressed of the group following Hannah’s death. Right before his suicide attempt, Alex cleans his room. These are all important warning signs for suicide. Individuals are much more likely to commit suicide if someone close to them recently did. Suicide is currently the second leading cause of death in teenagers, and every one of the warning signs Alex exhibited should have been taken seriously.

The viewer should feel horrible at the end of “13 Reasons Why”–because they likely did not recognize Alex’s behavior as suicidal. The show is designed so that the viewer feels guilty for not noticing, for focusing solely on Hannah’s story.

“13 Reasons Why” is so much more than just a story of unfortunate events at one particular high school. It showcases the danger of what happens when people focus on the details of one suicide case rather than acknowledging it as a much larger social issue.

Yes, “13 Reasons Why” is incredibly problematic in that it explicitly shows a teenager committing suicide. Yes, “13 Reasons Why” should have more thorough content warnings regarding its intense and disturbing rape scenes. Yes, by focusing on Hannah’s death, the show glorifies suicide. Yes, the show highlights different causes of depression without providing any ways to seek out help. Yes, it makes it seem like ending bullying will stop all suicides. Yes, parents should be cautious of letting their children watch this show without first having a conversation with them about mental illness.

But, “13 Reasons Why” is still the most important TV show right now (which may have to do with why it is the most tweeted about show thus far in 2017). It does more than generate conversation about a previously taboo topic. It shows what can happen when people don’t look out for each other and fail to recognize the warning signs of suicide.

Spring Break is often a time when the campus sees an increase in crime. Normally, there are several incidents of theft and some students will choose to report the crime to Whitman’s Security Office. When this happens, the crime is added to the Whitman College Daily Crime Log.  The most recent entry in the crime log is a burglary on March 20, when two individuals accessed Sherwood Center via the roof before being apprehended and arrested by police.

Data generated from the Whitman College Crime Log. Infographic by Kerr Ivan-Cirilo.

The Daily Crime Log is open to the public and is an online document where anyone can see the crimes that have been reported to Whitman. Logged crimes include larceny (theft of personal property), burglary, drug and alcohol violations, vandalism, Title IX violations and others. The log includes the date, time, location and nature of the incidents.

According to Matt Stroe, Director of Security, there are a few ways crime is reported on campus. Often students report directly to the Office of Security, though crimes may be reported by campus security authorities: security officers, Whitman staff, faculty and peer leaders such as resident assistants, intercultural center interns, Reid building managers and security escorts.

Stroe believes that the student reporters are often helpful because they might be more approachable than security officers or members of the administration.

“Students will sometimes be more open with a peer than they will with an adult. Sometimes you see an adult and you kind of clam up, but more information may be gleaned from a student to student interaction,” Stroe said. Stroe also helps students report crimes to the Walla Walla Police Department if they do not feel comfortable reporting themselves.

“Most of the time [crime reports] come from the students themselves calling security,” Stroe said. “It kinds of come down to some students, faculty, staff alike who don’t like interacting with law enforcement and I have no problem being that liaison if they need it.”

Since September 2013, several hundred crimes have been recorded in Whitman’s Campus Crime Log. Of those, almost 40% occurred in and around residence halls. Map by Marra Clay.

Many of the crimes will end up in Whitman’s annual Clery Report with the help of Title IX Administrator and Associate Dean of Students Juli Dunn and Associate Dean of Students Barbara Maxwell, but some crimes exist solely in the campus crime log. Since September of 2013, 189 crimes have been recorded in the crime log. Only 42 of these are alcohol and drug violations. Almost 40 percent of the crimes were reported in on-campus housing, excluding fraternities.

Excluding alcohol and drug violations, Jewett and Prentiss Halls tied for the most on-campus crime. Most crime at Prentiss Hall is theft, which Stroe accredits to the easily accessible bike racks.

“Some of the bikes that were getting stolen were from the Bon Appetite back door. Someone could come up the dark street there, Nakomi Lane, grab them, then go up another dark street, Linden Lane. It’s all about access,” Stroe said.

Senior sociology major Gavin Osegueda is writing his thesis on how Whitman and Walla Walla Community College students have different fears of crime. Through his research, he found that students at both colleges were more likely to fear crimes that they thought would be committed against them. He also noted that Whitman students are more likely to fear crime from outside of the Whitman community.

“This is pretty difficult because it seems that most of Whitman College students’ fear of crime stems from exterior forces. I feel as if the political climate contributes to fear of crime, especially because it is framed as such a major social issue by the Trump Administration,” Osegueda wrote in an email to The Wire.

Marra Clay
Excluding alcohol and drug violations, Jewett and Prentiss Residence Halls are tied for the most crime since September of 2013. Much of this crime occurred outside of the halls at locations such as bike racks.

Overall, Stroe, Maxwell and Dunn are relatively pleased with the direction of crime reporting at Whitman. The number of thefts is down across campus and the college has a positive relationship with the Walla Walla Police Department. However, students do still need to take precautions to protect themselves and their belongings.

“Last year, constantly, sometimes even twice a day, we were getting calls saying people had missing bikes or electronics. But, we’ve been pretty fortunate this year that we haven’t gotten a lot,” Stroe said.

“As a college campus and as a city, both Whitman and Walla Walla are safe. I feel safe living here, but it’s not nirvana … People need to take precautions for their own personal safety. When I leave, I lock my home. When I get out of my car, I lock my car. When I park my bicycle, I lock it up. Like, I take precautions for my safety and the safety of my family and my possessions. I would hope that … students will feel that same sense of responsibility,” Maxwell said.

What is the Clery Report?

Whitman College is required to release a Clery Report each year as per the Clery Act of 1990 which requires academic institutions to report campus crime statistics. The goal of the Clery Act is to make sure prospective students can make an informed decision in their college selection.

Director of Security, Matt Stroe works with Associate Dean of Students, Juli Dunn and Associate Dean of Students: Student Programs and Activities, Barbara Maxwell. Stroe, Dunn and Maxwell all note that the Clery report, though crafted with good intentions, is often a flawed metric for comparing colleges. Part of this is due to the act’s strange requirements, such as requiring the college to have an action plan for students missing from residence halls but not requiring the college to report larceny.

“We could have 100 bicycles stolen, but they are not going to end up in the Clery report because larceny isn’t a Clery statistic,” Maxwell said.

Dunn includes Title IX violations in Whitman’s Clery Report. However, some incidents cannot be filed in the Clery Report if Dunn does not have sufficient information about the offense.

“Clery is all about the ‘what’ and ‘where,’ and Title IX is all about the ‘who,’” Dunn said about sexual assault statistic reporting. Dunn is unable to include all Title IX cases she hears because she does not always have the case specifics required for Clery reporting.

The Clery Report does not acknowledge how some schools may have more successful reporting programs than others. For example, Whitman College reported seven incidents of forcible sexual offenses in 2014, while Western Washington University, which enrolls ten times as many students as Whitman, reported nine. Western’s Title IX reporting process has been criticized in the past, which could help explain why two schools with vastly different student populations report such similar numbers.

“Clery really was intended to create an even playing field so that when parents and prospective students looked they would have sense of the types of crimes that are occurring. The problem is, with sex offenses in particular … anybody can [anonymously file a complaint] and it will be counted by Clery … at other colleges you have to go to the head security officer or their chief of police,” Maxwell said. Students will be more likely to report Title IX violations if they can do so easily without going to security.

Go to any Whitman party and you will see students enjoying a cigarette on the front steps. Walk into the library and you will pass through a cloud of smoke coming from the benches outside. There is no doubt that Whitman has a smoking culture, but will this soon change? The Washington State legislature is hearing a bill, commonly known as Tobacco 21, that proposes to raise the legal tobacco age to 21 across the state. Two other states, California and Hawai’i, currently have similar legislation. Tobacco 21 will apply to cigarettes, vaping, chewing tobacco and any other tobacco-based products. The initiative is spearheaded by the state Department of Health and Attorney General.

“By raising the age to 21, we are trying to protect the 15, 16, 17 year olds from ever getting addicted to nicotine so we can have the healthiest next generation,” Washington Secretary of Health John Weisman, DrPH, MPH said. According to Weisman, the Department of Health has been working to reduce the number of minors who use tobacco for several years. While the number of minors who use cigarettes has not increased, alternative forms of tobacco use, such as vaping, are on the rise.

“Our concern is that we have sort of stalled out in reducing combustible tobacco use down around eight percent of tenth graders, which is a great improvement, but we knew we needed to do more,” Weisman said. “The next logical thing was to squeeze the pipeline of access for 15-17 year olds because we know that 75 percent of them are getting tobacco from 18-20 year olds.”

Though the Tobacco 21 Bill is designed to cut off tobacco access for middle and high school students, it will also affect Whitman students under the age of 21.

Photo by Tywen Kelly.

Junior philosophy major Nolan Bishop bought his first pack of cigarettes at age 18. For him, smoking is a social activity.

“At Whitman, obviously smoking isn’t good for any of us, but it can be really good for me in a social sense because it is an easy way to strike up a conversation with anyone,” Bishop said. “I think for a lot of people it is built into their academic routine. Like, I’ll come to the library, do an hour and a half or two of work, then go smoke a cigarette, then do another hour and a half or two hours of work. And I think that’s the case for a lot of people who you see smoking outside of the library.”

However, Bishop thinks the Tobacco 21 plan may not be effective on a campus where 18-20 year olds readily have access to older students who can purchase tobacco for them.

“I’m a little skeptical of how much this will do to reduce smoking rates among young people,” Bishop said. Bishop compared tobacco to how students gain access to alcohol. “Right now you have to ask your older friends to buy beer for you if you are under the age of 21, obviously that’s a thing. Cigarettes will just end up on that list of things you can’t buy before the age of 21, but you nevertheless can find a way to get your hands on it.”

Senior biochemistry, biophysics and molecular biology major Mathias Palmer serves as Whitman’s President of Pre-Health Society. Palmer also does not believe that the plan will be effective on campus.

“The legislation to move it from 18 to 21–I think is a ridiculous waste of money and time … People are going to be able to get cigarettes from those who are over 21. I don’t think the age change will make any difference on that,” Palmer said. He believes that this plan will not curb the number of students using tobacco.

“The problem isn’t education. I think that smoking is something that is a cultural thing, not a legal thing. So arguing about the age of someone who buys cigarettes, sure, that restricts access for some younger students, but that doesn’t solve the root of the problem,” Palmer said.

Though they are skeptical about how effective the Tobacco 21 will be on college campuses, Palmer and Bishop both think that it is important to try to reduce access for high school students.

Photo by Tywen Kelly.

“Generally, I think [Tobacco 21 is] a good idea probably … If [the legal age] had been 21 [in Massachusetts at the time], I wouldn’t have been able to buy my first pack of cigarettes,” Bishop said.

Palmer thinks that Whitman as a whole should engage in more discussions about the smoking culture, questioning its presence on campus. “Why is it that we, at a college where we promote health activities, eating right, exercising freedom of choice, that we see people who are smoking and no one is having a conversation about that?”

Weisman believes that the largest effect that the Tobacco 21 plan will be in the incoming student population.

“From a college campus perspective, we are bringing in a student body that is healthier,” Weisman said. “We are also delaying the onset of experimentation with tobacco products to a time when people can make more reasoned choices.”

There are some resources available in the Walla Walla community to support those who are trying to overcome nicotine addiction. Students currently addicted to nicotine who want to work with a professional can work with the Counseling Center to connect with social support groups in Walla Walla.

On Tuesday, November 29, Dean of Students Chuck Cleveland sent an update to the Whitman College community regarding the recent dissociative druggings on campus.  According to Cleveland, the College worked with the Walla Walla Police Department to investigate the situation and a current student emerged as a person of interest. When the student was alerted that they would face conduct proceedings, the individual withdrew from Whitman. Below is an excerpt from Cleveland’s email.  

“Through the college’s own investigation in conjunction with the investigation being done by the Walla Walla Police Department, a person of interest emerged as a possible source of the drugs.

Upon being notified of pending conduct proceedings by the college, the student made the decision to withdraw from Whitman College and is no longer allowed on campus. The college cannot release the student’s name because of privacy laws.

The investigation by the Walla Walla Police Department is ongoing. Police have serious concerns that the drugs circulated in this case may be homemade and are potentially very dangerous.”

Cleveland did not indicate whether or not multiple individuals may have been involved in the druggings. The Walla Walla Police Department’s investigation is ongoing.

Cleveland also noted that drugs appear to have been homemade and are potentially dangerous, and that any individual who knows more about the drugs should come forward and meet with Chalese Rabidue (Domestic Violence Victims Advocate with the Walla Walla PD, 509.527.4434) or Juli Dunn (Associate Dean of Students, dunnjl@whitman.edu, 509.301.6824).

Many students across campus have been dealing with the election results for last week, and some have turned to art to address their feelings. Students are using film, sculpture, writing and drawing to grapple with Trump’s election. The art department organized a space in Fouts Center for Visual Arts for students and other community members to visually express their sorrow and shock.

Senior art major El Horsfall is collecting submissions for a zine that will be published before the end of the semester. Horsfall believes that creating a zine is a way that she can support individuals who feel worried by the election.

Tywen Kelly

“Since the election, like many of us, I’ve been feeling scared. Scared for my uterus, scared for my rights as a queer person, scared for the future of our planet. But I also recognize that I possess as great deal of privilege, with which I have the ability to occupy space or create it for other people,” Horsfall wrote in an email to The Wire.

By creating a zine, Horsfall hopes to provide a space for threatened individuals to voice their fears. Horsfall will also include information about volunteer opportunities, organizations that need support and resources in the zine.

Senior film and media studies major Annie Roge and senior rhetoric major Ari Appel are in the process of creating a short video about election responses. In the days following the election, Roge and Appel interviewed students and asked them, “How are you feeling?”

“We provided a space for people to talk openly about their emotions, and we really wanted to help people feel validated,” Roge said. Though the two have collected many responses that highlight the community’s shock, sadness and impassioned desire to create change, they want to make sure the video fully addresses the election’s impact.

Tywen Kelly

“We’re trying to make it a little more comprehensive and a little less, ‘Hey, here are a bunch of sad liberal arts school kids and look at how shocked and sad they are,’” Roge said. They hope to include more information about specific issues.

For Appel, their video provided a way for students to address their immediate emotional responses.

“Most of the responses were centered around the effects of the election and the way that they were handling it in a local and immediate sense,” Appel said. “We didn’t talk very much about policy or anything like that.”

Many mediums have been utilized to address the election. For senior English major Hillary Smith, poetry was the key to addressing dealing with issues in the election.

“The night of the election I was just very numb and didn’t know how to deal with it personally and within the community,” Smith said. But then she saw a video that her friend posted on Facebook who had written a song in response to the election.

Tywen Kelly

“I watched that and realized I had to write a poem, it was just where my mind went, and I was like, ‘Why hadn’t I done this yet?’” Smith said. “Poetry is what I am the most passionate about in my life, and it is something that I have always turned to. In a certain way, it has always helped me to respond to myself and my feelings.”

Smith, Roge, Appel and Horsfall all noted the power that art has for individuals to express their feelings, especially in times of grievance.

“Art is our path forward, our path of resistance, our path for coping and it is how we will show solidarity with each other and be who we are,” Smith said. “Our art in various forms has made us feel stronger as a community.”

Students who are interested in participating in these projects should contact the artists. Interested individuals can email Appel and Roge if they would like to be interviewed, and can submit content for the zine to Horsfall until November 22.

Groups of Whitman students are driving seventeen hours to North Dakota to support the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline. As of November 1, one car of students had already departed, and other cars of students had plans to leave within the coming 1-2 days.

Protests began this past summer when the Army Corps of Engineers approved water crossing permits for the Dakota Access Pipeline, an oil pipeline designed to bring oil from North Dakota to Illinois. The pipeline will cross the Missouri River and lands sacred to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. Since this summer, over 140 activists have been arrested, and state troopers and the National Guard have tried to remove protest camps.

“I encourage everybody, especially Whitman students to go. I encourage people to talk to each other and get to North Dakota as fast as they can,” junior Kyla Rapp said. Rapp left the morning of November 1 to show her support at Standing Rock.

Rapp, juniors Katy Woodall and Julie Kitzerow, senior Mona Law and 2016 graduate John Lee are currently en route to the protest and plan to arrive on Tuesday, November 2. Though a few of them planned to attend the protest over winter break, they decided to go this week instead because the pipeline might be completed within the next two-to-three days.

“I think that now is a critical moment because I think that this thing is coming to a head right now,” Woodall said. “We decided that we needed to bite the bullet and go and take a week off of school because it could be too late if we wait until a break rolls around for us.”

The group noted that while any form of support is important, being physically present at the protests is the best way for individuals to have a part in actually stopping pipeline construction.

“Honestly, social media social activism is amazing, but if you see any kind of validity in this issue and you are in a position where you are not going to lose your job if you take a week off of school or work, then they need you right now,” Rapp said.

In addition to the fact that the pipeline construction would occur on sacred land, the pipeline could burst and contaminate the Missouri River. While this environmental hazard has gained attention in the media, Rapp wants students to remember that the Dakota Access Pipeline is not just an environmental issue.

“I think that at Whitman especially and in the larger public, people understand this issue through an environmental lens… Something I think we need to be focusing a lot more on to engage with the issue in thoughtful ways is to think of it as an indigenous sovereignty issue first,” Rapp said.

The entire group emphasized that they believe that students who care about the issue should go to the protests in North Dakota and physically display their support.

“I think what happened with the Dakota Access Pipeline matters to all of us,” Law said. “I think that being there, physically present, is really important.”

Editor’s note: This article was edited to more accurately refer to protestors as activists. 

The Whitman Blue Ravens? The Whitman Appaloosas? The Whitman Blues? The Whitman Sockeyes? It’s up to you  to choose. The college community has the chance to vote on the new college mascot now that the Mascot Working Group has released the four final mascot options. However, many students feel that the options are lackluster.

In early September, the Mascot Working Group started soliciting ideas for a mascot after deciding to abandon the Missionary this past April. According to an email sent to the community this past Monday, Oct. 17, they received over 1,500 different mascot suggestions. In the email, the Mascot Working Group released the final four options for the college’s new mascot: Appaloosas, Blue Ravens, Blues or Sockeyes. The community has the opportunity to vote on these four mascots through a ranking survey.

Junior Tim Howell was the only student representative in the Mascot Working Group, and according to him, the process for choosing the four options was extensive. The working group discussed many of the values that the Whitman community holds, and then analyzed mascot suggestions accordingly.

“What we tried to figure out in the beginning stages was what represented the college…later on in the process we started going through names that we thought would fit,” Howell said.

The email from the Mascot Working Group emphasized the goal that the four final options will demonstrate Whitman’s values. It read, “We believe any of these mascots would achieve our goals of bringing together the Whitman community, instilling pride in Whitman and reflecting the shared values of our community.”

Despite this positive perspective, many students have mixed responses to the mascot options. The Wire turned to students and staff for their thoughts on the options.

Senior Eva Geisse questioned whether or not the final four mascot options properly fit the campus.

“I’m not over the moon about any of them,” Geisse said. “When I think of three out of the four of them, I don’t think Whitman. The Blues was the only one that when I thought of it I thought of Whitman and driving into Walla Walla. But, outside of Walla Walla not many people will know what the Blues are.”

Staff member and alumni Brian Acosta (‘16) also had issues with The Blues option. “The biggest concern that I have is that the Missionary mascot kept reminding us of where we came from. If we change it to the Blue Mountains then we only get a geographical sense, not a historical sense.”

The Indigenous Peoples Education and Culture Club (IPECC) played a significant role in mobilizing students last year to remove the Missionary mascot. IPECC member senior Zoey Kapusinski is worried that the Appaloosas could create some cultural insensitivity because appaloosa horses have a strong historical significance with the Nez Perce people. The American breed of appaloosas was developed by the Nez Perce tribe, but the breed was stolen by the U.S. Cavalry following the Nez Perce War of 1877. Since then, the breed has become popularized in American horse breeding.

“I love that Appaloosa was inspired by Styx,” Kapusinski wrote in an email to The Whitman Wire. “[But] I’m wondering if there’s still some extractive/culturally insensitive element with Appaloosa.” However, Kapusinski emphasized that any new mascot is a step forward.

“Regardless of which mascot is chosen, I think they’re all better than Missionaries,” Kapusinski said. “I know that as a high school student, I would have been legitimately more inclined to make Whitman my top choice with a mascot that was not the Missionaries.”

The four final mascot options are the Appaloosa, the Blues, the Blue Raven, and the Sockeye. Illustrations by Claire Revere.

All of the mascot options have varying critiques across campus. Some students feel that the Blue Raven is not unique enough to represent the Whitman community, and others feel that the Sockeye is too unique and silly. Many students noticed that the Blues, while they have regional significance, are nondescript and may have a questionable relationship with mental health (“I have the blues”). Many students did not know what an Appaloosa is.

Howell, who plays for the men’s basketball team, noted that it is important for the Whitman community to keep in mind the athletic significance of the mascot when voting.

“When it comes to the mascot, it represents the college as a whole but it mainly represents the athletes. When you think of the mascot you think of the athletes,” Howell said.

Howell thinks that it will be important for the new mascot to balance athletic and non-athletic parts of campus.

“[When representing the student body on the Mascot Working Group] I tried to make sure that the mascot was something that students could have pride in and rally around, in athletics and also the college…It’s all about trying to find something that represents athletes and non-athletes too, but is something that is still cool and creative and something that people can get behind,” Howell said.

President Kathy Murray feels as though these four options all have the capability to fit the values of the college today, and is pleased with the final mascot options.

“I like them all. The point was that by the time we sent [the survey] out, that the leadership of the college was in agreement that we could be any one of those four and be happy. And I would be happy with any of them,” Murray said.

Voting for the mascot will continue through Sunday, Oct. 30, and the final choice will be announced at a later date by Whitman’s Office of Communications.

This week Whitman students volunteered during Make A Difference Day, an annual event that Whitman has participated in for over fifteen years. Make A Difference Day is a national organization that holds an annual day of service. The organization’s mission statement is to “inspire the nation to make a difference.” On the morning of Saturday, Oct. 15, 95 students volunteered on over thirteen different community service projects around Walla Walla.

The morning began with a kickoff event where Wade Smith, the superintendent of Walla Walla Public Schools, spoke to millennial’s hardworking dedication to serving. Students then went to their project sites, and after returned to Reid Campus Center for a reflection program.

Community partners designed projects and proposed them to the Make A Difference Day staff. This year there was a wide variety of projects. Students volunteered across town, doing everything from designing posters for the Health Center at Lincoln High School to community gardening at Walla Walla elementary schools.

Marra Clay
Sophomore Liza Brody addresses the volunteers before dispersing to their service projects.

Sophomore Liza Briody-Pavlik is the Student Engagement Center’s Events and Reflections Intern, and she helped organize Make A Difference Day. For her, Make A Difference Day is a great opportunity for students who are not already involved in community service to try it out.

“My hope is that more people who aren’t involved in individual [volunteer] programs will get involved in big events like this,” Briody-Pavlik said. “It’s a great way to bring in people who aren’t already involved and get them excited about it.”

One of the largest projects was at the Blue Mountain Humane Society (BMHS), where around twenty students volunteered. Sophomores Ella Patch and Rachel Price both spent their Make A Difference Days volunteering at the Humane Society. Both were very excited to spend their day working for BMHS.

“The Humane Society does so many amazing things for the community, for the animals that people love and maybe can’t take care of…so I want to make sure that they can continue,” Patch said.

Price has volunteered multiple times while at Whitman, and she was looking forward to using Make A Difference Day to connect with the community again.

“What I always aim for whenever I am doing service work is just to see that you are making some sort of impact,” Price said. “I am sure that having 20-30 college students all dedicating some effort to cleaning up the Humane Society is going to make an impact in some way.”

Students at the Humane Society washed windows, scrubbed floors, folded newspaper, decorated cones for post-surgery animals and played with adoptable cats and dogs. For non-profits like the Blue Mountain Humane Society, having the extra help makes a big difference.

“It’s very helpful [to have students volunteer]. We are a non-profit, so volunteers make who we are.

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Volunteer at the Blue Mountain Humane Society scrubs the floor as a kitten looks on quizzically.

We count on volunteers to come and help us…when these huge groups come in it is very helpful,” Zhanna Stone, AmeriCorps volunteer and adoption specialist at BMHS, said.

Melanie Medina, the Student Engagement Center’s interim Community Service Coordinator, also hopes that Make A Difference Day will give students the opportunity to form connections with the Walla Walla community.

“Having Whitman student get exposure to an organization and then getting to actually talk to someone who works there about their organization–that’s what we hope for all of the projects,” Medina said.

Briody-Pavlik agrees that Make A Difference Day is a great chance for students to get involved in service and maybe try out working for an organization.

“Our hope is that there will be more of a connection between community service at Whitman as a whole with those partners and also individual volunteers. Maybe some of them will make a really good connection with their partner and continue on that,” Broidy-Pavlik said.

The Community Service staff hopes to see Make A Difference Day become an event where younger Whitman students can see the opportunities that are available to them in the community.

“There is so much out there in Walla Walla that can be super great for people to grow and learn as students during their college experience outside of the classroom,” Medina said.

Photo by Marra Clay

Not many would think that at Whitman College, an institution where students have access to myriad resources and a breathtaking campus, students, faculty and staff may have been exposed to dangerous levels of lead. On August 19, a notice was sent to the Whitman College community with information that multiple locations on campus tested positive for excessive lead in drinking water. Through the end of August and the beginning of September, college officials replaced faucets and other hardware to solve the problem.

Following a request from a Whitman parent, this summer the college worked with Blue Mountain Environmental Consulting to test on-campus drinking water for lead for the first time in Whitman’s history. Whitman has worked with BMEC in the past to test and remove asbestos on campus.

This year, the general public is more familiar with lead exposure from news like the Flint water crisis. Peter Harvey, Chief Financial Officer of Whitman College, supervised the lead testing process. According to Harvey, there is now public awareness that lead can be found in buildings and pipelines. “With parents asking us questions, we thought that we should check it out,” Harvey said.

Forty-nine campus locations were tested and BMEC found that three locations had excessive levels of lead. The Welty Student Health Center and two drinking fountains in the Hall of Music exceeded the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) safe lead limits.

Because the water has never been tested in the past, it is unknown how long the Whitman community may have been exposed to lead.

In 1984, the U.S. Congress passed the Safe Drinking Water Act, a law that requires the EPA to set standards for safe drinking water. The current EPA safe level for lead is 15 parts per billion (ppb). The Health Center’s water measured 24 ppb and the two drinking fountains in the Hall of Music clocked in at 16 ppb and 18 ppb. According to the Centers for Disease Control, the effects of lead exposure on adults ranges from increased influenza and cold cases to severe, permanent neurological disorders.

After learning the physiological effects of lead, many students commented that it is ironic that the Health Center had the highest levels of lead.

“It’s surprising that there is lead in the Health Center’s water,” said sophomore Isiah Cocroft. “You go there to get healthy and you don’t want to end up with lead poisoning.”

In the past, Whitman College has relied on water testing from the City of Walla Walla. Because of this, Whitman College had never tested its own water specifically before this summer. It is possible that students and faculty may have been drinking water with lead in it for months or even years.

Senior music major Peter Ramaley frequents the drinking fountains in the music building but was not particularly concerned with his exposure. “Frankly, it doesn’t bother me that much. What I do worry about is the faculty who have been drinking out of those fountains for twenty-some years,” Ramaley said.

Photo by Marra Clay

Fortunately, both Harvey and Fred Miller, Whitman’s Environmental Health and Safety Manager, believe that they have found the source of the lead and they will be able to remove it this week.

“We developed a theory that the lead was related to the water meter that was provided to us by the city,” Harvey said. Indeed, the water in the music building was contaminated by the city’s water meter. After Whitman notified the City of Walla Walla, the meter was replaced the next day. The water in the music building is now safe to drink. 

The Health Center’s water appears to have been contaminated by corroding faucets and other fixtures. They have fixed the problem by replacing corroded faucets. The Health Center’s water is now also safe to drink. Harvey appreciates the community support that they have had throughout this process.

“One parent who is a plumber offered to help if we needed to replace fixtures, which was really nice,” Harvey said.

How will Whitman prevent this from happening again in the future? Both Harvey  noted that they will create plans to check water quality regularly but that the most recent lead issue is currently the main priority.

“We are trying to deal with the immediate issues first. I think we need to really study what the city’s water testings are and get some advice on that,” Harvey said. 

In general, Whitman College community members have been grateful for the College’s transparency with this process. A few parents and faculty members emailed Miller questions about the process, but Miller and Harvey have not received any negative feedback.

“I just think it’s good that they are doing something about the lead,” commented sophomore Ye Rim Cho.

There are currently over three hundred confirmed cases of Zika in the United States, including multiple cases in both Washington and Oregon. Although it is unlikely that infected mosquitoes will bring the virus to Walla Walla within the next few years, students traveling to Central and South America should take precautions to avoid Zika.

Although American media coverage of Zika has grown over the last few months, the virus was first identified in Uganda in 1947. Zika is primarily transmitted through mosquitoes and there is a proven link to microcephaly, a birth defect that causes babies’ heads to be smaller and less developed.

The World Health Organization declared Zika a public health emergency this past February, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advise pregnant women not to travel to countries with Zika. While Brazil has the highest amount of Zika cases, Zika has been found in most Central and South American countries, including Ecuador and Panama, both of which have Whitman College approved study abroad programs.

This February Susan Holme, director of Off-Campus Studies, sent an email to all students studying abroad with information about Zika and suggestions for protection from the virus. The email encouraged students to wear long clothing, stay in air conditioned buildings away from mosquitoes, sleep under a mosquito net and use insect repellant. Holme also suggested that sexually active students practice safe sex since there is evidence that suggests Zika can be spread through semen.

Zika presents flu-like symptoms such as a fever, joint pain, rash and red eyes. However, most people infected with Zika have mild symptoms and may not realize that they have the virus. Professor of Biochemistry, Biophysics and Molecular Biology James Russo believes that this is one of the reasons why travelers are concerned.

“You aren’t likely to know whether or not you are infected. There aren’t any simple antibody tests to distinguish it from dengue. That’s the part that makes people most uncertain, they wouldn’t know if they came back with Zika virus.” While there are currently no simple antibody tests available yet to determine if an individual is infected with Zika, they are in development.

Health Center Director Claudia Ness believes that the chances of students contacting Zika is relatively low, but she advocates for insect precautions to limit the chances of being exposed to Zika, malaria, dengue fever and yellow fever.

“Zika is just another one of those viruses that you will need to have good insect precautions for–you need to know where you are going and what the risks are,” Ness said. “If students are going to be working outside or camping they should take full precautions.”

Junior Hannah Alverson is currently studying abroad in South America with SIT Ecuador: Comparative Ecology and Conservation. Most of her time is spent in Quito, which is at a high enough elevation that mosquitoes are very uncommon. However, she did take precautions to avoid insect bites while visiting the Amazon.

“Zika wasn’t a concern [in the Amazon]. We were more worried about malaria, other mosquito borne illnesses and just being annoyed by bug bites,” said Alverson in an email to The Pioneer.

SIT Ecuador concludes the semester with an independent research project, but the students on the program are not allowed to do their research on the coast. According to Alverson, this is partially due to Zika. “I have avoided traveling to the coast because of Zika, but my friends who have gone have said that they didn’t see any mosquitoes. I think it depends on the part of the coast that you go to.”

Whitman College students should take precautions to avoid insect bites while in Central and South America, but both Ness and Russo believe that students should not be overly concerned with Zika.

“I would hesitate to go to South America myself if I was a young woman who was pregnant or thinking about getting pregnant,” Ness said. “If you are planning study abroad or a trip, you need to weigh the risks and benefits. If you are the kind of person who is going to be really good at sticking to the insect precautions–wearing long clothing, using a mosquito net and putting on bug spray–go for it, but if you are a little more laid back then you may want to put a bit more thought into the place that you go.”

“Relative to the other things that are [in Central and South America]–malaria and dengue fever–it is hard for me to say that Zika should make you more worried. If you were already okay going to a place that already has endemic dengue and other things, adding Zika to the mix shouldn’t change that decision making at all,” Russo said. “If I knew that I was very early in pregnancy I wouldn’t go, probably, because of the strong evidence that it could have a very direct effect on my child.”