Jugglers, blacksmiths and jousters made their appearance last weekend at the annual Renaissance Faire, a daylong source of entertainment hosted in front of Memorial Hall.

The Renaissance Faire, which is open to the entire Walla Walla community and free to attend, includes festivities such as Celtic dancers, storytellers and a fairy. Whitman clubs, including the Fencing Club, Juggling Club and River Rince performed throughout the day. Children can take part in face painting, jousting games and other activities.

It’s difficult to determine how many attend the event, but organizers estimate that at least 3,000 people attend.

“A lot of community members attend because it’s a kid friendly event, so people bring their families and spend the day there. We have food, we have entertainment all day, both the relaxing kind where you can sit back and watch a Celtic band and the active kind where you can learn Renaissance dancing or basic fencing moves,” said junior Haley Forrester, current Renaissance Faire co-president.

The Renaissance Faire has been held on campus for 47 years. It is one of the oldest student clubs on campus and almost one of the oldest faires in the Pacific Northwest.

“I am a theater and art double major, and this club is a great way for me to use both of my majors. I think Renaissance Faires are often seen as a dorky, nerdy club, or at least it’s portrayed that way in movies, but here we get the chance to put on a full-blown festival and it’s a chance to act and be in character all day so that’s great for me,” Forrester.

The Renaissance Faire club begins planning the event in January. They are in charge of making sure that logistics are settled and organize the entertainers and merchants who will be at the faire. Many students join the club after their first year because they enjoyed the faire so much that they decide to join the next year.

“I didn’t join freshman year… but then I went to the faire in the spring, which is how a lot of people join the club. They go their first year and think, ‘wow, this is awesome, I want to get involved,’ and I recall that I walked over at 10:30 and was glued to the blacksmith all day, I just thought it was really cool, and then I went to their meeting the next year and was really excited about the entire thing,” said junior Robby Brothers, Renaissance Faire co-president.

To promote the faire, students the day before wore Renaissance costumes as a visual way to spread the word about the event and to encourage people to come. The club also promoted the event online, creating a Facebook event that has been viewed over 14,000 times.  

“I hope people have fun and are entertained. We don’t really try to attach a message to this event. We aren’t telling people, ‘let’s go back to the good ole’ days without the internet and toilets.’ No, we are just a bunch of college kids who think it’s fun to put this together for the community,” said sophomore Erin Minus, entertainment chair.

The Divestment Policy Working Group is currently receiving feedback from the Whitman community about a framework that can help assess whether claims for divestment are reasonable and how they can be presented to the trustees. The framework will be revised if the group finds it necessary and they hope to present the final framework to the trustees later this month for review.

The working group was formed last January by President Murray to create a framework for the college to use that would allow the trustees to determine how to review a request for divestment, while also acknowledging that the Finance committee has a fiscal responsibility to invest money for the school.

“A group of students came forward in the fall and met with President Murray and myself to encourage the college to divest … [Divest Whitman] did some research and we realized there is a potential to have this framework help. And then I think that if you combine that with the increasing requests to college communities to consider issues of divestment, it seemed like good timing to put together a framework to both help the community understand the issues that the trustees would consider and make it easier for the trustees to evaluate such proposals [for divestment],” said Treasurer and CFO Peter Harvey, a member of the Working Group.

The group includes members from various parts of the Whitman community, and is made up of Trustee Nancy Serrurier, Overseer Rob Hinnen, Harvey, Professor of Economics Denise Hazlett and ASWC Vice President, junior Arthur Shemitz.  

The current draft for the framework lays out the purpose and reasoning for investments, a description of an objectionable investment, a framework for actions that the trustees can take in the event that an investment is considered objectionable, and the process to make a request to the trustees to divest.

Many colleges already have a similar policy in place, and so the committee drew from those frameworks while taking into account the specific needs of the school. The end result is a three page document that was sent out a few weeks ago by Shemitz to be reviewed by the Whitman community for feedback.

“At first we asked, ‘How much input should we ask for immediately?’ But you can’t really go out and ask for feedback until you have a plan of your own. So our chair, the vice-chair of the trustees Nancy Serrurier, has been great. She did go and talk to one of the members of Divest Whitman, and spoke with a couple people from the faculty and the trustees before we began working on the framework. This framework is not the final draft, but we are hoping people can give feedback so we know if it’s clear and makes sense that these are the standards that we are proposing for the board to use and the process that you go through [to make a proposal],” said Hazlett.

In addition to releasing the draft of the framework in place to the community, the working group has also released other examples of framework policies in place, including the policies for Carleton College and a study on responsible investments from the Commonfund Institute.  

“I think with recent concerns about transparency, that’s been the main guiding principle in this, to make the committee’s work as transparent as possible while still respecting the fact that some things must remain confidential. Because this is intended to be a framework that will help a community, that will clarify the expectations for submitting a divestment request and clarify what the process will look like, it seemed important to allow public comment on that and to let the community see and comment on it before it goes to the Board of Trustees for recommendation of adoption,” said Shemitz.

The working group is accepting feedback on the proposed framework, which can be found online with accompanying reports regarding other schools’ policies, until April 8. All feedback can be sent to divestpolicyfeedback@whitman.edu.

A series of violent assaults against residents of the neighborhood north of Isaacs Avenue has left Whitman students looking for ways to protect themselves.

Over the last month multiple students and Walla Walla residents have reported being stalked or attacked by a man in a white van, and threatened with a knife during an assault. On Feb. 20, law enforcement apprehended the driver of that van on charges of assault, rape and drug possession following a car chase on Feb. 18. It remains unknown whether more than one assailant was involved in recent incidents.

Many residents of the neighborhood where assaults occurred became aware of the danger through an email sent by junior Sarah Finger to the Sweets ultimate frisbee team, which was then forwarded to other students. In the email, Finger warned her fellow frisbee players about recent events that she had heard about from friends, and encouraged people not to walk home alone.

“The night that [I was harassed by the van], as soon as I got home safe, I knew some of my friends were still out and so I texted all of my friends who I had seen that night to let them know that they shouldn’t walk home alone. And I was telling my teammate about it, and … she told me that truck had harassed her during the day. And it was by far the scariest experience I’ve had at Whitman so far. I’ve had people yell stuff at me from cars, but I have never felt threatened in that way and so I wanted all of my female friends to know that that had happened so they could be more aware,” Finger said.

With the sudden increase in assaults affecting students who live off-campus, many are exploring more ways to stay safe near campus. Though there are no statistics regarding the number of students carrying mace, many students do.

Whitman College allows students to carry mace on campus, though possession presents its own risks.  Matt Stroe, Director of Security for the college, asks that students educate themselves before they decide to purchase and carry mace for self-defense.

“My biggest fear is that [if] somebody took it from the person who is [carrying] it, and they use it against you, it can escalate a situation, and if it accidentally gets set off in a dorm room, you have contaminated half a floor, maybe. And if somebody has any sort of respiratory issues, [they] can have a reaction to it … I would just hate for it to be used and then have it ill-affect somebody else,” Stroe said.

Nevertheless, some, such as Police Officer Tim Bennett, would encourage students who are concerned for their safety to carry mace, so long as they are wise about using it.

“I am all for being able to protect yourself, and people have a right to protect themselves against bodily injury. What you don’t do is turn around and hose somebody because they’re near you. Another thing is to not be afraid to yell. If you yell the right things, like ‘help’ or ‘call police,’ that will be enough to make somebody turn and run. Or if you use a whistle, that can work because people are not expecting that loud noise. But obviously the best thing to do is to get in a place where you can call 911 and being aware of your surroundings,” Bennett said.

Another alternative for students who are interested in protecting themselves would be to learn self-defense moves and to practice them to build muscle memory. Some resident directors and Barbara Maxwell have offered classes and workshops in self-defense in the past, though currently no classes are offered on-campus.

During the 2013-2014 school year, Maxwell ran a six-week pilot program of a self-defense class for women at Calhoon Martial Arts, an off-campus martial arts studio, to see if there was enough student interest in the course to make it an SSRA class. Ultimately, she found that as students get busier, they are less likely to go off campus to take a 75-minute class.

According to Maxwell, if students are interested in learning self-defense, they can reach out to their Resident Director or someone from the Student Activities Office to schedule a self-defense event.

If students are in a situation near campus in which they feel unsafe, Bennett recommends walking with a purpose and gaining some distance between yourself and any suspicious person, whether by walking quickly, crossing the street or moving to a well-lit area. Additionally, having a cell phone accessible will allow you to make a phone call quickly if necessary. Bennett warns that phones can distract people, and so students should be careful to remain aware of their surroundings while holding their phone or making a call.

Campus security recommends using the escort service if a student is worried about walking home alone. Studies show that people are much less likely to be approached or assaulted if they walk with somebody else. Escorts are available anywhere within a two-block range of campus and are available all night. If students want to request an escort, they can call security using the extension 5777.

Stroe urges any student who has had a run-in with a suspicious person near campus to tell campus security so that they can help the community stay aware and be safe.

“Report the event to the police first, and then let us at campus security know the situation so that we can be aware. So if there is something going on that we hear about, because the police are not obligated to inform us about what is happening near campus, and so if we don’t know about it … we can’t let people know how to stay safe,” Stroe said.

Some berry bad news was announced last week for Walla Walla farmers, who are required to pay over $400,000 in fines for labor violations.

The Washington State Department of Labor and local Walla Walla valley farms have come to an arrangement for charges against the farms for unethical work practices, including paying below the minimum wage, not paying overtime to workers and using shadow labor, or multiple laborers on one work ticket.

The Washington Department of Labor filed the case against Blue Mountain Farms LLC, Great Columbia Berry Farm LLC and Applegate Orchards. These farms employ seasonal workers during the blueberry season, from June to October each year, who are paid a piece rate of what they pick, and that is punched on a card with the worker’s name on it.

However, some workers are not employed through a formal recruiting process and are placed on another person’s ticket as a “shadow worker.” These workers often split their paychecks with someone else, resulting in less pay. One anonymous worker described in brief, “During the 2009 to 2012 picking seasons, I worked on my mother’s ticket. My brother also worked on my mother’s ticket at the same time, as did my father.” These practices, though fairly common, violate work standards for agriculture.  

The case was officially filed in court over two years ago, and the courts determined that some of the practices used by the farms violated the Fair Labor Standards Act (FSLA) and the Migrant and Seasonal Workers Protection Act (MSPA) in Nov. 2015. On Feb. 4 of this year, the courts came to an arrangement about the amount of money that the farms would owe to workers and the fines that they would be required to pay to workers.

Photo by Anna Dawson

As a result, the farms are required to pay over $385,000 to workers for wages and other damages and $20,000 to the Department of Labor in fines, according to the Associated Press.

The Whitman College Glean Team, a student-led group that works with local farms to harvest produce and donate it to local food banks, has not worked with the farms charged by the Department of Labor. Because they typically only have contact with the owners of farms and not the workers, and because farmers do not profit off of gleaning but only receive a tax benefit, they generally do not inquire into working conditions on the farms.  

“We have, however, taken proactive steps to avoid this sort of issue from arising. We make it clear to farmers that we cannot harvest anything for them to sell, and that 100 percent of the produce we harvest from their farm is to be donated. Haven’t had any objections that I know of,” Glean Team leader Samuel Curtis said.

Whitman College Bon Appetit has a Farm to Fork program that uses produce from local farms in their dining halls. According to Roger Edens, General Manager for Bon Appetit, the company has not purchased food from any of these farms and would not purchase produce from any farms that knowingly pay workers below the minimum wage or that have undocumented workers.

Additionally, Bon Appetit works with many groups to ensure that they have ethical standards in their practice.

“In 2009 we co-developed a Code of Conduct for acceptable working conditions that we require our Florida tomato growers to follow with their workers as the result of partnering with the farmworker organization Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW)—the first food service company to do so,” Eden said.
“We continue to support the CIW as it expands its Fair Food Campaign into new areas. We are also proud to be an early member of the Equitable Food Initiative, a unique partnership among businesses and advocacy groups that have come together to develop standards, training processes and a certification designed to give farm workers a greater voice, promote environmental stewardship and produce safer food.”  

A group of 20 trustees and overseers, in addition to meeting for February committee meetings, spent time on Feb. 3 to meet with students in an on-campus networking event hosted by the Student Engagement Center.

The purpose of this event was to connect a range of Whitman students with alumni contacts who could be a resource later when students are seeking employment. Networking allows students to build relationships with people that can later provide them with advice, guidance or suggestions, and helps them learn how to communicate with others in a professional setting.

“We are giving students an hour to learn as much as they can from people who have the current students’ best interests in mind and are also there to be helpful…The board members choose to add this event to part of their time at Whitman [during trustee meetings] because they really want to make themselves and their knowledge about the professional world available to students,” said Associate Dean for Student Engagement Noah Leavitt.  

Before the networking event took place, the SEC hosted training for students attending so that they would be more comfortable and prepared for the Wednesday afternoon event. Students were walked through how to act professionally, how to communicate most effectively and how to make a good first impression.

“The term network sometimes puts a queasy feeling in the pit of [students’] stomachs because it can have a negative connotation of [a] schmooze-y kind of space, but really networking is about building relationships, making connections with people and having great conversations…I think that’s where being able to be confident and present in that space, to understand how to be effective in that space, is a really helpful skill,” said Kim Rolfe, Director of Business Engagement at the SEC.

Some of the tips that the SEC gave students included asking open-ended questions to continue a conversation, asking for business cards if you want to follow-up with somebody later, using a good handshake and maintaining eye contact when introducing yourself and always chewing with your mouth closed.

Students were invited to the event by the SEC and were selected for a variety of reasons. The SEC wanted to select students who had shown involvement with professional development and networking in the past, and wanted students from a wide pool of areas, rather than selecting students from one year, activity or academic interest.

“We wanted to get a broad spectrum of students, and one of the things we did is [identify] students who have been coming in and engaging with us and actively seeking information about how to network with employers, how to talk with professionals out in the world, how to go about finding internships and how to use LinkedIn and the Whitman alumni database…We selected students from this pool,” said Gayle Townsend, assistant director of career development at the SEC.

Overall, students and the SEC found the event to be successful, as students were actively engaged in conversations with the trustees and overseers for the duration of the event.

“The overseers were incredibly friendly and they all knew that we wanted to get to know them, and they all knew that we were pretty nervous and so they were incredibly friendly and were open to communication. They gave me their business cards, which was very sweet…I feel like I’ve gotten some really fantastic connections that I can utilize in the future, and I’ve just gotten to know some really interesting people, both current and former Whitman students,” said senior Samantha Grainger Shuba, who attended the event.

Brian Concannon, a human rights lawyer currently working on human rights issues in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, visited Whitman as an O’Donnell Visiting Educator last week to host an interdisciplinary class and various other sessions on human rights advocacy and immigration issues.

The interdisciplinary course, titled “Human Rights Advocacy: How and Why,” explored techniques for human rights advocacy through the example of the 2010 Haitian cholera epidemic. Students discussed privilege, how foreign aid affects developing countries and how to write campaigns that appeal to Congress. Concannon is currently working on a legal campaign that would require the United Nations to take legal responsibility for the epidemic.

“One of the parts of the class was talking about [Concannon’s] case against the UN and about cholera in Haiti, and also on a larger level talking about the role of foreign aid and NGOs and how a lot of the work that the American Government has done in Haiti has been really poor and ineffective,” said sophomore Aly Counsell, who took the class.

After working for a corporate law firm, Concannon decided to go into human rights work, and ended up in Haiti working for the United Nations. After nine months there, he decided to move to working with nonprofits. Now, Concannon’s organization, Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, does advocacy, press work and provides legal counsel to Haitians. Recently, Concannon has been working on immigration issues occurring between Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Currently in the Dominican Republic, which shares an island in the Caribbean with Haiti, thousands of ethnic Haitians are being deported because of a new law that requires people to show proof of citizenship. As a result of the new law, tensions are rising between the two countries, and many questions remain about what to do with all of the deported immigrants.   

Photo by Madaline Stevens

Concannon was brought to Whitman through the efforts of Assistant Professor of Politics Jack Jackson, Associate Professor of Philosophy Professor Patrick Frierson and Associate Dean for Student Engagement Noah Leavitt, who are the three pre-law advisors for Whitman, along with Associate Professor of Foreign Languages Nicole Simek and Matthew Woodfork, who have done work related to the areas that overlap with Haiti.

Concannon’s work greatly overlaps with the subject of the Whitman Summer reading last year, Edwidge Danticat’s “Brother, I’m Dying.” Whitman hoped that by bringing Concannon in to discuss modern events in Haiti, students could have more experiences with the summer reading. Concannon and Danticat have worked together in the past, and one of the separate events that the Student Engagement Center hosted with Concannon was a Skype conversation between him and Danticat.

“Brian Concannon is somebody who is really the foremost lawyer in the United States who understands and works on cases that are about empowering Haitian citizens to have the most control over their country as possible, and … Brian is just somebody who is out there as a resource to understand Haiti from the standpoint of what the O’Donnell Global Studies Initiative really wants, which is for students to meet practitioners who are out in the world,” said Leavitt.

Concannon’s course involved discussions about the role of individuals in conflict-ridden places, how to use privilege to one’s advantage instead of creating risk, and whether or not one can really make a difference in marginalized places. These discussions all centered on methods to use one’s position to advocate for others and make social change.

“My advice is to get involved. These are things that I didn’t do, and that was a mistake I made. As soon as you can, start doing internships, externships, volunteer work, whatever you can do to get practical experience to complement the academic experience you get. I also think that people should, in terms of their education, it’s really important that during college that people develop their writing skills. It’s very hard to write well, and when you’re writing about things that are important, you need to do well every time, and college is a great time to practice that,” said Concannon.

Upon pre-registration for the Spring 2016 semester, in addition to common steps such as confirming their attendance and giving an emergency address, students for the first time ever could choose their preferred name and gender pronouns. These selections are visible to students’ professors and academic advisors and can be changed at any time on MyWhitman.

The change in registration to include the selection of preferred gender pronouns arose as the result of an ASWC resolution passed at the end of Spring 2015. The resolution called for a way to allow all students to select their gender pronouns during registration and to make it visible to professors and academic advisors.

Corinne Vandagriff ’15 worked at the forefront of the bill to encourage Whitman to adopt a formal policy that would allow students to select their own preferred gender pronouns regularly.

“As a gender studies major, there’s a lot I could say about the complex web that gender is, but really what’s important is that gender is complicated and can be extremely painful and oppressive for some; it’s important to me that institutions like Whitman (and the individuals that occupy Whitman) try to help hold that weight by having formal and easily accessible policies for name and/or pronoun changes,” said Vandagriff in an email interview. 

Vandagriff and current ASWC vice president, junior Arthur Shemitz, spoke to many students who had concerns that their legal names or genders, which are visible to their professors and others on MyWhitman, do not conform with their self-identities. These conversations encouraged ASWC to reach a resolution that could help address some of these issues.

“[Using incorrect pronouns or a different name] can mis-gender students or not indicate a respect for the identity that they identify as, but it can also out students who are not necessarily comfortable with their peers…so we saw the need for a system that could remedy that, and we decided that the best way to have that be accomplished would be a check-in system during pre-registration,” Shemitz said.   

Even though the selection of preferred pronouns was done to address issues for particular students, an important part of the change is the requirement that all students choose their preferred gender pronouns and that the preferred pronouns can be changed on MyWhitman.

Their preferred gender pronouns and that the preferred pronouns can be changed on MyWhitman.

“[The change] sets the norm that everyone is asked about their name and pronouns. Because what happens is that we understand that it’s important to know people’s gender pronouns, but most people just assume them except for people who seem borderline, and what we need to do is check in with everyone about their preferred gender pronouns and have people be comfortable with someone asking them that,” said Shemitz.

Shemitz worked closely as an ASWC liaison during the Fall 2015 semester with Enterprise technology, the technology group who runs MyWhitman and Cleo, to implement the change.

“What really drove this was the ASWC resolution that was passed last spring, and so we began initial talks right at the end of the term … and then once the students got back we met more frequently to talk about how they want to develop [the resolution], because there was not a lot of specificity about how it should actually surface once it developed,” said Mike Osterman, a technology coordinator for Enterprise Technologies.

Enterprise, Shemitz, and some members of the faculty had some discussion initially about who could view student selections of preferred gender pronouns, and it was eventually decided that for the time being only professors who taught a class that the student is enrolled in and the student’s academic advisor could view the preference.

Assistant Professor of Politics Susanne Beechey has hosted a Center for Teaching and Learning session about the importance of using gender-inclusive language in the classroom, and encourages faculty to see gender-inclusive language as a means to create a more inclusive and comfortable classroom environment.

“In some ways [the change to have students select their preferred pronouns] is a very small change, but it can have a really big and important effect for some people. And that’s what I think is so great about it. It’s not a huge shift, it’s just a little change on the margin that will have a big effect for some, and I think that’s great,” said Beechey.

Editors note: an earlier version of this article misspelled Assistant Professor of Politics Susanne Beechey’s name.

The STEP Women’s Shelter is closing down at the end of the year after serving the Walla Walla community for almost six years. The shelter is closing so that the city can provide funding to more long-term solutions for homelessness in Walla Walla.

STEP Women’s Shelter was created in 2009 to address the need for a homeless shelter specifically for women. At the time, other homeless housing services were available, but none were available specifically for women. By making the shelter specifically for women, it could be a better housing environment for victims of domestic abuse or for those who would rather not live alongside men.

STEP Women’s shelter is one component of a larger effort of Helpline Walla Walla, whose goal is to help those in need gain the resources necessary to get back on their feet. With the closing of the STEP Women’s Shelter, other emergency housing resources will be expanding to accommodate for more people and help those who were living at the shelter transition elsewhere, including the Christian Aid Center, WW Housing Authority, YWCA, and BMAC.

The decision to close the shelter came about through a variety of events and reasons. In early 2015, the County of Walla Walla hired consultants to recommend ways to address the homeless population in Walla Walla. Three of the six contractors recommended diverting funds from emergency shelter to more long-term solutions for housing. The county decided to adopt the recommendations, and so beginning Jan. 1, 2016, the STEP women’s shelter will lose a majority of its funding.

Helpline Board Chair Larry Nelson said in a press release, “This decision was difficult and not made lightly…While our board supports the plan’s direction, it equates to a loss of over $100,000 in funding for the STEP shelter, which is approximately two-thirds of the shelter’s annual operating costs. The amount of subsidy required to support the shelter’s $150,000 budget is more than we can sustain without putting other Helpline programs at risk.”

Photo by Madaline Stevens

The on-campus student group Feminists Advocating Change and Empowerment (FACE) has worked closely over the years with the STEP shelter. In the past, they have raised funds through the Breaking Ground monologues to support the shelter, and many students have also volunteered with the shelter in the past.

One student who volunteered there was the co-president of FACE Ione Fullerton ’17. She worked at the front desk to keep the shelter running during the day, as there was no hired staff that worked during the daytime on the weekends at the shelter.

“I see the effects [of the shelter closing] being two-fold: in once sense, there might not be a place for women to go. There might not be beds for women to stay at since they can’t go to Helpline. And also, those who are directed to the Christian Aid center may not want to go there. The Christian Aid Center is a very different set-up from the STEP shelter… so people either might not have somewhere to stay or they will be uncomfortable staying there,” said Fullerton.

Nevertheless, the shelter still believes that the transition from emergency shelter resources to more long-term solutions to homelessness will allow them to better help the community.

“Operating a women’s shelter was never part of Helpline’s core purpose, and stretched our organizational capacity. We are proud to have ‘stepped up’ and met what was at the time a critical community need but, moving forward, we feel it best serves the community to focus on our essential role of connecting homeless and low-income individuals and families with available resources, and assisting them in moving out of a cycle of crisis and into a state of self-sufficiency,” said Helpline director Liz McDevitt in an email interview with the Pioneer.

Photo by Natalie Mutter.

The Associated Students of Whitman College (ASWC) and Walla Walla for Bernie Sanders (WWfBS) have implemented multiple measures and initiatives recently to encourage voting on all levels.

ASWC has amended the voting procedure in a new act that would extend the voting time to 44 hours. Currently, all ASWC elections are open for a 20-hour period, and the next act will more than double the time that students can vote. The act will be implemented in elections beginning in the spring of 2016.

Currently, voter turnouts for ASWC elections hovers around 50 percent, and most expect the change to increase the voter participation for these elections. However, as there is the chance that the act is not successful in increasing election turnout, it will only be implemented for a two-year trial run and later reviewed to decide if the voting period should remain extended.

“The idea [behind the act] is that will increase voter turnout. However, because that’s not guaranteed it’s a two-year trial-period in case it doesn’t work. The idea is that more students … could still be able to vote. [But] It’s possible it may backfire, but that’s why they put on the trial run,” said ASWC director of communications, senior Abby Seethoff.

The move to allow more students to vote is rooted in ASWC’s goal to get more students to participate in elections and to gain better student representation.

“I think ASWC elections are incredibly important because ultimately you are choosing the people who you want to represent students to the highest levels of the college. You’re choosing the people who you want to be the face of students in meetings with faculty, in meetings with staff, and in meetings with administrators and governing board members,” said senior and ASWC president Jack Percival.

Through the voting for ASWC senators and on ASWC resolutions, students are able to have more say in the issues that matter to them on campus.

“So in many ways, the political capital and the ability that students have to influence events at the college in terms of policy, in terms of funding priorities, hinge on the students who have been elected to represent the students, so I think because of that it’s super important that people care about these elections and vote in these elections,” Percival said.

Another group working to encourage voting in elections on a local scale is the group Walla Walla for Bernie Sanders, led in part by senior Harrison Wills. The group has many focuses, including raising awareness about the Vermont senator’s campaign, but also raising awareness about ballot issues related to the causes that Sanders fights for.

“I am circulating some petitions that are state-level ballot measures… and as I am getting signatures, a lot of students tell me, ‘I’d love to sign it, but I’m not registered to vote,’ and so I tell them ‘well this is a good incentive, because if you register to vote today, not only will you be able to vote in the general election, but you can vote on ballot measures this year, and primaries,’” Wills said.

A large part of their effort is getting students to register to vote strategically, which means registering to vote where their vote can have the most impact, especially if the voter is from the swing state. Another part of their work is talking to students of various political leanings to get them passionate about participating in all levels of elections, including local, state, and national.

“A lot of people say, well, what can one person do? And you hear these arguments. But … at the end of the day, someone is going to get elected, and we can pretend that that doesn’t matter, but it does matter, and we should think about whether it’s supporting Bernie or someone else, that’s up to you to do your research, but … I think there’s a lot of incentive for people to get involved and registered to vote right now,” said Wills.  

The Whitman Socialist Front hopes to bring about an egalitarian society and educate the campus about socialism. It took an important step towards one of those goals when it was ratified as a club by the Associated Students of Whitman College on Nov. 14.

The club’s two main purposes are to facilitate discussions about socialism and to incorporate socialist ideas into student activism around campus. Louise hopes that through collaboration with groups such as the Black Student Union (BSU) and Feminists Advocating for Change and Empowerment (FACE), the Socialist Front can make their goals a reality.

Whitman Socialist Front leader first year Brynn Louise’s interest in Socialism began their senior year of high school during an independent study project for social studies. Louis is a supporter of socialism and has enjoyed having conversations about it with their fellow hallmates.  Those conversations led them to create an ASWC recognized club that they hope will education student body and allow for collaboration on projects with other on-campus groups.

“I find it very relevant to current social and political situations, and so I’m starting the club because I want to find like-minded people, and activism is a huge part of socialism … so making this an ASWC-recognized club could help me to collaborate with other clubs on campus and socialist institutions elsewhere,” Louise said.

Louise hopes that through their efforts with the club, the Whitman community can learn to approach current issues in a different way.

“Mostly the discussions [around issues on campus and in Walla Walla] have been between Republicans and Democrats, but I think they should be including contending philosophies of all types,” Louise said.

Currently, fellow leaders and first-years Mark Blakeley, Bassel Jamali, and Rhett Butler are reading Karl Marx’s Capital to learn more about the philosophical roots and ideas behind Socialism.

Not all the members of the Whitman Socialist Front have accepted socialism as their ideological viewpoint. Many of the leaders see the club as an opportunity to learn more about the topic in general and see how they want it to fit into their lives, and the club meetings are open to people of all ideological backgrounds. A large part of the club’s purpose is to create discussions in which people can share their thoughts give insight into the ideas.

“[Socialism] is just a matter of looking at the world, it’s a viewpoint that’s often marginalized, especially here in America, not here at Whitman. And it’s just an interesting thing to consider, it’s a new way of thinking about the world around us, and so that’s the reason I’m participating in this club,” Jamali said.

Blakely became interested in the group after he began partaking in the discussions going on about Socialism with fellow students in his room.

“I just joined this club because [of] its interesting discussions. We’re talking about interesting ideas with some very interesting people,” Blakely said.

“I’m really interested in economics, I’ve done a lot of work with it and I plan to major in it, and so I think it’s a different perspective than what we’re learning in class, which is more capitalist. It’s a different perspective, and maybe I’ll enjoy it or maybe I won’t,” Butler said.

The club hopes to gain more members from all different ideas and philosophies, and they hope to start a new conversation on campus.

“Initially, I think a lot of the interest needs to be generated based on experiences in real life, because a not lot of people will have the same historical or philosophical interest that I do in Socialism, and so a lot of [it]…is going to be tapping into the anger that people feel based on hierarchical and oppressive structures,” Louise said.