About Whitman College
Whitman students work theoretically and across disciplines, but they also apply their knowledge in meaningful ways to real-world situations. It's a challenging and rewarding combination that sets up students for success in their lives after Whitman.
Nearly all our students cite close working relationships with professors as paramount to their success at Whitman. Our faculty members are passionate teacher-scholars known for professional expertise and for supporting students as they develop academically and personally.
In addition to significant student-faculty engagement, the Whitman experience helps students become their best selves by:
fostering the intellectual depth and breadth of knowledge essential for diverse career and leadership roles;
supporting development of critical thinking, writing, speaking, and presentation and performance skills;
integrating technology throughout the liberal arts curriculum;
advancing strong faculty-student collaborative research programs;
promoting a rich appreciation of inclusive excellence; and
developing community through a vibrant residential life program and extensive varsity, club and intramural athletic programs, more than 100 student-run clubs and outdoor adventures for explorers of all skill levels.
Whitman alumni include a Nobel Prize winner in physics; the Mars Rover lead engineer; a U.S. Supreme Court justice; an ambassador to Iraq and six other countries in the Middle East; a NASA astronaut; congressional and state representatives; leaders in law, government and the Foreign Service; respected scholars; CEOs of major corporations; renowned artists, entertainers and writers; prominent journalists; leading physicians and scientists; and thousands of active, responsible citizens who are contributing to their professions and their communities.
The Mission of the College
This mission statement, approved by the Whitman College Board of Trustees, guides all programs of the college:
Situated within the rich and complex landscape and history of the Walla Walla Valley, Whitman College provides a rigorous liberal arts education of the highest quality to passionate and engaged students from diverse backgrounds. Whitman students develop their intellectual and creative capacities in a supportive scholarly community that prioritizes student learning within and beyond our classrooms. We help each student translate their deep local, regional, and global experiences into ethical and meaningful lives of purpose.
Whitman College Diversity Statement
Diversity, equity, and inclusion are core values at Whitman College. The college strives to have and support a student body, staff and faculty that represent the diversity of our world: gender identity, sexuality, race, ethnicity, national origin, socioeconomic class, disability, religion, spirituality and age cohort.
We seek to foster an inclusive learning environment in which members draw from different intellectual traditions to engage with and challenge one another through studied, thoughtful, and respectful dialogue and debate.
We aspire to become a place where all community members experience difference every day, where diversity is supported and woven throughout our cultural fabric: our values, our behavior, our culture. Our mission focuses on educating engaged students from diverse backgrounds and experiences in a college community where everyone can participate fully in the life of the college and experience a genuine sense of belonging.
Education is a common good that ultimately serves the entire society; therefore, access is a moral imperative. Diverse learning contexts are known to provide transformative educational experiences. An inclusive environment at Whitman that nurtures the development of the ability to work effectively across difference will prepare our students for life after Whitman. We believe that through an innovative rigorous liberal arts curriculum, we can educate all students and prepare them to serve in various fields and sectors and to contribute to a rapidly changing, multicultural and globalized world. Our graduates will be ready to work with others for the common good.
Environmental Sustainability
Sustainability is central to our mission at Whitman. Social equity, environmental integrity and economic security are fundamental components of a sustainable future, and we strive to integrate these three principles into all aspects of the college’s policies, programs and practices.
Caring for the environment happens in many ways at Whitman: through the activities of student clubs, in the ways we steward resources and through the policies that guide how we live today and plan for the future. Through climate action plans implemented over the past decade have reduced water usage, decreased the amount of food and other waste created and upgraded energy efficiency throughout campus. Additionally, Whitman is committed to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050.
All our most recent construction projects, including residence halls and the Cleveland Commons dining hall, have been certified by the U.S. Green Building Council as Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Platinum or Gold status.
Whitman's Faculty
Whitman College’s full-time faculty currently numbers 178. In addition to their dedication to teaching and advising, Whitman faculty members conduct an impressive amount of original research.
Believing that an active professional life supports enthusiasm in teaching and advising, the college encourages faculty members’ scholarly work through sabbatical’s program, funding for faculty professional scholarship, and other resources. During recent years, Whitman faculty members have been recipients of awards such as the Graves Award in the Humanities and the Lynwood W. Swanson Scientific Research Award. Members of the faculty have garnered honors and fellowships from the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, National Endowment for the Humanities, M.J. Murdock Trust, American Chemical Society, U.S. Fulbright Program, Ploughshares Fund, and other agencies.
Faculty members, with the president and the provost/dean of the faculty, are responsible for basic academic policy and for the formulation of the curriculum. The faculty also has a responsibility for student life and welfare.
College History and Background
Whitman College was established in honor of Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, who, in the 1830s, established a mission and school near Walla Walla for the local Cayuse tribe, and later provided assistance for Oregon Trail travelers. After a decade of increasingly tense interactions with the tribe, exacerbated by a deadly measles outbreak and settler encroachment upon Cayuse lands, violence broke out and the Whitmans were killed.
The Reverend Cushing Eells, a fellow missionary, proposed the founding of the school, and the Washington Territorial Legislature granted a charter to Whitman Seminary on Dec. 20, 1859. College courses were first offered at Whitman in 1882 and on Nov. 28, 1883, the legislature issued a new charter, changing the seminary into a four-year, degree-granting college.
The college has remained small in order to facilitate the close faculty-student interaction that is essential to exceptional higher education. In 1914, Whitman became the first college or university in the nation to require undergraduate students to complete comprehensive examinations in their major fields. The installation of a Phi Beta Kappa chapter in 1919, the first for any Northwest college, marked Whitman’s growing reputation.
One of Whitman’s most recognizable campus landmarks is the clock tower atop Memorial Building, which was constructed in 1899. The campus has been thoughtfully developed over the years to integrate natural and built spaces, with a 1:1 student-to-tree ratio on the 117-acre grounds. Recent construction projects, including the three apartment-style buildings in the junior-senior village, focus on incorporating native species in outdoor green spaces, facilitating inclusivity through accessible designs and prioritizing the use of environmentally sustainable building materials.
The campus is one block from downtown Walla Walla, a city of 32,000 in southeastern Washington. The town’s setting, among golden wheat fields shadowed by the Blue Mountains, provides countless opportunities for outdoor pursuits. Named one of the nation’s top 25 “small town cultural treasures” and cited by Sunset magazine as having the best Main Street in the West, Walla Walla is known for its art galleries, symphony orchestra, community theater and premium wineries.